Jamie Love, Entrepreneur & LGBT Activist – the Monumental Change Marketing Needed

We talked to Jamie Love of Monumental about how “The UK’s Best Growth Marketing Agency 2020” is combining channels effectively, efficiently and successfully to grow businesses.

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Jamie Love: My family is based all around the world, so it has been a little stressful, but thankfully everyone is safe.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Monumental.

Jamie Love: My career started through fashion. I started modeling at 8 years old and fell in love with the industry. From modeling, I went into promotions and events.

When I moved back to the UK, I launched my first business, JLUK. In this company, we were helping young creatives commercialize their skills to work with their dream brands. 

From JLUK, I was headhunted into my first ever marketing job… and I’ve never looked back! 

I founded this company in 2017, when I was 22 years old. I had been working in the industry from a very young age and witnessed firsthand the need for an agency to be better equipped to work with startups and scale-ups. This gap in the market is what inspired me to launch Monumental.

How does Monumental innovate?

Jamie Love: Being a digital agency focused on growth; it is vital for us to continuously explore and test new channels, tactics, approaches, and messages.

We are very aware of industry changes and always aim to be at the forefront of these movements to continuously exceed our clients’ expectations and growth goals.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?

Jamie Love: On the day lockdown was announced, I had to have a number of difficult conversations with clients in hospitality and tourism who were unsure if and when they’d ever open again.

However, all of our tech and eCommerce clients have been thriving, given the changes in behavior. With users spending more time at home, screen time has increased, and with it, the desire to consume content.

Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?

Jamie Love: Our business kept growing throughout the pandemic, which was great, but it did create some challenges. Prior to March, we had never onboarded new team members remotely, and we never held big planning and strategy meetings remotely.

Therefore, most of our difficult choices were operationally derived from new ways of working.

I think it also forced other senior members of the team and me to reevaluate their management approach. We pride ourselves on our culture, which is nearly always why people want to work with us. Maintaining a strong culture virtually has been tricky…nevertheless an invaluable life lesson.

How do you deal with stress and anxiety?

Jamie Love: When I started my career, I remember watching a Ted Talk from a leading psychologist specializing in dealing with stress and anxiety. She explained that psychologically stress and excitement shared a lot of traits. In summary, her point was to try and view stressful situations as exciting – in turn. It would change your feelings to have a more positive outlook on the situation.

So when I face stressful situations, I try as much as possible to view them as an exciting and new challenge.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Jamie Love: We are conscious that we work in a very competitive landscape. We work across channels and all over the world, so we have channel-specific competitors, country-specific, and so on.

My view is to ignore them as much as possible. I really believe in building something unique. To do that, one needs to be focused and not influenced by others.

To stay ahead in the game, we are continuously innovating, growing, and going above and beyond to ensure our clients are always happy.

We’re people, working with people to speak to more people…relationships are key!

Your final thoughts?

Jamie Love: I know 2020 has been tricky, but I am more motivated than ever to make 2021 the best year Monumental has ever had. I’m also excited to continue working with our clients in 2021 and my amazing team. I feel we are now fully equipped to do so, having mastered new ways of working, which essentially have taken away boundaries that were previously in place in a more analog way of working.

Your website?

https://www.monumentalmarketing.co.uk/