Goodbye M&S

This time last week I was preparing to say goodbye to M&S after 12 years.

It was a whirlwind week, so many people helped send me off in style, including an incredibly special night with team members past and present reminiscing about unique shared experiences and continuing to support each other today, it was a joy to be the catalysed for.

Heading up the Product PR team was a rollercoaster ride, setting strategy, driving coverage, seasonal launches, collaborations, talent management, brand experiences, creative executions, building a team and developing a strong industry reputation for being one of the best operations in the business, so much to be proud of and remember fondly.

This unique year of challenge and change has taught us all a lot and for me it helped instigate even more profound change including leaving M&S, a brand and team that I love. It was a big decision but one I know was right for me.  

 And before I embark on my new chapter I am going to stop, stop and reflect and allow myself to slow down and be.

However, I will be back, bolder and brighter and ready for exciting opportunities and no doubt more change.

To mark the end of my incredibly special era, (over a decade) at M&S some of my favourite friends penned quite a unique and brilliant speech, delivered with such heart (and Percy Pig IRL) smiles and lots of laughter. It is such an excellent summary and so relevant for now that I wanted to share and celebrate the teamwork that this perfectly illustrates as this is what I will hold most dear and will celebrate of my time at M&S.

The support from the many media contacts I can now call friends, the brilliant and varied suppliers and creatives that made me and the work we produced at M&S look so good. The colleagues from the shop floor to support centres, I have had so many great opportunities and experiences working with so many of you.

Lastly the PR team, the peers, the bosses and the team I led for so many years, it’s you that made it such a privilege and created so many wonderful and happy memories, thank you!

A special thank you to the speech writers Laura and Charlotte who captured so brilliantly some of the impact I have had and done with the flair and wit that is so very synonymous with the M&S PR team.

Jessica Harris - Leaving Speech

By Laura Davidson & Charlotte Allport

Good afternoon everybody, thank you for being with us in these unprecedented times. I am joined by our Chief Media Officer, who is witty by nature, not by name, and today we are leading this LIVE Jess Harris leaving do briefing where we will be following the science and taking a data-based look at Jess’s time at M&S.   

In this presentation we will delve into meticulously gathered scientific evidence and verified Jess Harris career facts and will be analysing her performance against the M&S values to identify if she has locked down; owning it and getting it done, being all in for the customer, making every penny count and talking straight.  To inform this session, we have consulted with industry experts including colleagues, media and celebrities… giving you the unvarnished truth! 

Let us begin by analysing the media coverage curve over the last 12 years.  What the curve tells us is that we have seen is a sharp increase in media headlines, front pages and coverage during Jess’s tenure.  Some of the key statistics include almost 100,000 pieces of coverage, management of over 1,000 journalists and leading and developing over 50 PRs in her team. 

But there are other variants to her skills too, Jess has a talent for talent and has launched new faces and partnerships with A listers from Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Meghan Markle, Holly Willoughby, and Alexa Chung. 

It has been scientifically proven that Jess is infamous for her unstoppable energy, her whip smart ideas, her creative genius - at 7am, her love of a notebook sketch to illustrate her vision, her bone-dry sense of humour, her acute attention to detail as well as her unique skill to retain hours’ worth of meeting notes - without writing a thing. She is also known for her exceptional communication skills, with a huge over index in her swearing ability and we have calculated that her ‘F’ number is in fact well over government guidelines.  

There is also much evidence to show that Jess is a super spreader… of talent, skill, and brilliance and many have called her leaving the end of an era. Businesswomen and all-round legend Jo Malone told us she’s a ‘Wonder Woman’, styling legend Amanda Bellan talked of Jess creating a ‘family’ during her time at M&S, Alexa Chung recently said her work with M&S was the most memorable of her career and Jess Carter-Morley, Associate Editor of Fashion at the Guardian, crowned Jess the ‘National Treasure of British Fashion’.   

Jess has taught many highfliers across the Fashion PR industry, and all evidenced her immense impact on their own careers, saying that they still often question ‘What would Jess do’. Her impact is quite clearly infectious. 

Now to the values and I begin with ‘the science’ on Jess’s ability to make every penny count.  

