Trailblazers and leaders: Olugbeminiyi (Bemi) Idowu

Olugbeminiyi (Bemi) Idowu | Founder & Managing Director | Talking Drum Communications

How did you get into marketing/comms?

My first exposure to Comms was an internship at a boutique consumer lifestyle agency in Fulham in 2009. It was in the good old days of paper clippings and coverage books - before anyone took digital tools for PR and Comms seriously. Myself and the other interns had to photocopy coverage from newspapers and magazines, cut out the relevant sections and stick them in a humongous book (something like an old school photo album). We also had to calculate the AVE (advertising value equivalent) of every piece of coverage, which was a way of quantifying the value of the media coverage. I like to tell younger colleagues this story to show how far the tools of our trade have come.

Many things about the experience were very foreign to me as I knew next to nothing about many of the clients and their products but I learnt a lot about how the industry works and different ways to tell a story. I also picked up a lot of foundational skills that I still use today. It was a great introduction to the wonderful world of PR and Comms and the early days of the journey that has led me to where I am today.

What does an average day look like?

My day starts whenever my daughter wakes up really. Myself and my wife take it in turns to get her ready for the day and after that, the day job can begin. I make myself a smoothie for breakfast every morning and work my way through it as I catch up on emails and any developments since I stopped working the previous day.

I like to start my day with a fresh to-do list (handwritten) and go from there. Between meetings, deadlines and other tasks, I try to take regular breaks and I often find that the 5 minutes I spend reading Twitter threads or watching Instagram videos makes it easier for me to come back to whatever task I was doing with fresh eyes.

I’m also at my desk for most of the day so I (try to) join an online HIIT class three times a week to burn off some steam. It’s a tough workout but committing to those classes is one of the best health-related decisions I’ve made in a long time.

What advice would you give yourself knowing there was going to be a pandemic?

The advice would have been to make the most of opportunities to spend time with people in physical spaces. I know things are opening up again but I don’t think gatherings will ever go back to what they used to be. Not for me anyway. I wish I could go back to the moment (just one last time) when I could be in a crowd without constantly thinking that the person standing less than two metres away from me is standing too close.

What is the one thing you wish you’d known when you started working?

I wish I’d spent some time traveling before I started working. I was so keen to get a job after university that I didn’t really consider that once you’re in, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll be out for another 30 to 40 years. It’s the harsh reality of adulthood and one of the things many of us don’t realise until we are already in the matrix. Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I really enjoy doing it but I sometimes wonder what could’ve been if I’d taken 6 months or a year to live in Nigeria or Japan in 2008/9.

What’s your greatest achievement to date?

I will have to say launching Talking Drum and the success we’ve had is my greatest achievement. I did not have any clients on day one and I had never run a business of any kind before but I had a strong conviction that there was an opportunity for me that I had to go for. In less than a year, we have built a solid stable of clients and we have a healthy pipeline for the foreseeable future. We are also about to start recruiting and I am really excited about this. I was always confident that I could make Talking Drum work but I don’t take anything for granted. There is still a long way to go and I am excited by what the future holds.

Is there a particular comms campaign that you’ve seen in your career that you didn’t work on but wish you had?

I really love Nike’s campaign at the beginning of the pandemic to stress the need for social distancing - Play Inside, Play for the World. The idea and the way it was communicated was just excellent. It was a simple but very effective example of how to connect your brand to the most relevant issues of the day and I would’ve loved to be in the conversation that birthed that idea.

What’s the key skill you think a successful business owner requires?

The ability to compartmentalise is essential for any business owner. You are always juggling multiple balls, especially in PR and Comms. Compartmentalising is also good for drawing a line between business and personal life. Many business owners burn themselves out because they don’t make the proverbial distinction of church and state, which means one or the other ends up being compromised. Putting boundaries and structures in place can be an effective way of managing the challenge of leading successful business and personal lives.