Everything you've always wanted to know about the brains behind the brands and the talent that can help you get the most from today's digital world.
Each issue we introduce you to some of the clever people who make our business tick, and this month it's our Paris based copywriter Peri.
Peri left university in 1999 with a degree in Literature, before joining a boutique recruitment communications agency in London as a Junior Copywriter. She spent the next four years learning from some very, very good people, being a totally green graduate (“Um, what’s a DPS?”), and taking full advantage of London’s bars and social life.
What that really means is that she spent more time drinking than she did as a student – while also getting a good grounding in the industry, working on lots of cool commercial and charity projects.
Then, in 2004, she moved to a bigger agency with a whole new client base and buckets more smart people – who happened to include Chatter’s own Boss Pearson.
Around the same time, she’d been regularly visiting friends in France until one of them asked her “why don’t you live here?”. The big move happened in 2007, and Peri carried on working for her old agency on a freelance basis, while learning (ok, mangling) the French language. But it wasn’t just a big leap geographically – it was a massive jump culturally too. From central London to full-on, French vineyard-type country where life moves a looooot slower – especially if you get stuck behind a tractor during the grape harvest.
Fast forward 10 years, and Peri’s still freelancing, but now for French agencies as well as English ones, translating web content and marketing copy, as well as working on all kinds of HR comms projects.
We’re not sure how well a Yorkshire>French translation would work here, so we asked Peri to tell us what she’d choose if she could only watch, read and own one thing for the rest of her life – in English. Here's what she said…
Read: tough call… I don’t get to read nearly as much as I’d like to. Anything by Annie Proulx, who writes just beautifully. Zadie Smith I love too. And of course, you could spend a lifetime swooning over Romeo & Juliet (or anything by Shaky, really).
Watch: my collection of Bill Bailey DVDs. He’s a genius. Although right now, I’m loving Omid Djalili too. Could also watch Father Ted or Blackadder forever: yes, I know, I’m showing my age.
Listen: These days, my go to playlist on Spotify is ‘Discover Weekly’. I used to listen to lots of top 40 stuff, but I’ve been hankering for new sounds and artists. I’ve discovered big band jazz (don’t laugh) such as Sammy Nestico and I’ve been finding lots of other great people on another site called jango.com. It’s been eye-opening (or ear-opening?) discovering French artists too – I can recommend Ben l’Oncle Soul and Jain.
Own: other than my fat cat, Elwood, it would have to be my ancient and trusty Collins French dictionary (or Google Translate) – both have saved my life out here numerous times. The internet’s pretty essential too, both for work and keeping in touch with friends and family.
