Distinctly British marketer down under

dsc_0673-smaller From Zoe Gell

This blog is dedicated to the memory of Philip O’Brien who recently passed away. He worked tirelessly for the GLR on their mentoring programme and gave me the idea of writing this blog.

I’m in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. How on earth did that happen?

I was very happy living and and working in London. Then I met my blonde-haired blue-eyed, sweep-me-off-my feet guy! He just happened to be Australian and he took me to Norway and proposed with a nice sparkly ring. We’ve been married for nearly three years!

I left my nice job as Head of Marketing for a property company and travelled all the way to Brisbane where my husband assured me that we were going to paradise and it would be really easy to fit in, find a new marketing job and live a fabulous life down under! He even agreed to travel for six months on the way as a sweetener – so I got to see most of south east Asia, Russia and Europe!

OK so now I am here. Is it the same as the UK? No. It’s actually very different.

Just subtle things really like having to pay to see the doctor, not being able to buy alcohol in the supermarket(!!) – in Queensland – I think you can in other states, having to show ID to send a parcel overseas – going to the local hotel which is not a traditional hotel here, they are hotels i.e. a place with a bar but no bedrooms! (Confused? Yes I was too!)

And trying to find a job in Australia has had its ups and downs. The marketing industry is quite similar yet very different. More on that in my next post.

I’ll be back in touch soon.

CIM GLR