Food & Drink

food & drink

Marketing director Taylors of Harrogate In his 15-year career at Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate, Dom Dwight has seen Yorkshire Tea reach the number one spot for market share. In 2022, the brand claimed a 33.7% share of market, yet Dwight still considers it a “challenger brand”. Yorkshire Tea’s ‘Everything’s Done Proper’ platform has been a driving force in the brand’s success since 2017. The long-term campaign continues to resonate with audiences, thanks in part to its use of celebrities such as Sir Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean. The 2022 edition of the campaign was singled out as an ad of the week by effectiveness measurement firm System1. Meanwhile, Yorkshire Tea’s brand buzz score has grown from 11.3 to 14.5 on YouGov’s BrandIndex. One of Dwight’s biggest focuses lately has been growing the category, which has been in decline. He has conceded the way to do that might not be through TV. He told Marketing Week last year that attracting Gen Z is one of Yorkshire Tea’s biggest challenges, so the business has been exploring the use of different channels and the need for multiple versions of a creative idea.■

Dom Dwight

CMO Premier Foods Yilmaz Erceyes has been chief marketing officer at Premier Foods since late 2019, helping the business navigate a tumultuous few years, first with the pandemic and now inflation. Under Erceyes’ leadership, Premier Foods has positioned itself as an “affordable meal solution” for consumers, with brands such as Batchelors and Nissin performing particularly well. Indeed, the company’s focus on brand building was credited by its CEO for helping Premier Foods pass £1bn in sales for the first time in its last full-year results, an 11.8% increase on the year prior. This “branded growth” model is based on a combination of marketing investment, high household penetration, insight driven NPD and retailer partnerships. As well as battling inflation and price rises, Erceyes has also been focused on attracting younger consumers by trialling new approaches. He is a big advocate of listening to consumers to find “pockets of opportunity”, all the more important when the market is tough, he says.■

Yilmaz Erceyes

Marketing director Little Moons If 2021 saw Little Moons go viral, then in 2023 it went global. The challenger mochi ice cream brand has continued its meteoric rise over the past 12 months by expanding to 11 new international markets leading to an additonal £22.8m in revenue. None of this global expansion could have been possible without the work of Ross Farquhar, whose savvy use of TikTok during the pandemic saw the brand hit more than 150 million views. He has since broadened the scope of Little Moons through bold campaigns and attention-grabbing activations. A partnership with Channel 4 and Derry Girls star Saoirse-Monica Jackson saw the brand tie itself to one of the most popular shows of last year – and a fun OOH activation in London saw disembodied arms and legs reaching out from a billboard to hand out free samples to willing shoppers. His greatest achievement, though, according to Farquhar, is convincing the business to invest in brand during difficult economic times. He spoke in May about how he has protected his marketing investment and why “the benefits of investment outweigh the headwinds”.■

Ross Farquhar

Kerttu Inkeroinen

Nicola Matthews

Louise Maugest

Kevin McNair

Irina Rodina

CMO Diageo As Diageo’s CMO of three years, Cristina Diezhandino is responsible for more than 200 brands and 1,200 marketers. A marketing effectiveness cheerleader, she has worked at Diageo for the past 14 years and has been a key driver behind instilling a culture of effectiveness at the business, aided by the introduction of proprietary tools like Catalyst, which have contributed to rising sales and growth. Last year, Diezhandino told Marketing Week Diageo's commitment to econometrics and effectiveness analysis, along with its strong consumer relationships will be key to helping it withstand the challenges of inflation. The drinks giant has committed to investing “strongly” in marketing this year. It is also focusing on strengthening the efficiency of its spend, having increased organic marketing investment by 6.8% in the second half of 2022. Diezhandino’s leadership of marketing helped the business achieve a sales increase of 18.4% to £9.4bn for the second half of 2022, with organic operating profit growth of 9.7%.■

Cristina Diezhandino

Michael Gillane

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Marketing director Heineken UK Premiumisation has been the focus at Heineken over the past year, and with volumes returning to pre-pandemic levels and its premium products soaring, it’s a focus that seems to be paying off. Michael Gillane took on the mantle of marketing director in 2020 at one of the toughest periods for drinks makers. His work in helping to steer the company’s brands – including Heineken, Amstel and Birra Moretti – is to be applauded. Volumes rose by 6.9% in 2022 compared to 2021 and it reported organic net revenue growth of 21.9% to €28.3m (£25.5m). Its premium beer volumes grew by 11.4% and Heineken was praised for growing its volume sales by 12.5% – including the successful launch of Heineken Silver in several key markets globally. Its namesake brand celebrated its 150th birthday in 2023 with a cheeky campaign aimed at celebrating the nonsensical ways people have butchered pronouncing its name over the course of its lifetime. That same sense of fun even pervades its effectiveness measures with the brand becoming the first to have delivering ‘good times’ as a key metric for its overall brand performance reports. Proof that even after 150 years, Heineken won’t stand still.■

