Creative and Content Director
Livity: Youth Engagement Agency

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CALLUM McGEOCH

00:06

My name is Callum M and I am creative director of Livity.

00:09

Livity is a youth engagement agency and we help thousands of young people gain skills, get back into employment every year.

00:21

I met this guy Sam once I think and he called me up and I don’t think I’ve ever had such a persuasive person on the phone. He said, I’ve just been awarded a contract to start a magazine for teenagers, I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve never run a magazine, I hear you rough, you sort of know what you’re doing can you come and help. So then I decided to get to know a bit more about what Livity was and, what it was trying to do. At one minute we could be making a TV show, the next we might be making a magazine or a website community or an ad campaign.

00:52

My role goes across every part of the business.

00:58

I think like most teenagers I had no idea that anything like the job I do no even existed. I knew that I liked writing, I don’t think it ever occurred to me that that could be a career. I also loved science and nature, and always loved music. But when I was finishing school, the science side of things was sort of, had had the edge, so I did, applied to do a degree in marine biology.

01:25

I had visions of myself on a beach in the Caribbean looking after turtles and sharks and things. I thought, yep, great. Probably about two terms into my degree up in Newcastle university, although I was enjoying it, I realised that there was a few things in between getting to that point as a career. You have to first of all spend five years studying whelks in the Shetland islands, and sifting sewage before you get to go and do any of that fun stuff. I started DJ’ing, I started, I put on, I started a regular club night, sort of doing a commercial dance radio show in the middle of the night when I should have been sleeping, preparing for my lectures. And I started writing for the local paper.

02:10

I think I was very lucky because I think a lot of my friends had fairly traditional parents or, or certainly parents who had traditional ambitions for them and that was never really, not really sort of ever, I never felt that pressure it was very much up to me, my parents were from fairly non traditional careers type background. In fact my mother’s career was in helping people into careers, so she, she set up the first ever recruitment company for graduate girls in the 60s. Definitely felt encouraged to become whatever I wanted to become.

02:46

I walked into my local recording studio near where I lived, luckily they took me on as a receptionist and my job was to make sure that Eric Clapton’s stalker didn’t get in the building and that the Spice Girls had fresh fruit every morning. There was a little management company based out of there and they took me on, so then I found myself working in music management for about a year and then I got a letter from The Independent newspaper and I’d completely forgotten that just before I graduated I had had a moment where I decided I wanted to be a journalist. Do I keep this job, wasn’t particularly well paid, but it was money coming in, or shall I take the work experience at the newspaper. And so I went and did, took the one week work placement at The Independent. Immediately within, within first few days of getting a taste for journalism I loved it much more than anything else I’d done before.

03:36

And then eventually I managed to get an editorial assistant job at Dazed and Confused magazine so I spent eight years at Dazed and Confused magazine, which was absolutely fantastic from editorial assistant then fairly quickly became staff writer and then front section editor and music editor and deputy editor and then editor after about four years.

04:03

You should be making your own path through your own passions, having a passion for a topic and immersing yourself in that and becoming and letting your passion for it make you an expert rather than having to work hard at being an expert will put you in much better stead. For me and my peers and my friends knowing, pursuing our own passions and dreams is actually, you’ll find your own degree of success that way.

04:29

End  of Callum M

 

Callum always liked writing but it never occurred to him it could be a career. After a degree in Marine Biology and stints working for a local recording studio and in music management, he spent eight years at Dazed and Confused magazine, rising from Editorial Assistant to Editor. Now Creative Director of youth engagement agency Livity, he believes pursuing your own passions and dreams is the way to find success.

More information about Advertising accounts managers and creative directors

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£47,320
average salary

The UK average salary is £29,813

?
31
average weekly hours

There are 37.5 hours in the average working week

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47%  male 
53%  female 

The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male

Future employment

Future employment?

Description
? Advertising accounts managers and creative directors plan, design, organise and direct the advertising activities of an organisation.
Qualifications
Entry is generally via career progression from related occupations. There are no pre-set entry standards, but in practice most directors hold a degree. Off- and on-the-job training is provided.
Tasks
  • Liaises with client to discuss product/service to be marketed, defines target group and assesses the suitability of various media;
  • Conceives advertising campaign to impart the desired product image in an effective and economical way;
  • Reviews and revises campaign in light of sales figures, surveys, etc.;
  • Stays abreast of changes in media, readership or viewing figures and advertising rates;
  • Arranges conferences, exhibitions, seminars, etc. to promote the image of a product, service or organisation.
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Top 10 industries for this job
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Advertising, etc 18267
Sport & recreation 3141
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Computer programming, etc 2812
Film &  music 2751
Other professional 1592
Gambling 1150
Membership organisations 1019
Employment status
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