For our August meet the team feature, get to know all about our lovely Account Executive and cat mum, Ari!
How long have you been at Prohibition? Good question! Whilst it feels like forever, it’s only actually been nine months. Having started during lockdown, all sense of time-scales have blurred. Getting to know everyone virtually was the most bizarre experience, whilst it was quite alien, it made meeting everyone in person for the first time feel like I’d known them for months prior – which I had!
What do you love most about your job? There are so many aspects, but the overarching passion would be for how different every day in the life of PR is! One day could be spent filming for a campaign on local healthcare services across Yorkshire and the next could be at a new business proposal for a super cool restaurant group. I absolutely love writing, and even this aspect of the role comes in many forms; from writing 2000-word technical features to creating light-hearted memes and social posts – everyday provides a great variety.
Tell us a bit about your journey to working at Prohibition. I’d graduated in English literature at Leeds, absolutely falling in love with the city, but found it really hard to break into the PR industry as there weren’t many roles going. At the time, the few that were available, required some from of PR or Marketing experience. It was a vicious cycle – if you can’t get experience without having experience, where do you start?
I’d started to look further a field and across the Pennines, towards cities like Manchester and Liverpool and ended up getting my first role in an agency in Chorlton. Literally a few months into moving, the pandemic happened and so did lockdown. After a year of being locked down in an unfamiliar city, far away from friends and family, I knew I wanted to be back in my ‘happy place’, Leeds! I’d heard incredible things about Prohibition and seen the really cool campaigns they’d been the brains behind and knew I wanted to be a part of all that – and thankfully I now am!
What’s your top tip for someone looking to get into the PR industry? My tip would definitely be to get actual industry experience either through voluntary work, apprenticeships or a university year in the industry! No matter how much PR theory you learn, or how many online courses you take, there’s no better way to get a feel of the actual day-to-day than being in the environment, hearing colleagues speak to journalists, have creative brain storms and liaise with clients.
What’s your favourite social media platform and why? Instagram is definitely up there, and one I’d say I use and enjoy the most. Its great to see how each individual essentially sets up their personal life portfolio and presents it to the rest of the world. I absolutely love aesthetically pleasing feeds and get massively lost in a rabbit hole when scrolling through the explore page.
What do you love most about working/living up North? Being from London originally, I can confidently say moving up North was the best decision I’ve ever made. University in Essex or Leeds were the two options – I’m so happy I went with the latter. Everybody up here is absolutely brilliant and so friendly. I always tell this anecdote when asked this question, but when I first came up to view the uni, I got lost! I’d asked a lady to point me in the right direction. I hadn’t even expected anyone to acknowledge me, let alone answer me or help point me in the right direction. This lady hadn’t just directed me, she literally walked me right up to the campus (which was out of her way) and from then I realised just how incredible and friendly people in the North are!
What three things could you not live without? Simple. My loved ones (that’s defo more than three but oh well!), my cat and food – I get so grouchy when hungry!
Give us your favourite quote. ‘When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.’ – Jimi Hendrix
If you could switch places with any celeb for the day – who would it be and why? J-Lo! It’s absolutely crazy how that woman doesn’t seem to age. It’s like she gets younger as time passes!
What’s something you’re secretly (or not so secretly!) really good at/passionate about outside of work? I absolutely love the theatre, the best experience I had was seeing Woman in Black, not realising we’d booked to attend the 50th anniversary show! Everyone who’d ever starred in the show appeared at the curtain call during which confetti and sparks were flying everywhere and copious amounts of champagne was being passed around for free!
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