Award-winning writer, editor and social expert
Can David do…
Interesting Social?
David’s been working for TikTok, steering their always on, evolving their approach to community management, and running how in-house campaigns appear on social. He’s worked with agencies, corralled XFN partners globally to get shit done, and partnered with everyone from Netflix to Team GB for lengthy campaigns. You can see examples of his vertical video work above.
David’s deep understanding of cultural trends, niche communities, and the broader cultural landscape has made him an exceptionally effective marketer. His ability to connect with and engage our target audience is unparalleled, but what sets David apart is his collaborative spirit. - Jade Monange, Head of Social EMEA at TikTok
Social Strategy?
As Associate Editorial Director at We Are Social, David created social playbooks for Audi, Starbucks, First Direct and more. He created cross-agency work, led international agency groups, and built trust with franchisees all over EMEA. He was praised for evolving these brand’s tones of voice, pushing them onto new platforms, and challenging clients over time to become braver. He made Audi feel like a fashion magazine, pushed Starbucks to explore the worlds of 16-bit graphics and surrealism, and he expanded first direct’s sense of humour to be as dry as their target market (but failed to convince them to release poppers for Pride, something about the law?)
But what about…
Short Copy?
Oh he knows shortform copy, honey. As a reporter for Facebook’s news bar he had to write accurate news updates for a billion people. If that won’t teach you active sentence structure, nothing will. This training helped him whip teams into shape to produce short, sharp and saucy copy for clients like Audi, Starbucks and First Direct while working as an Editorial Director at We Are Social. He’s also covered breaking news for Sky, and turned the i Paper into one of the biggest political outlets of the 2017 General Election through his smart, social-first coverage.
What else can David do?
Long-form?
If you want immaculate copy at any length, David’s your guy: not just satisfied with smashing social, he’s written articles of anything up to 5,000 words for the world’s biggest publications. He was chosen as a PPA 30 under 30 for writing, commissioning and editing work as diverse as the newsroom he created at British GQ. He’s profiled celebrities, written investigative pieces exposing corruption, written op-eds that have been discussed in parliament and on Victoria Derbyshire, and explained challenging subjects and health issues for everywhere from Vogue to Vice. His journalism has helped double website visitors year on year as well, and been some of his publisher’s most read articles.
Websites & CRM
As head of editorial for the beauty and technology brand LYMA, David was responsible for creating legally sound but interesting copy for their entire site and all their marketing emails (not easy when you’re selling supplements and lasers.) He also helped lead the transformation of the Starbucks EMEA app’s tone of voice and structure, and built CRM for their quarterly campaigns.
Scripts and Narrative
Can David write a witty, attention-grabbing social video script? Is the Pope Catholic? David is an experienced playwright with work staged at the Pleasance, VAULT Festival, Camden People’s Theatre and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
He’s also had experience writing video scripts, producing concepts, and hosting social video for Netflix, BOSS and British GQ, as well as working with talent like Charli XCX and Andrew Scott as a director. His YouTube video highlights can be found below.
Praise for David’s theatre work:
“One of the strongest writing voices I’ve witnessed in a while.” theatricellie.com
“Brilliant writing. This. Was. So. Good.” - Actor Alan Turkington
“Absolutely incredible” - iconic Instagram meme page @urfavgayslay
“In short, the play was brilliant” - LondonTheatre1
"Silent Meat is an incredible play about trying to understand death” - The Strand Magazine
"My new writing highlight of 2017... there were moments when I’ve never felt the audience around me fall quite so silent." - Arthur's Seat
Surely David can’t do…
Audio Editorial
David has experience in recording audio dramas and journalism and trained at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. He has done voice overs for brands like British GQ and Lost In Town Brewery, and spent five years as the co-host and co-creator of the podcast Critical Ditto (a clip of which is below.)