Jonathan Lovatt-Young – Interactive Systems Design
Retail Experience Strategy
Jonathan Lovatt-Young has worked for some of the world’s largest marketing, advertising and telecommunications companies. He was designing websites for well-known businesses and brands at the start of the internet revolution and later managed multi-million-pound accounts for BT and Volkswagen, among many others.
He is now the Founder and CEO of his own retail strategy company, Love Experience, which helps businesses create better and more effective customer experiences. He uses a combination of data, brand development, creativity and user experience to drive digital transformation for clients and contacts he has built over two decades in the industry.
“I was working for an international marketing and advertising agency, travelling back and forth from South America for a client, making millions of pounds for the company and I thought: I can do this myself now,” Jonathan said. “I have this network of the best people, from data to research, and we simply come together to deliver.”
Internet Revolution
Jonathan grew up in Werrington, Staffordshire, and attended the City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College. He said: “I didn’t even know what to do when I left. I was always interested in computers and, because of my family, I always had a strong interest in the arts. I went to a Staffordshire University Open Day and I spoke to the head of the Interactive Systems Design (ISD) course, told them what I liked doing and they said they had something for me that wasn’t traditional.”
He started his three-year degree in 1993 but didn’t graduate until 1998 as an opportunity arose in London. “I took a year and bit out during the course after I was shown a new bit of software for sharing science papers called the World Wide Web,” Jonathan recalled. “I wanted to learn more because I thought it was going to be really big so I read up on writing the bones of HTML.
“There were only four small agencies, working out of broom cupboards, making websites in 1994. People didn’t do this stuff commercially so me and this other chap I was working with built some of the first retail websites, for clients including Typhoo Tea and Hi-Tec Sports.”
After a year, Jonathan was convinced to finish his degree at Staffordshire University, and during his absence from Clockwork Web the company received a massive cash injection. They went from five employees to 75 and the company was sold. After graduating with First Class Honours in 1998, Jonathan moved back to London to work for media company Trinity Mirror Group PLC, building websites for their many national and regional news outlets. This was the start of a career that saw Jonathan move between some of the largest agencies in the country every two to four years.
He explained: “At the time, the internet was going mental, my boss at Trinity Mirror doubled my salary and I was being offered the head of digital role at another company. I was only 22 and the salaries were enormous. It was all going really well, so I decided to move to a small agency. Throughout my career, whenever things were going really well, I’d move on and find another challenge.”
Fast-paced Career
The bursting dotcom bubble closed the design agency just six months after he joined. He then landed a job as European Brand Manager for multinational telecommunications company COLT Telecom, as they wanted to redesign their web presence. After four years, he moved to a tech innovator called Hildebrand. Three years later he joined communications agency Crayon London as head of design.
Jonathan then became Executive Creative Director at Fortune Cookie. Almost three years later, he joined global marketing and technology agency DigitasLBi, responsible for growing their BT account from £2m a year to £10m. Then he became Customer Experience Lead at Accenture, where he learned about the new industry buzzword, Digital Transformation, and developed strategies for The Co-operative and Argos. And finally, before becoming self-employed, he joined Tribal Worldwide where he worked on their Volkswagen account, for which he won the industry leading D&AD Pencil Award.
In 2016, Jonathan took the leap to set-up on his own, using his converted barn in Kent as an office and travelling to work with clients. He said: “Because of the Staffordshire University course and lecturers, I have always insisted and striven to do work that works, expand my experience and skills. I was systematically going around and gathering a wide variety of experience and skills in web design, advertising, marketing and customer experience that others don’t have.
“That has helped me stay ahead, by moving on when things started getting too comfortable. I could continually challenge myself, from helping to grow a start-up to pitching for and winning massive contracts for international agencies.”
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