Melissa Ban, Campaign Manager at Holts Gems
Melissa Ban is the Campaign Manager at Holts Gems. Melissa is responsible for all Marketing activities, websites and PR.
Working in a Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) means you wear multiple hats! Melissa's days are never the same – from taking photos and photoshopping them to planning social media content, penning blogs, and crafting web designs - she does it all. Of course, no day is complete without spending time chatting with basically everyone in Hatton Garden and petting their dogs – it is essential for keeping us all inspired!
Melissa joined Holts when I was 20 for a work placement as a part of my BA Graphic design degree. During that time she completed my foundation and FGA courses with Gem-A. Combining these skills, Melissa stayed as a part-time photographer and marketing assistant at Holt. A couple of years later with all those valuable work experience, she successfully got my MBA degree and promoted to manager at Holts. Melissa's amazing journey all started in Hatton Garden!
Melissa believes that the key skills needed to work in her industry are navigating the ever-changing digital landscape can be tricky, so she will say creativity and think outside of the box are the key skills for marketing roles. According to Forbes, an adult is exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads in a day. How can you make your brand stand out is the ultimate goal for every marketer.
The best piece of advice that Melissa would you give to women in her industry, or those wanting to get in her industry is to have faith in your designs and your ideas; her university tutor once commented her works were ‘too girly’ and no one will use them. However, as a female marketer with an understanding of what today's female audiences are looking for, Melissa am passionate about breaking traditional stereotypes within the jewellery sector. For instance, it is not uncommon to see websites and social campaigns which feature over-embellished designs aligned more typically to male aesthetics for example roses, red lipstick marks, pink bows etc. Melissa believe the least Valentine's day gift that a woman wants is a pink heart shape crystal pendant. However, this no longer needs to be the norm. Also, she would like to shift the idea of jewellery being exclusively gifted by men even for an engagement ring, we definitely see the rise of this in our showroom.