CMO, Domino’s UK & Ireland
Sarah Barron is the brains behind Domino’s pivot toward a more value-based proposition in recent years. Under her stewardship, the chain has leaned more heavily into promotional campaigns, including its first national price campaign in January last year. It is currently testing its long-awaited loyalty scheme, the second stage of which involves rolling it out to 630,000 consumers on the app, all designed to help the pizza chain drive greater purchase frequency.
This focus on value has applied internally too, with some hard choices for Barron on where to invest a more limited budget. The brand has admitted to holding back marketing spend in the last year, as it channels cash toward a series of strategic launches, but despite the knock-on impact to trading it has insisted it was the right move for long-term success.
No doubt those decisions are underpinned by Barron’s years of strategic experience. She spent 11 years at Cadbury before working as an independent consultant and then being brought on by Costa as its CMO and chief growth officer before she joined Domino’s in 2020.■
Partner and customer director, Waitrose
Nathan Ansell took over as customer director at Waitrose at the start of 2023, having spent close to two years at ethical consultancy House 337 and nearly a decade prior to that at close rival M&S.
Ansell, a “lifelong admirer of the Waitrose brand”, oversees the grocer’s multichannel strategy and ensures it uses the power of that brand to prevent people trading down to discounters Aldi and Lidl at a time when UK shoppers are feeling the pinch. That’s included the continuation of its New Lower Price value campaign, in which the brand has invested an additional £30m in the last year, cutting prices across 200 of its own label products, as well as updating its loyalty scheme to deliver more personalised rewards.
The plan appears to be working. Following a “challenging” set of results in 2022/23, sales at Waitrose rose 5% to £7.7bn, with operating profit up £170m to £1.06bn last year. The grocer also returned to market share growth in July and August this year and saw its strongest sales growth since November 2023 in the six weeks ending 3 August 2024, according to Kantar.■
food & drink
retail
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Marketing director, M&S Food and director of loyalty,
Marks & Spencer
Sharry Cramond has been a key figure in M&S’s turnaround plan over the last few years. She first joined the grocer as marketing director for its food business in 2018 and has steadily added to that role over the years, most recently adding responsibility for M&S’s overall loyalty proposition to her remit in November.
At each step she has balanced the heritage of the M&S brand with a more modern, multichannel approach to drive growth, be that engaging a new generation of consumers on TikTok or reinforcing product quality and provenance via the ‘This is not food - it’s never just food’ campaign which kicked off in October. She’s ensured M&S Food remains ahead of the curve on innovation too, upgrading 1,000 food products and introducing 1,300 more in the last 12 months alone. It has also been looking to boost its value proposition, investing £60m in food prices over the last financial year.
This led to a 13% increase in food sales to £8.16bn in the year to 30 March and marked 12 consecutive quarters of sales growth. Plus the M&S Food range has nudged up its in-store market share and perceptions of value and quality improved.■
Group customer director, Tesco
Becky Brock joined the UK's biggest supermarket as its group customer director in June, brought on to lead its approach to customer, loyalty, digital and insight, with the ambition of creating new revenue streams from data and personalisation.
The role at Tesco caps off a stellar few years for Brock, who made a big impression in her previous position at Costa Coffee. As global commercial, marketing and innovation director at the coffee shop chain - a promotion she secured in just over two years at the business - she led on its global commercial proposition, brand direction, innovation roadmap and marketing execution.
Brock also led on the rollout of a partnership with Marks & Spencer that saw a range of the retailer’s food products appear on shelves in Costa outlets. As well as revamping its loyalty scheme leading to more personalised customer communications, she also oversaw the expansion of its delivery services through Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats.
All of this made Brock a big contributor to the reported double-digit sales growth in its coffee segment - and clearly caught the attention of Tesco. ■
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CMO, Sainsbury’s
Although Sainsbury’s has seen many shoppers migrate to cheaper discount rivals amid the cost of living crisis, the supermarket has maintained a disciplined approach to promotions. Rather than throw everything at undercutting the competition, CMO Mark Given has split attention between price, quality, provenance and loyalty to demonstrate why Sainsbury’s products are worth paying more for.
