Hi Pete, what do you do at Prophecy Unlimited?

Prophecy Unlimited is a customer journey agency, launched in May 2017. We brought together two great South West agencies, EMO Unlimited, renowned for customer acquisition, and The Real Adventure Unlimited, experts in customer relationship management. We realised that we could combine the complementary skill sets and people together, the result being Prophecy Unlimited. That ultimately means we work across every channel in the mix, and for some clients we work end-to-end across the whole journey.

Customer journeys are rapidly changing in terms of technology and consumer behaviours, so we work with our clients to create a successful and impactful customer experience.

More specifically, my role as CEO involves two key jobs: one is making sure the Prophecy team are happy, and then making sure that clients are happy, too. The two are incredibly interrelated, happy team, happy clients, and vice versa!

Who’s in the team?

Everyone from client services, project management, creative content, data and insight, tech, HR… the list goes on. I’m responsible for making sure we have key team leads ensuring we all work to the best of our abilities. No one department is more important than another, it’s a real team effort.

What are you most proud of as a business?

The client list that we have for a South West agency – I’m so proud of it. We have several clients who have been with us for over 30 years, some large blue-chip brands and global players.

I’m ex London, and we tend to have this chip on our shoulders about London, thinking it’s the big be all and end all. But I actually think the work coming out of Bristol is as good, if not better, than the London players. Bristol has such an energy and creativity.

What’s your favourite office gadget?

Big Red – our coffee machine! It’s got to be at least 10 years old. Probably as long as we’ve been Bristol Media members it’s been trucking along, supplying us with coffee. As part of our induction for new starters we have a stint with the coffee machine. Not quite barista training, but it’s a proper machine so not just a press and go.

Whose work do you admire and why?

This is a tricky question, because I think about the campaigns I like at the moment and actually, I wouldn’t pin it on one particular agency or brand. I’ve never known a time for the agency world to be quite as challenging, in terms of the changes and the dreaded B-word. Any agency that’s making their client feel confident enough in them to buy work is absolutely doing great. Hats off to all!

What’s the biggest challenge your industry/organisation is facing at the moment?

I can think of two, clearly economic uncertainty is one of those, but also data. The scandal around Cambridge Analytica made consumers wary about their information and what’s being used and where. Not only that, but with more data available, we need to make sure we don’t just disappear into big systems like Adobe or Salesforce. It’s something we’ve been focussing on at Prophecy recently; transparency in the customer journey, not just getting the system to tell us the answers but making sure we’re sensitive to human emotion and using old school planning skills.

If you had one piece of advice for someone just starting out, what would it be?

Get involved, put your hand up, get stuck in and remember that your voice matters. Great ideas can come from anywhere, any team and any person. Don’t be afraid to speak up! And seek out a mentor if you can.

What’s your favourite place in Bristol/this area?

On Friday mornings I religiously make a breakfast run to Hart’s Bakery. The guys know to leave a small window in the diary so I can get my sourdough, or sausage rolls, or cheese toasties… There’s too much to choose from!

If you could sum up Bristol/this area in 3 words, what would they be?

First up, real. As a city, we don’t pretend to be anything different. We’re proud of our differences. Then vibrant and innovative.

What exciting plans have you got coming up this year?

That’s a really good question, because we’ve always got new things in the pipeline, and those vary by client. Probably the most exciting thing is our new customer journey methodology, it’s a model for getting to the heart of what’s working in a customer journey and what’s not.

We’re working it through now and we’ve got some clients using it. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up a bit thinking of the difference it’s going to make. We’ll be sharing it soon so watch this space!

To see latest examples of Prophecy’s work, visit the website.

Fancy joining the Prophecy Unlimited team? They’re on the lookout for new hires, find out more about the roles available here.

If you’d like to be part of our Featured Member series and profile your business, get in touch.