Let us look at the evidence… Jess is famed for her ability to commit budget to a ‘central feature’ at the now legendary ‘M&S seasonal media previews’. The evidence shows that Jess made the term ‘press show’ passe and under her watch these events morphed from a standard pre-season sneak peek to live model showcases, top editor walk rounds, media dinners and interactive elements that would have put Disneyland to shame - sit for your own illustration, customise your own bag, or use a print from the collection as a personalised print on your wall -anyone?

Now, back to the central feature at these events; there have been 20ft high mannequin armies on ski slopes (no flattening the curve at that event), exhibition grade installations and a bespoke water feature. Brilliant, not especially thrifty, but brilliant – and EVERYONE remembers it, even though it leaked! 

The evidence is clear this level of production, design and decoration would put even Boris Johnson to shame- Jess you ‘locked down’ making every penny count. 

Now on to the number of confirmed cases for ‘owning it and getting it done. Or as Jess would say, “OWN IT AND GET IT BEEEEEP DONE”!! 

She is famous for owning photoshoots, taking this to the next level by acting out model poses, in particular the infamous ‘lunge’, which I am hoping she may give us a demonstration of now. 

She is the founder, and official Chairwoman of the “Stitch & Bitch Club”; a unique organisation established to coordinate the press team sewing – late into the night – its own press labels into garments ahead of a press show! And of course, COVID has not derailed Jess’ execution skills either, with M&S the only retailer to have delivered a mobile press show this season… albeit from the back of a van!  

Now let us see if she’s been all in for the customer.   

And without doubt Jess gets a gold star for ‘all in’, in fact, she is the embodiment of it. Never more so demonstrated than during her first week as the new boss at M&S! Whilst performing her best dance moves to Beyonce’s ‘single ladies’, she ended up with a plaster on her nose as a result of going - all in. 

So top marks for all in. Now for ‘the customer’. After deciding the ‘winge’ haircut should be the new look of the season on a look book shoot, she decided to embody this latest customer look and got it immediately snipped into hers too. Her innate sense of what our customers like has led to fashion editors asking what is the ‘Jess dress’ at collection previews. That dress being the coolest and most gorgeous from the collection and the one that will sell the most. It feels right to follow the science which clearly points to Jess being truly all in! 

And now to talk straight, and the evidence is pretty clear cut here. 

It is fair to say that most people here will know Jess for ‘straight-talking’. And when we say straight, we’re talking ‘laser beam’ straight. In fact, there are times when words alone cannot do justice to how straight she wants to communicate, instead resorting to that old classic ‘middle finger comms’ technique they teach at media training…!  

Jess has been known to have such conviction in the words that she chooses, that a slip of the tongue really lands with impact. In one notable presentation, Jess liberally sprinkled the term “camel toes” throughout, rather distracting from the main thrust of the material being focused on camel tones! Given Jess’s impact on defining trends, camel toes probably became one. 

Further evidence of her straight talking is evidenced through her hatred of the fashion Press Release jargon favourites, ‘juxtaposition’ ‘wearable clothes’ and ‘funky’ and this is ironically juxtaposed to her equivalent love for swear words.   

Jess, in case it had not been unmasked before, you definitely nailed talking straight! 

Onto the final part of the leaving do briefing and before we wrap up and put ourselves on mute once more, we have gathered some quick fire key facts that you may not know about Jess: 

·       If we had ‘retail is detail’ as a value, she’d also win- she can remember every single model that has ever been in anything 

·       If you see a half-eaten bowl of salad on her desk for more than two hours you know s**t is going down

·       She loves a smiley- (necessary in this job - there aren’t always smiles around) 

·       She also loves a flat white and loads of neon tape 

·       She does not like being the centre of attention, especially during a speech – but Jess today is your day, and in a short moment your favourite Pig will deliver you a gift from us all. A voucher to stay at your favourite place ‘The Pig’ so you can social distance from the world of M&S and the media and rest

To finish, Jess Harris has made a huge impact on our business and our fashion media history, and she leaves the Clothing and Home team with a legacy; more resilient, more innovative, more dynamic, more straight talking – but also brimming full of kindness. Something that she showed in her leadership long before it was cool to be kind in fashion.  She has left her PR team with a lifelong mantra, to ask what would Jess do… which is mostly- Keep swearing. Promote M&S. And get coverage 

We wish you success, love and luck with your pivot into your new normal.    

Get ready for tiers as we make a toast which befits the tradition of the original M&S PR team- to Jess Harris, and all who sail in her