Steve Marinker, head of Citigate Dewe Rogerson’s consumer practice, confesses that he still begins his day with printed newspapers

Steve Marinker joined Citigate Dewe Rogerson (CDR) five years ago to help it expand its range of services and its client portfolio. CDR works with brands including TalkTalk, Quorn, Bisto, Virgin Money, Kwikfit, Everest, Lloydspharmacy and Halfords.

My day
6.10am: First check of the Blackberry while walking to the bus stop; looks like we've struck a blow for freedom with our campaign against the Government's plans to tackle internet piracy.

6.40am: Absorb tall skinny latte, pain au chocolat and The Times in parallel. Becoming more and more conscious that reading a newspaper plants me firmly in the 35-plus demographic.

7.00am: At my desk. First chance to assess properly how that internet piracy story has landed. Google's found 318 pieces on TalkTalk's threat to take rights holders to court if they try to force it to cut off customers suspected of illegal file sharing. Our campaign (www.dontdisconnect.us) has gained a lot of momentum now. Question is, how can we keep it on the agenda?

8.00am: Emails cleared and the day's priorities mapped out on my trusty List of Actions; a document which gets updated more frequently than a stock-market ticker.

8.45am: I've got an hour now to devote to next week's pitch. It's for an over-the-counter (OTC) brand and we've decided to be brave. We are building our credentials in OTC so we can't compete with established agencies if we play it safe. They will either love or hate it.

9.25am: Get together with the TalkTalk team to work out how we can squeeze more value out of this morning's coverage. Phil – our preternatural head of digital – is way ahead of me as usual and has been Tweeting and blogging since before I got up.

10.30am: Conference call with Lloydspharmacy. The pressure is on. We delivered a monumentally successful campaign in September and we now need to top it. Think we’ve got the green light on a very ambitious idea. Almost everything we do now marries the offline and online worlds. Preternatural Phil and I are on a mission to build a new model for PR, using traditional media relations skills to drive consumers online where we can have a deep and meaningful relationship.

11.00am: Meeting with Simon Nayaar, the head our public policy business, to put the finishing touches to the itinerary for William Hague’s impending visit to the home of Quorn. I find I'm increasingly calling on the skills of colleagues from other practices to help me meet my clients’ consumer communications objectives. Before I joined Citigate I'd never considered picking up the phone to a financial journalist in order to reach a consumer audience. How naive I was!

2.00pm: Been invited to address a conference on healthcare and social media. I will probably do something on ‘Sex Degrees of Separation‘, the aforementioned monumental campaign. More than 1.2 million people have visited the site (www.lloydspharmacy.com/sexdegrees) to work out how many indirect sexual partners they’ve had. And while they were there they had the opportunity to find our more about Lloydspharmacy’s range of sexual health services. Everyone's a winner.

4.00pm: A bit more work on that OTC pitch and then a long chat with James, who is about to spend three days in the Black Mountains filming a viral video to promote the range of bikes designed by Olympic champion Chris Boardman. “What happens if it rains?”, “ Ah, don’t worry, we have a wet-weather plan”, “ Which is?”, “We get wet!”

5.00pm: My early start is balanced by an early exit. Off to the nursery to pick up Charlie (aged three) and Matthew (aged one). Now the communication challenges really begin.