Perspective

Meet the #TwitterAwards judges: blast off with Big Spaceship’s Tom Hyde

We picked the brightest minds to judge the #TwitterAwards. Meet Big Spaceship content director Tom Hyde.

Recognizing the most innovative marketers on the planet, the #TwitterAwards showcase the most original and creative advertising work being done today. And who best to determine the campaigns that earn Gold, Silver, and Bronze awards? Why our panel of esteemed judges representing the brightest minds from top brands and agencies, that’s who.

Let’s get to know one of the Twitter Awards judges: Tom Hyde is content director at Big Spaceship, a Brooklyn-based digital agency. Tom is responsible for delivering work that is creatively impactful, strategically grounded, and technologically innovative for ambitious modern brands.

Prior to Big Spaceship, Tom had stints at Droga5 New York, Jam in London, and The Royals in hometown of Melbourne.

What impressed you most about the campaigns in this contest?

@Tomagotchi: I was really impressed with the versatility in the entries that each used the same platform, technical and customer-expectation constraints to impact a wide range of objectives.

Twitter can be quite nuanced and specific in the way you're able to leverage it as a marketing tool, especially as you get into the ad products. The best campaigns saw these as positive constraints to create innovative work within a set framework. It's easy to share a video or post a timely organic tweet. When you incorporate things like conversational ads, detailed targeting and acknowledge Twitter’s role within a detailed customer journey that you can best serve the brand, the campaign, and the consumer in an interesting and effective way.

What's your top advice for digital marketers?

@Tomagotchi: Keep it simple.

It's easy to get caught up adoring and festishizing complexity, to try and wow clients and consumers with such a  detailed campaign; to prove you’re smarter than everyone else. But the best ones take the complexity and strip it right back. They offer many different touch points but all clearly point back to the same overarching strategy.

Is this what you thought you'd be doing when you were little?

@Tomagotchi: Not really. To be honest, what I do didn't exist when I was little! I grew up in Australia, and started my career as an account executive at a traditional agency in London.  

I quickly learned I much prefer the nerdy excitement of what you can do with social media and digital. I've been doing it now for around 10 years, and I feel like I’ve had five different jobs — sometimes every day. Some days I’m a strategy director, the next moment a creative director, some days I play account manager or data analyst. Other days I'm like a coffee-grabbing intern. I get to do it all. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Editor's note: As of April 2017, we’ve updated our product names and video campaign objectives on ads.twitter.com:

Product names:

  • Promoted Video stays Promoted Video
  • Premium Pre-roll becomes In-Stream Video Ads
  • Amplify Packages becomes In-Stream Video Sponsorships

Campaign objectives:

  • Promoted Video becomes Promoted Video Views
  • Pre-roll becomes In-Stream Video Ad Views (Pre-roll)
  • Mid-roll becomes In-Stream Video Ad Views (Mid-roll)
November 18, 2016
Tags
  • Twitter Awards
  • Q&A
  • United States
  • Perspective

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