Over recent years, BT has taken major steps into both sport and the quad-play market via its acquisitions of UEFA Champions League and Premier League TV rights and the £12.5bn purchase of mobile operator EE. The company says diversity is key to all of its recent brand successes.

Its approach is resonating with BT’s marketers, with relatively low turnover for a large department. It also rates as one of the top brands for salary.

BT says it provides marketers with five days of training every year, with anybody in its consumer marketing team is given an additional three days off to pursue training should they want it.

The telecoms giant claims it prioritises marketing internally through its BT Marketing Academy platform. It also holds around 25 marketing events every quarter for its employees, with a weekly email alerting marketers to top campaigns and ad industry news.

Although the marketing function is not represented on the board, CEO Gavin Paterson is himself a former marketer, and staff rate the company’s view of marketing highly.

Chief brand and marketing officer Zaid Al-Qassab has a refreshingly straightforward take on marketing and dislikes the word ‘digital’. He recently told delegates at Advertising Week Europe: “We need to stop saying the word digital. When marketing was growing in the first half of the 20th century, particularly around print, we didn’t call them paper marketers did we? The word just has nothing to do with consumers.”