Jess Davey - Digital Marketing Executive, Phonetic Digital
Tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to pursue your current career.
A slightly unusual, but really memorable, moment that inspired my career was…the 2015 John Lewis Christmas advert.
I remember watching the John Lewis advert about the old man on the moon, showing him feeling all lonely at Christmas. It made a huge stir on social media by really tugging on people’s heart strings with the sentiment behind it being “show someone they’re loved this Christmas”.
I must have watched that Christmas advert 100 times. It just really stuck with me. The idea that something as small as a TV advert could have such a huge impact on people.
As a teenager with very uncool hobbies I took it upon myself to design and create tons of other adverts that fit the John Lewis theme. Telling everyone – when I grow up I’m going to make John Lewis adverts.
Only to be met with – thats not a real job.
It actually is.
Now my job is to tell the story of some really incredible brands through different platforms, whether that be social media, email campaigns or website content.
What has been your biggest achievement so far?
There have been so many pinch-me moments since I started my career at Phonetic Digital that I feel incredibly lucky for. Whether thats standing on stage, in a busy room and speaking for 20 minutes or travelling to a client event and celebrating the brilliant milestones they’ve achieved.
Yet I don’t think any of those huge moments solely equate to my biggest achievement.
I think the biggest moments so far have been the everyday ones. Days where I’ve taken on a new task and learnt it from scratch or led a meeting with a client for the first time. Or even attended a networking event and braved going up to someone and starting a conversation.
Pushing myself to do all these small, tiny, little things day in day out has probably been my biggest achievement.
Who has had the biggest influence on your success, and what have you learned from them?
He is not paying me to write this. I promise.
But one of the biggest influences has definitely been my boss Steven Parker. Steven has created a work culture at Phonetic Digital that is unmatched. No one feels the Sunday scaries, we all genuinely support each other and as he loves to remind us “nothing at Phonetic digital is somebody else’s problem”.
His energy, attitude and (annoyingly) wealth of knowledge is so admirable and something I hope to achieve in years to come.
I’ll always been extremely thankful that he took a chance on a new starter fresh out of uni. Opportunities like that are hard to come by and I am beyond grateful that a workplace like ours is where I get to start my career!
What motivates you to keep pushing forward?
Definitely seeing projects I’ve been part of create a real, tangible impact. That really hits home. Seeing completed big projects be shared/ enjoyed/ used really does motivate me to keep trying, keep pushing and continue to keep showing up.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone hoping to follow a similar path, what would it be?
If you can think it, you can do it.
Just get involved , speak to people, make connections, show your personality, put yourself out there. Enjoyable, creative marketing roles do exist (believe it or not they are real jobs) and if you just go for it, get stuck in, something will come your way.
Outside of work how do you like to spend your time?
Definitely with my friends. The North East has an incredible sense of community, and over the past three years I’ve been fortunate to become part of it. Thankful doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel to have so many wonderful people in my life. They make living in the North East feel as though it has always been my home.
www.phoneticdigital.co.uk