Generation Thea!
Introducing Thea, manager of the Dartmouth store, a fitness machine and most importantly the digital marketing queen at Jam. She’s so tech savvy I can’t work out if she’s of another world to me or if every gen Z is this advanced!? I reckon she runs updates overnight – a smart human not a smart phone. It’s incredible. She’s gone from not being a morning person to one that runs, works out and has a dance routine nailed and uploaded to tik tok all before breakfast.
Thea works out five times a week. She is dedicated. She is disciplined. She does not put down her barbells for anyone. Seriously, I tried to call an hour early. No chance! Thea’s conservatory has been renovated into her own private gym. She got hold of some weights in the last lockdown and found these amazing training videos all through Instagram, you tube and IGTV. Honestly, it will be no time before she brings out her own training app!
When Thea wasn’t weight lifting in lockdown 1.0 she was putting herself through courses in Google Ads, SEO and the like. Thea heads up the digital marketing at Jam. She considered studying fashion marketing at university but covered most of the syllabus in just a few months on her own! The opportunity to open the Dartmouth store came up, so she stepped up from working weekends in Salcombe to taking the helm on all things digital and managing a brand spanking new shop. That has stayed spanking new thanks to Thea!
Thea runs a tight ship. If you are drinking a cup of tea in Dartmouth; one - make sure you don’t spill any on the sparkling floor that’s been beautifully cleaned three times over. Two - keep an eye on it! If, halfway, you look down and your mug is gone, it’s probably been washed, dried and it is now back in cupboard. Thea actually gets nervous about handing over the shop for long periods; she writes pages of notes on how things are done! She says how lucky she is to have Gem, who not only cuts the grade on the cleaning front, but also is a total gem (read ‘What a Gem’ if you haven’t already!)
Thea ended up spending four weeks away from the store at the end of summer, two weeks in Portugal and two weeks in isolation/her conservatory gym when she got back. It had to be; sun drenched holidays are mandatory for Thea. If we ever open a store in the south of Spain or in Portugal, it will be Thea’s doing. She wants to live out there. The sun is her fun! Well the sun, a spring clean or a spreadsheet... she’ll go for any.
Every week on a Monday, Thea sends out performance reports and I’ve had to get her to explain pretty much everything that’s on them to me. So many terms I try to google to no avail, but fortunately; it’s like its Thea’smother tongue. ROAS, I am told, stands for return on advert spend. If you’ve been targeted by a social ad, it’s Thea that’s found you. Her numbers are ridiculous, way above the target! Thea has transformed the digital marketing at Jam in a single year to the point that it’s now producing the kind of results that any digital marketing agency would dream of. She deep dives and delves the digital stratosphere like Miss Marple in the village of St. Mary Mead. She confesses: she actually wishes she could be a detective like Miss Marple.
Miss Marple just got a whole lot sexier. Since talking to Thea, I realise I need to up my game on my gym wear. She is wearing a seamless cropped lycra top and matching pink bottoms. I’ve only ever really seen her in Jam clothing and understand now why she rocks every style! Thea’s glow is her actual sweat! She isn’t actually very strict when it comes to her diet though. She just loves the routine. And with everything else in her schedule disrupted by covid, it’s the hour she locks down for herself that is the hour that keeps her sane through the rest.
As I come to the end of writing Thea’s blog I realise I will be passing it on to Thea to format and load onto the website. (As if she doesn’t have enough to be doing on a Monday already with her reporting and explaining!) She has been busy in the background of all the blog posts ensuring they reach you, wherever you are, whatever wave you are on, generation a b c or z. As the only member of the team that speaks ‘digital’, her position at Jam is vital. It’s under Thea’s leadership that the likes of myself, Andrew, Mark and Lynne are slowly climbing from analogue to iCloud... onto levels we never knew existed! Next stop... tik tok!
