Food & drink retail
CMO
Domino's
As CMO at Domino’s, Sarah Barron has been leading the pizza chain through a period of transformation.
Value has been high on the agenda over the past year, as the company shifted its focus away from brand building, notably its ‘Domin-Oh-Hoo-Hoo’ campaign, in favour of “accelerating spend”, leaning into promotional campaigns.
The drive has been paying off, with the chain’s value for money score increasing by four percentage points at the start of the year compared to 2019. Domino’s then launched its first national price campaign in January and has committed to more investment throughout the year. It also looks set to launch its first loyalty offer.
This focus on value led to an 8% increase in EBITDA in the first half of 2023 to £68.7m
As well as strengthening its value proposition, Barron has also been central to Domino’s digital transformation. When she first joined the company in 2021 she brought the digital team under marketing’s remit, and under her watch Domino’s CEO says the business has made “significant strides” in accelerating its digital offer.■
Sarah
Barron
Former chief customer officer
Tesco
Alessandra Bellini has just stepped down from her role as chief customer officer at Tesco after seven years leading marketing, advertising, innovation and insight at the UK’s leading grocer.
Tesco has been responding to the ongoing cost of living crisis and inflationary environment by doubling down on value. Earlier this year, the supermarket’s CEO said its “relentless focus” on value means that in the last 18 months when many retailers have struggled, Tesco has continued to stay healthy – something Bellini’s work leading the customer proposition at Tesco has focused on.
Plus, in the last nine quarters, the supermarket has been winning market share from premium retailers such as Waitrose and M&S, all the while staving off competition from its budget rivals. Under Bellini’s marketing leadership, Tesco’s sales grew 7% in the 2022/23 financial year, while its market share stayed strong at 27.1%.
Tesco’s Clubcard Prices, which launched in 2020, has continued to grow – it now has more than 21 million Clubcard members, up from around 14 million before its price proposition launched.
Bellini is also president of the Advertising Association.■
Alessandra
Bellini
Global commercial, marketing and innovation director
Costa Coffee
Just over two years since joining Costa from John Lewis, Becky Brock started 2023 with a promotion, taking on a new role with accountability for the global commercial proposition, brand direction, innovation roadmap and marketing execution, adding to her responsibility for the UK and Ireland P&L.
It capped a stellar 12 months for Brock, which included being named a fellow of The Marketing Society and the rollout of a partnership with Marks & Spencer that saw a range of the retailer’s food products appear on shelves in Costa outlets.
In her time at the brand, she has also revamped Costa’s loyalty scheme – the data from which has led to more personalised customer communications – and overseen expansion of delivery services through Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats.
The bets have been paying off for Costa’s owner Coca-Cola, which reported sales in its coffee segment growing 13% in 2022, primarily driven by Costa’s UK stores and overseas expansion.■
Becky
Brock
Becci
Dive
Claire
Farrant
Michelle
Graham-Clare
Kenyatte
Nelson
Hannah
Squirrell
Partner and customer director
Waitrose
Since joining Waitrose in January 2023, Nathan Ansell has set about positioning the supermarket as an affordable option during a difficult time for customers.
The business has invested £100m in price which has seen hundreds of price cuts across its ranges – something it advertised with an eye-catching 3D billboard in Westfield White City.
It has continued to put animal welfare at the heart of its positioning too and has been ramping up its rapid delivery options. Now in addition to Deliveroo Waitrose has agreed a deal with Uber Eats to provide same-day deliveries.
Ansell is also working closely with John Lewis’s customer director Charlotte Lock to develop a pan-partnership loyalty programme across the business. Set to launch sometime in 2024, the scheme is something customers have been requesting for a while, and My Waitrose has already seen greater interest with members topping 9 million, up 3.2% year on year, and with more than 1 million My Waitrose vouchers already been used. That’s a lot of free coffee.■
Nathan
Ansell
Sharry
Cramond
new
Director of marketing and hospitality
M&S Food
Even by Marks & Spencer’s standards, recent times have been exceptionally busy for M&S Food marketing director Sharry Cramond, not least because she has also been responsible for the retailer’s 330 coffee shops since last year. In 2023 alone, she has also overseen the ‘Farm to Foodhall’ campaign around food provenance and a ramping up of the brand’s presence on platforms such as TikTok and Threads, which has seen brand visibility rise significantly – particularly among the young consumers that the brand has historically struggled to inspire.
There has also been a steady flow of new product development, the launch of its Veggie range and new Colin the Caterpillar variants among them, and a high-profile partnership between M&S’s Eat Well sub-brand and home nation football teams.
Cramond’s marketing efforts undoubtedly contributed to the 8.7% rise in M&S’s food sales in the year to 1 April 2023. The brand has since sought to bolster its value proposition by investing in price.
Cramond is also active in public affairs, vocally supporting M&S’s corporate communications on LinkedIn around issues such as shareholder rights and government policy.■
UK head of marketing
Pret A Manger
As part of the leadership team in the UK and Ireland, Becci Dive takes responsibility for brand, marketing, and both business and consumer PR for Pret A Manger and Veggie Pret.
