Position: director of marketing and user experience, LateRooms.com
Date of Birth: 20.8.81
View Jessica's profile on LinkedIn
Describes herself as: Loyal, honest, dynamic.
Q: How are you changing the media channels you use to better reach your consumers?
A: We haven’t made huge changes to the media channels we use, but have different roles for each channel. For example, TV remains important for mass-reach, whereas email is used to provide a personalised service.
Q: What are your most admired brands and why?
A: Appliances Online, the white-goods marketplace. Its customer service is the best I’ve ever experienced.
Q: What is your most admired piece of advertising or communications and why?
A: John Lewis – it broke the mould of TV advertising and is very much a leader, not a follower.
Q: What attracted you to marketing as a profession?
A: I am a very driven person who works well to targets and deadlines, and under pressure. Marketing attracted me because it embodies these things, and a creative flair that I enjoy using too. I really enjoy working in a team to achieve results, so joining LateRooms.com’s small marketing team in 2005, with a view to growing the brand, was an ideal career move for me.
Q: Describe your typical day?
A: My day is usually busy with meetings with people in lots of different arms of the business, which I really enjoy. Whether it’s chatting through direction with our new managing director, or catching up on our marketing strategy on Facebook or Instagram with the social team, it's always great to touch base with people face-to-face and make sure everyone is on the same page. At the moment, we are busy continuing our hugely successful ad campaigns, and the story we are developing with characters Ben and Lucy. In February we launched two 10-second ads conveying the Price Promise and Largest Range key messages, so this was an extremely busy time, from filming the ads to preparing other marketing collateral to complement them. We’ve had a great response to the ads, and it’s so satisfying to see consumers interacting with and responding to the key messages. We aim to provide a customer with a hotel for their every need, and hopefully we can continue to drive that through constantly innovative marketing strategies.
Q: What are the biggest marketing challenges you face today?
A: There are challenges in as much as the hotel and travel industries are ever-changing, and we have to keep our ideas fresh – but this forces us to keep up with the times, as otherwise we would be left behind. Also just the sheer number of channels marketers now have to be aware of to capture the attention of customers. Customers are becoming more elusive, with much higher expectations and demands, so you need to keep abreast of all channels available to you.
Q: What are the biggest trends affecting your business?
A: Travel is an ever-changing industry in which almost every consumer partakes in one form or another. One of the huge trends in the last few years has been the phenomenal growth of the OTAs (online travel agencies). LateRooms.com has had to keep up with this fast-paced growth and stake our claim in the market.
Social media has also affected us in a huge way – more people are now sharing their activity and photos while they are still on holiday, and we have effectively grown our social channels in this vein.
We’re also seeing growth in the real diversity of breaks that people want to go on. Whether it’s gourmet, activity-based or even ecologically sustainable, we have had to recruit hotels that stand up to people’s demands for a different kind of break. We now have treehouse hotels, lighthouse hotels and luxury hotels such as The Missoni Hotel in Edinburgh in our portfolio, so we really can give guests a hotel for their every need.
Q: What skills do you think are most important to get ahead in marketing today?
A: A determination, an ambition to succeed and a willingness to get your hands dirty in are so important. These were the skills that stood me in good stead, and allowed me to keep flexible, keep learning from my peers, and grow my career so quickly. Always think about what your customers want – they should be at the heart of everything you do. Don’t expect everything to be handed to you; work hard and prove yourself.