Marketing and ecommerce director Lucky Saint The no and low alcoholic beverages industry is in a boom period, and Lucky Saint is one of the brands stealing a march. Leading marketing for the beer brand since 2022, Kerttu Inkeroinen has been central to its growth. She told Marketing Week her ambition is to make the brand the “Guinness of alcohol-free”. Rewarded for her work so far, Inkeroinen was promoted to marketing and ecommerce director at the beginning of this year and also oversees the innovation team at a time of rapid expansion. In January, Lucky Saint made its biggest marketing investment with its Dry January campaign. Months later, it’s still paying off – the brand recently shared that it’s making almost three times more sales now as it was a year ago, indicating that consumers aren’t just in the market for alcohol-free post-Christmas. She has underlined how important it is for the brand to keep up investment despite the challenging economic environment, as doing so will enable it to “gain share of voice when other brands might be scaling back”.■

Head of marketing UK and Ireland, Tony’s Chocolonely Many marketers may talk about their brand being purpose-driven but few can speak with the authority that Nicola Matthews can on the matter. The head of marketing for Tony’s Chocolonely (or the Countess of Cocoa, as she is officially known) has grown the brand to record net revenue of €133m (£114m) all with barely spending a penny on above the line media. But, more importantly, its stated goal to end child labour in cocoa production has seen the number of children involved in the slave trade drop to less than 5%. Meanwhile, its Open Chain cocoa sourcing model has attracted partners including the likes of Ben & Jerry’s, with whom it collaborates on some special ice cream flavoured chocolate bars. And while most companies were raising prices to deal with the effects of inflation, Tony’s took the unusual step of cutting prices by 50p in a bid to broaden its customer base and engage more people with its message. Partnerships have very much been a focus for Tony’s in the past 12 months and Matthews and her team secured a big one by offering a Willy Wonka-style golden ticket to Glastonbury. There’s been personal successes as well as she was included on the prestigious Marketing Academy Scholarship, a fine reward for an unorthodox marketing mind.■

Marketing director, GB and Ireland The Coca-Cola Company Louise Maugest has been a firm fixture of The Coca-Cola Company for nearly a decade, taking on the marketing director role for Great Britain in 2021 before adding Ireland to her remit earlier this year. In that time, she has seen Coca-Cola regain its position as one of the world’s top 10 most valuable brands, according to Kantar’s BrandZ ranking, the first time it has made the cut in eight years. It has been a busy time for the business, which has expanded further into the ready-to-drink market with the launch of a partnership between Jack Daniels whiskey as Coca-Cola. And there’s been a huge revamp on Fanta to create a unified global brand identity for the first time. If that wasn’t enough to contend with, Maugest has continued her close work on Diet Coke’s campaign with Kate Moss. Product innovations have been a fixture of the past 12 months, too, which saw the business create bottles with an attached cap to encourage – and remind – customers that both the cap and the bottle can be recycled. Rolled out initially across Coca-Cola Zero, Diet Coke and Fanta Zero, it is planned to be expanded to all the Coca-Cola Company’s brands. A nod to the company’s green credentials.■

Marketing director KP Snacks If 2022 saw the end of Kevin McNair’s three-year plan to transform how KP Snacks approaches its marketing by streamlining processes, embedding the principles of Ehrenberg-Bass and creating an “engaged marketing community”, then 2023 was the year the fruits of that hard work started to pay off. All the key metrics that a company should be judged against for FY21 – turnover, operating and overall profit – were up against the same figures in FY20. Growing KP’s margins from 46.4% to 47.7% during an economic period that has seen many companies sacrifice margins to protect sales, was among his successes. No small feat for a company that McNair has described as “punching above its weight” against its competition. McNair oversees a wide stable of brands, including Tyrells, which backed itself to move away from promotional deals and in turn grew its rolling 52-week sales value by 40%. It also launched a successful tie-in coronation chicken flavour for King Charles III's coronation. McNair continued effective tactical campaigns for McCoy’s and its rotating selection of Epic Eats flavours. Under his leadership of marketing, KP has also rolled out more non-HFSS products as the business continues its drive to produce healthier snacks.■

Former CMO Northern Europe The Kraft Heinz Company Irina Rodina took over as CMO of Kraft Heinz in Northern Europe in April 2022 and has just left the business ahead of taking on a new challenge. She has been the brains behind a run of campaigns and activations for Heinz that have been designed to grab consumer attention as the business looks to build the brand “beyond ketchup”. She has ambitions to make Kraft Heinz a “consumer obsessed, creativity centric and sustainability conscious company” – something that seems to be working. Earlier this year, Heinz teamed up with Absolut to launch a vodka and tomato pasta sauce to high acclaim, while in June it launched its first-ever global campaign, ‘It has to be Heinz,’ which celebrates the love consumers have for its products, from smuggling tins of beans through airport security to getting a ketchup tattoo. Rodina, who previously spent 15 years at FMCG giant Unilever, as well as driving marketing at Barilla Group, is also a 2023 fellow of the Marketing Academy.■

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