Key to the sandwich chain’s success of late has been its expanded subscription offer, Club Pret, which the business credited for helping it return to growth in 2022. The company posted a profit of £50.6m last year, the first time it has done so since 2018, plus it had a strong start to 2023, with sales up by more than 20%. Subscription holders transact 14 times more than non-subscribers, so this group is crucial to Pret’s ambition to double the size of its business between 2021 and 2026.
Expansion is also key to growth, and in 2022 the first Pret franchise store opened in Dublin, with another 19 planned across the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland in the next 10 years.
Dive is also an active proponent of Pret’s employer brand and work culture, publicly helping to spread the message about its donations and employment programme for refugees of the Ukraine war, as well as the pay rises awarded to all staff.■
Former marketing director
Lidl UK
Lidl typically performs well when times are tight for consumers, so with the cost of living crisis persisting, it’s little surprise the supermarket has outperformed most UK supermarkets during 2023, reaching 7.6% share as of September.
Value is clearly a big part of the appeal, but the retailer also punches above its weight in marketing terms, with promotion of the Lidl Plus rewards app being a particular focus for former marketing director Claire Farrant this year.
That has followed on from the ‘Lidl Bear’ Christmas ad campaign in 2022, which played a role in helping the retailer grow sales by 24.5% and attract 1.3 million more customers than the previous Christmas. The ad doubled down on the retailer’s proposition of quality food at low prices and led Lidl to report “record” footfall over the festive period. Underlying all marketing efforts has been Lidl’s ‘Big on…’ brand platform, which focuses on all the aspects of its offering – not just price – and on prompting customers to consider it for their weekly ‘big shop’.
Farrant left Lidl in September to take on the role of vice-president of marketing for BP's retail division in Europe.■
CMO, senior vice-president, UK and Ireland
McDonald’s
The numbers just keep going up for McDonald’s as its remarkable growth continues at pace. Michelle Graham-Clare can feel very much part of this success story, particularly as she has been at the business since its decision to focus on brand building over performance, which is starting to pay dividends.
The appreciation of marketing goes all the way to the top, with CEO Chris Kempczinski stating the McDonald’s brand is in its “strongest position in years” thanks in part to its “world-class marketing machine”. Indeed sales were up 11.7% in the three months to the end of June compared to last year.
Graham-Clare was also behind ‘Raise Your Arches’, one of the standout campaigns of the year so far. It achieved an “exceptional” brand recognition score of 98%, according to data from effectiveness firm System1, despite being the fast-food chain’s first ad not to show either its restaurants or food. It also achieved an “exceptional” spike rating of 1.48, which is a measure of short-term sales potential. A case study in itself on the benefits of McDonald’s focus on brand building in recent years – and a campaign so popular it was quickly scaled to 30 different markets, with a follow-up launched this summer continuing the theme.■
Chief membership and customer officer
Co-op
Nine months into his role as chief membership and customer officer at the Co-op and already Kenyatte Nelson can look upon his work with a degree of satisfaction. Loyalty is at the heart of the modern Co-op offer and the experienced retail marketer oversaw a massive investment into its membership proposition – to the tune of £240m.
Nelson is now working to grow its membership scheme by 1 million active members in the next five years by highlighting how the retailer can help save shoppers nearly £300 per year and earn a refund of 2p for every pound spent.
A huge investment in price that has seen its grocery business grow by £134m in 2022 to £7.8bn and the number of transactions per week increase by 5% to 16.4 million. It’s filtering through into the business’s communications as well with a fun new campaign featuring a donut called Gavin encouraging shoppers to sign up and save money on hundreds of Co-op products. Nelson clearly has big plans for his team – and the support from the top of the business to achieve them. In his own words: “We’re just getting started.”■
Customer and marketing director
Greggs
The continued triumph of Greggs is a marketing success story. Few would have expected when sales soared to £1.2bn in 2021 that there was much further growth possible and yet in 2022 sales increased by 23% to £1.5bn. Pre-tax profits also increased by 1.9% to £148.3m against the year before. At a time when customers are seeking a value proposition to cope with the effects of the cost of living crisis, Greggs – and its marketing director Hannah Squirrell – have found the sweet spot.
No wonder, then, that the brand continues to expand its footprint with 186 shops opening in 2022 taking its total to 2,328 across the UK. Its brand health scores, too, are enviable, with YouGov BrandIndex showing its overall index score sitting at 25, its highest ever, and its consideration score of 36.3 puts the brand second only to McDonald’s in the category. With value being driven by its popular loyalty scheme, as well as its partnership with Primark building brand awareness, Squirrell continues to drive Greggs to greater heights.■
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Charities & not-for-profit
FOOD & DRINK RETAIL
GENERAL RETAIL
Media, telecoms & entertainment
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES,UTILITIES, HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES
TRAVEL, LEISURE & HOSPITALITY
Consumer tech, automotive
& manufacturing
FINANCIAL SERVICES
FMCG
Food & drink
methodology
judges
analysis
analysis