We broke the internet...twice: Beth Hazon from Drummond Central; Managing Director of the firm behind #DrummondPuddleWatch on how creativity wins over cynical marketing.
Byline: Robert Gibson
It was a classic case of "over-zealous ironing" that had led to the hole in her dress the evening Beth Hazon was awarded a national honour for women leaders.
Still, until her name was read out and she got "that look where it's like a kettle has just gone off your ear", the 34-year-old MD of Newcastle's Drummond Central was convinced she was at no risk of coming under the spotlight.
Indeed, the IPA Women of Tomorrow Awards carry real prestige and this year attracted 200 entries. Then there was the interview with the judges...
"They said: 'You've got 20 minutes. Why are you a woman of tomorrow?'" Beth recalled. "It was pretty daunting."
Afterwards, she thought she had "no chance" and was shocked to discover she had triumphed in the client services category.
"I had my photo taken with the hole in the dress, but did a bit of a manoeuvre to hide it," she said. "When we did the group photographs, the others huddled around me."
Beth, who has been with Drummond Central for a decade, took on the MD role last June and was nominated for the award by the company's chief executive and co-founder Julie Drummond.
It's easy to see why.
Aside from being a passionate advocate for redressing the gender imbalance in business - "it's not 'pro-women'; it makes sense for everyone" - she's taken the marketing, creative and digital agency on to a global platform, working with clients ranging from Newcastle Building Society to Bet365.
Beth - who describes her approach as fair, honest and creatively playful - has also had a major role in shaping the culture of business, which has grown steadily since its launch in 2004.
"It's a fun place to work and we all genuinely get on," she said, adding that many of Drummond's best ideas come about not through rigid strategic planning but through being open to spontaneity and inspiration.
Undoubtedly, the best example of this occurred on January 6, when Drummond's social media manager Richard Rippon hit on the idea of setting up a livestream of the valiant attempts of passers-by outside the office to cross a large and problematically situated puddle.
By the end of the day, the footage - trending on #DrummondPuddleWatch, using Twitter's new Periscope tool - had been seen by more than half a million people while being covered by international media, significantly raising the agency's profile.
"One thing I've realised about social media is that it only takes three people to tweet something - Buzzfeed, Unilad...
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