BBC marketing director Paul Davies on teams, bravery and reaching 97% of the UK

Paul Davies, director of marketing and audiences at the BBC, has said the day he would most like to relive is the one in November 2024 when his team was named Team of the Year at a big industry awards event.

Davies has spent two decades running marketing for Microsoft and Direct Line and now the BBC. He has also supported the creative industries as a board member of Punchdrunk and the Roundhouse Trust, and previously chaired Isba’s executive committee. He is known for his commitment to his teams and to emerging creative talent.

Asked how he would do on some of the BBC’s best-known formats, he was candid. On The Traitors: “I’d be out straight away; I’m a terrible liar.” On Gladiators: “I would love to have a go, but I’ve seen first-hand how big they are and that’s not going to work!”

On Race Across The World, he was more confident: “I went interrailing with my family last year so I think I’d be quite handy at it – even if the only checkpoint we had to get to was just the buffet car!”

A trophy among the BAFTAs

Describing the Team of the Year win, Davies said: “It was something we’d worked together towards as a team – the pride in the room, the smiles and the joy was just phenomenal.”

The award went into a BBC trophy cabinet that is full of BAFTAs and other major TV and film prizes. He said seeing it there was exciting and also helped to reposition the influence of marketing within the organisation, so it brought importance as well as pride.

The day that still gives him nightmares came many years ago, when he finished runner-up for a job he badly wanted after six months of interviews, tests and countless rounds. “It was really hard and really frustrating,” he said.

He believes things happen for a reason and said the experience taught him resilience and grit, and that without it he might not have ended up in his current BBC role.

When he asked the employer for feedback after committing six months to the process, he was ghosted. “I learnt the importance of kindness and making sure that interview candidates have a really great experience and that their efforts are recognised, even if they aren’t successful,” he said.

The advice he lives by comes from his seven years on the board of Punchdrunk, where a phrase often used was ‘fortune favours the brave’. “I really like that phrase and try to live my life by it – because I do think that life is about adventure and endeavour and putting yourself out there,” he said.

Specsavers and the case for advertising

The work Davies is most jealous of is Specsavers’ line ‘Should have gone to Specsavers’. He said the brand can be very playful with it and has applied it well in reactive press work and in references to popular culture.

“I think it’s so exciting when a brand finds a meaningful platform like that, and then stays consistent to it,” he said. “It’s so easy to drop these things and ‘find the next new thing’ and I think they’ve stayed true to it masterfully.”

His pitch to newcomers is that advertising is “a blend of head and heart. It’s art and science.” He said the industry is both subjective and objective, and that this contrast makes it fun. “It’s a brilliant industry for people who want to have fun and be playful, but at the same time enjoy technology and data. That’s special.”

Serving almost everyone

With 97% of the UK using the BBC, Davies said keeping up with so many different audiences requires passion, both for understanding what makes people tick and for culture itself, including music, content, podcasts, sport, education and charities.

He admitted the scope is very broad, but said that if you are genuinely interested in those areas, keeping up does not feel difficult because you are thinking about them every day anyway.

“Part of the joy of the BBC is that we are universal – we do have something to offer for everybody – so the beauty in my role is being able to take that and deliver it in a marketing plan that truly engages audiences,” he said.

Asked how he has built a marketing team that is regularly ranked among the best, he said there are many ingredients, but it starts with “a genuine belief in developing and nurturing others,” along with the energy to commit to activities that take a team on a journey.

“That’s not for everybody. It takes a lot of energy and commitment and drive,” he said. He added that he is motivated by building capabilities, helping people develop their skills and careers, and by the challenge of a lofty goal the team can achieve together.

Creativity and AI

Explaining his trustee work in the arts, Davies said his 13 years at Microsoft let him see AI reshaping how many people work. “And AI does amazing things – but one thing it can’t replace is original thinking,” he said.

He said developing creative thought matters for people’s future careers because that is where future jobs will be, and that building creativity in young people will be a differentiator.

On working with agencies, Davies named two non-negotiables. First, an agency must care about the brand as much as the client, and use it as much as he does. Second, the team needs strong chemistry, because that unlocks strong performance.

“I always think about diversity of strengths, but similarity of spirit,” he said. “Everyone needs to be striving for the same thing for the brand.”

Top of the Pops and Julia Donaldson

Asked to nominate a childhood show and a current one for a BBC hall of fame, Davies picked Top of the Pops. “Thursday night. 7 o’clock. It’s Top of the Pops!” he said.

He said it is hard now to picture life before the internet, when there were few surprises, but with Top of the Pops nobody knew who would appear or what they would do, and everyone discussed it at school the following morning. It was also family viewing, which later became rare.

He said the BBC is now enjoying more family viewing moments, with shows such as Gladiators bringing generations together.

From the current schedule he chose the Julia Donaldson animations on iPlayer, which he said is the only streamer with the author’s entire universe and which, like Top of the Pops, are made for shared viewing. “They’re such beautifully crafted films. I do think we’ll look back in time at them and continue to celebrate them,” he said.