Talon UK’s Vicky Marshall on what primary teaching taught her about media planning

Vicky Marshall of Talon UK argues that her years as a primary school teacher taught her the same lessons she now applies to planning campaigns that reach millions of people.

Before moving into media planning, Marshall spent her days trying to keep the attention of 30 children, each with their own needs, energy levels and outlooks. The scale of her audience has changed, she says, but the fundamentals have not.

She recalls lessons at her own school feeling rigid and one-way. By the time she was teaching, expectations had moved on: simply delivering information was no longer enough, and lessons had to be engaging, interactive and suited to the children in the room. Brands face the same demand today, she argues, with people expecting communication that feels timely, useful and connected to the world around them.

Holding attention

Marshall says the shift towards mobile, social and creator-led content has fragmented how people find information and engage with culture. Reaching them now depends on understanding how channels work together rather than leaning too heavily on one platform. What has not changed, she says, is that people still react to messages that feel relevant at that moment.

She sees this as one reason out-of-home has kept its power. While much of the media has become more personalised and screen-based, OOH still offers shared, public visibility at scale. She cites IPA TouchPoints data showing it is the only channel reaching more than 90% of the UK’s population in a typical week.

The debate over younger audiences sharpens the point. The UK’s proposed limits on under-16s’ access to social media have raised new questions about the role of digital platforms in youth marketing. Marshall notes that markets like Australia have not experienced the dramatic changes some predicted after passing similar legislation, but says the discussion shows brands need plans resilient enough to work in more than one environment.

Reach still matters

For Marshall, the aim is not to swap out social media but to link physical and digital spaces more closely. Talon’s own effectiveness research found that putting the same content on both DOOH and social media lifts campaign effectiveness by an average of 23%, and she says the latest IPA Making Sense report supports placing OOH and social side by side on a media plan.

She adds that OOH has changed with audience behaviour. Developments in data, automation and digital technology have turned it from a mostly static broadcast medium into a more flexible and measurable one, reflecting a wider move in marketing towards understanding audiences and reacting to them as things happen.

“Good teachers know that learning is not created by simply delivering information; it’s created by engaging pupils with it, and good marketers know the same thing,” she writes. Reach still counts, in her view, but impact increasingly rests on context, relevance and tapping into what people already see, think and talk about.

Reading the room

No day in a primary classroom goes exactly to plan, Marshall says, and teaching means constantly reading the room and adjusting. Media planning is similar: consumer behaviour shifts, cultural conversations move on and campaigns rarely play out as forecast. She argues that comfort with uncertainty is often what distinguishes good planners from great ones, and that adaptability is now a core skill rather than a nice-to-have.

She says OOH is much more responsive than it is often given credit for. Creative can change in real time, prompted by live conditions and linked to moments people are already discussing. In that sense, she writes, modern OOH “behaves less like a traditional poster campaign and more like a great teacher”.

Data is reshaping OOH planning too. The focus has moved beyond reaching the biggest possible audience towards understanding who people are, what grabs their attention and where brands can be most useful and relevant, with planning decisions shaped by audience insight rather than broad assumptions.

Marshall says the biggest lesson from teaching was not classroom management or communication but recognising that audiences change, their expectations shift and engagement must be earned. Whether the audience is pupils or consumers, she argues, the principle is to understand people, adapt as things change and reach them where they are.