Gemma Montgomery-Dickens is marketing director and creative lead at Mark Hill Hair.
The hair care brand recently celebrated its 25-year anniversary, after being founded by Yorkshire’s award-winning celebrity hairdresser Mark Hill, in the early 2000s.
The brand is currently in a transformative period as it exits its retail exclusivity agreement with Boots and brings onboard new partners including PrettyLittleThing and Amazon.
Having been in the role for almost six months, Montgomery-Dickens gives us some insight into what her working week is really like as she implements her marketing strategy and vision for the bold and disruptive brand.
Monday
I start my week with a visit to the Mark Hill Hair office in the centre of Nottingham. We have recently refurbished our headquarters to better reflect the brand. It will also be the backdrop to some of our behind-the-scenes social content – take a look at our feed. We’ve had great feedback from everyone who has visited and I’m glad we updated the space.
We have also taken an additional room within the building to create our very own in-house studio. This will transform the way we capture and create content and allows us to be quicker and more cost-effective when shooting products and styles. Alishia, our content executive, and I are working on a 25th-anniversary shoot today. It involves styling Alishia with our Pick ‘n’ Mix curling wand and of course candles and a birthday cake! We’re really pleased with the outcome.
In the afternoon, I also take delivery of our new custom shelves which we have built especially for our TikTok live broadcasts. We’re planning to start broadcasting with our own presenter in the new year and have invested in a cute and curved stand to showcase our Pick ‘n’ Mix attachments and wet products. We are continuing to experiment with TikTok – it is a real growth channel for us and is a core part of our social strategy.
Tuesday
Today, Lucie, our brand director, and I are on a video call with our top-secret new brand ambassador. This one is a first for us as they have also designed a product which will have their name on. We have the final sign-off on the product colourway and samples and are able to begin planning the marketing strategy around the rollout of the product and partnership in April.
Lucie develops all the products and packaging, so it’s been a busy day with her discussing the influencer collaboration and a relaunch of the best-selling Pick ‘n’ Mix customisable curling wand for 2024. The updated model will have new features and needs a new and fresh look to make sure it appeals to as many people as possible. We have had more than 15 different designs on the handle and it’s important that we keep up and stay ahead of the ever-changing trends.
Wednesday
It’s an early morning train to London today for a visit to the PrettyLittleThing showroom. As part of our partnership with the global fashion brand, we have taken over its London showroom and are styling influencers using our electrical and wet products. It has been a brilliant opportunity to have some influential people in the hot seat and speak to them about the brand and products and show them how they can get multiple looks using our interchangeable attachments. We’ve also gifted people with our products for them to recreate the looks and switch up their style at home. I spend the commute home flicking through the content the creators have shared and tagged us in.
Thursday
Today is the big day, for us and Mary Earps, our new brand ambassador who is the favourite for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year Award 2023. We started working with Mary four weeks ago and will be styling her at 12 red carpet events over the next 12 months.
The England number one is the world’s biggest women’s football star at the moment, and I have the honour of interviewing her and creating some content with her while she’s in the hot seat. We’re working with James Johnson, hair stylist to the stars who uses our Mark Hill Hair products to turn heads on the red carpet. Camera rolling, we got some great material from Mary, and hopefully one or two viral clips. The pictures and videos are off to be edited while we catch the train home, ready for sharing in a matter of hours. Mary wins the award and that’s our day and week made!
Friday
Today I am back at Mark Hill Hair HQ with Alishia, who is packing the last of our Christmas mailers for our lucky list of influencers. Over the last six months, we have broadened our list of collaborators to appeal to a wider audience. This has also included sponsoring a trans fundraising event, Not A Phase. This allows us to work with different communities and better understand their styling needs. We’re planning to do more work with this group in the new year and even style some drag queens.
We end the week with a team Deliveroo, being in an office space so central to the city centre has its perks, along with a nice Friday afternoon job of editing the week’s content for my regular “day in the life of a marketing director” TikTok.
What a week. I’m ready for home and the weekend. Time for some last-minute packing before heading to the slopes of France for some Winter fun.
