Meet Barney Durrant from Bluebell Marketing

Hi Barney! Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Hello – I am a digital marketer and have been running my business, Bluebell Marketing, for the last 10 years. I work with clients based across Sussex, the South East and London and also remotely in Europe and the US. I used to work for Google in London, so Google Ads are a mainstay of the business, but I can also help with SEO, social media advertising, copywriting, analytics and training on all of the above.

This year is your tenth year in business! What have you done to celebrate?

Well, I am taking all my clients for a massive party in Ibiza this summer. Er, actually that’s not true – sorry clients. Like a builder whose house is falling apart, I do have to really try to set aside time for my own marketing, as I am so focused on results for my clients of course.

What’s the biggest shift you’ve seen over the past ten years, working in digital marketing? And what do you think is coming next?

One of the biggest trends in the last 10 years have been the rise of mobile traffic to websites, which has overwhelmingly overtaken desktop / laptop traffic, as we all become more attached to our phones and 4 / 5G have sped up the experience on more and more powerful devices. 

On top of this, we have seen increasing automation in digital advertising, which is now being supercharged by AI features coming to all your favourite ad platforms. AI in itself is a huge transformational change in computing, which could change business and society in many predictable and unpredictable ways in the next few years. 

On a more practical level, the biggest change that has ever happened to digital advertising is coming later this year, as the use of cookies to track campaigns is going to go away. Google is working on its solution to this and although there are hints of what it has planned, this is not yet fully announced. I would encourage anyone running digital campaigns in house or using an agency to pay very close attention to what is happening in 2024 and make the foundational changes needed to their website, tracking, analytics and first party data to make sure their campaigns keep up with this huge change.

We know you used to work at Google - what’s the one question you always get asked about your time working there?

I am not saying people are superficial, but I do often get asked about the free food (yes, you can have three free meals a day during the week and free chocolate, drinks and snacks), whether there is a slide (there are and fireman’s poles). There are also subsidised massages, sleep pods, games rooms, aquariums and all sorts of other crazy stuff at the bigger offices and the HQ in Mountain View in California. 

On the flip side, it is quite a competitive and hard-working environment and I didn’t have that much time to kick back and play ping pong, although I did go down a slide in the Zurich office once. I did get to visit the Mountain View office for a week and it is like a massive University Campus with free bikes you can use to get around and even a car service, which I had to take when I discovered my next meeting was several miles away and I had about 5 minutes to get there.

And a fun question to finish on; what’s one thing that people are always surprised to learn about you?

If people really know me, this isn’t that surprising, as I am very geeky, but I did take up playing Dungeons and Dragons again recently, after I hadn’t played since I was a teenager. I also met the late Queen Elizabeth II twice, once as a child at RAF Marham in Norfolk and once at Google, when she launched the Royal YouTube channel. One does love the Internet.

Find out more about Bluebell Marketing here. 

Barney is sponsoring our upcoming Chamber social at Helm Gallery on 16 April 2024. Find this and more events on the Chamber events calendar.

If you want to contribute to the Chamber blog, contact us on hannah@brightonchamber.co.uk