My First Marketing Campaign. Aged 8.

Last week, while sorting through some old photos, I found something pretty special.

A school project I'd made when I was about 7 or 8 years old.

And looking at it more than 30 years later, I had to laugh.

Apparently, I was already doing marketing.

A Little Island Full of Possibility

Growing up in the UK, summer holidays often started with a trip to the travel agent.

This was long before you could open your phone and have thousands of destinations, reviews and accommodation options at your fingertips.

You'd browse through those big, glossy holiday brochures, turning page after page of destinations and imagining where you might go.

One summer, our family holiday took us somewhere quite different.

The Outer Hebrides off the coast Western Scotland.

For a 7-8-year-old, it felt like an adventure island.

There were endless empty white beaches, seals to watch for on the rocks and cows that could quite happily wander down onto the sand.

You could even hitch a ride on the back of the postie's van.

It was a tiny place, but in my eyes it was full of possibility.

And clearly, I thought more people needed to know about it.

So I Made It a Holiday Brochure

When I returned to school, I decided my project would be about our holiday.

But rather than simply writing about where we'd been, I created a travel brochure for the island.

I told its story.

I explained what made it special.

I tried to capture how being there made you feel.

I added pictures designed to entice my potential travellers.

And, of course, I included a way for people to make a booking.

Because apparently even at eight, a call to action was non-negotiable.

Looking through it again all these years later was a lovely little moment.

Not because the brochure itself was particularly sophisticated. I'm fairly certain my current clients would expect a little more from me.

But because I remember absolutely loving making it.

Maybe We Find Our Thing Earlier Than We Realise

Finding the brochure got me thinking about careers and where they really begin.

Sometimes we choose them deliberately.

Sometimes we fall into them.

And sometimes, perhaps, there's something we've naturally been drawn to all along.

I've always loved taking an idea, a place, a product or a business and finding the best way to present it to other people.

• What makes it special?

• What's the story?

• How do we make someone else see the possibility in it too?

  
  

Back then, that meant coloured pens, holiday photos and a hand written brochure about a tiny island in Scotland.

Today, it might mean developing a brand, building a website, creating a campaign or helping a business find the best way to tell its story.

The tools have certainly advanced.

Thankfully, so have my design skills.

The joy of the process remains the same.

Finding that little brochure again was a lovely reminder that sometimes the things we naturally gravitate towards as children have a funny way of becoming part of who we are.

It seems marketing and I go back a little further than I realised.