On the one hand, that has meant investing in strategic price match schemes, such as its biggest ever Aldi Price Match campaign in August and completing the rollout of Nectar Prices, an initiative which as of last August had already saved customers over £244m. On the other, Given has launched new marketing campaigns aimed at amplifying the supermarket’s provenance, product quality and sustainability credentials, such as via its ‘Good To Know’ campaign in April.
The approach seems to be paying off. In July, the supermarket's sales were up 4.8% in the 16 weeks to 22 June, driven by volume growth and “the biggest market share gains of any grocer” in the quarter. Fast forward to August and Sainsbury's recorded its biggest year-on-year market share gain since July 1997 with a 0.5 percentage point rise to 15.3% in the 12 weeks to 4 August. It was also the fastest growing of the traditional supermarkets, according to Kantar.■
Chief customer and marketing officer, Morrisons
As Morrisons battles to win back the market share it has lost to Aldimuch-lauded over the last couple of years, it’s investing heavily in personalisation to demonstrate to customers how well it knows them. Leading that effort is chief customer and marketing officer Rachel Eyre, who joined the business in 2021 after nearly six years working at rival Sainsbury’s.
While there Eyre led the grocer’s much lauded Future Brands programme, identifying innovative startups and emerging brands to bring into the Sainsbury’s fold. The initiative delivered over £200m incremental and margin-accretive sales and shifted perceptions of Sainsbury's - an achievement that saw Morrisons knocking on Eyre’s door soon after.
Now Eyre is once again looking to shift perceptions, positioning Morrisons as a place where loyalty is rewarded, and individual customer preferences are valued. That has included big changes to its loyalty card scheme, in-store digital media opportunities as it expands its retail media network and using AI to examine customers’ past shopping behaviour and determine their likelihood of making future purchases with a specific brand.
“We have opportunities to help brands reach the right customers with the right message or the right offer in the right place at the right time,” Eyre told Marketing Week.■
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CMO and senior vice-president, McDonald’s
As McDonald’s set about repositioning marketing as a core pillar of its growth strategy in recent years, working to build a culture of creative excellence and prove the value of brand building at the Golden Arches, one of the “shining lights” they sought inspiration from was the UK.
Here CMO Michelle Graham-Clare, who has been at the fast-food chain for nearly a decade and took on the top role in August 2021, has created a balanced approach to commerciality and creativity. She has injected emotion into its campaigns while also ensuring a focus on efficiency and driving sales.
In the last year, that approach has seen the continuation of its ‘Like getting your money’s worth’ campaign to emphasise value, alongside a feel-good follow-up as part of its ‘Raise Your Arches’ platform, deploying a first-of-its-kind audio activation that uses generative AI to create personalised audio stories based on a person’s route.
Working with global CMO Morgan Flatley, Graham-Clare has helped to elevate the role of marketing within McDonald’s, with CFO Ian Borden explaining the function has gone from being a “nebulous” part of the organisation to a key driver of growth.■
Marketing director, Lidl GB
Lidl GB opted for an internal hire to replace former marketing director Claire Farrant, when she left the business in September 2023, promoting then head of campaigns and media, Joanna Gomer, to the top role. Gomer, who first joined the supermarket in 2016, is already credited with having led its successful partnership with the FA, as well as spearheading its ‘Super’, ‘Ode to Bakery’ and ‘Save Another Way’ campaigns.
In her new role, Gomer is working to continue the momentum the discount supermarket has enjoyed in recent years. Over the past 12 months fastest-growing, Lidl has consistently been the fastest growing bricks and mortar grocer, with sales in July up 7.8% year on year and a record-high market share of 8.1%, as the cost of living crisis continues to push value-hungry shoppers through its doors.
Already it’s been a busy few months for the marketing director, overseeing Lidl’s role as official partner of the UEFA Euro 2024 tournament. The partnership included a prize draw competition for kids to win one of 77 spots to become player escorts at the matches.
Prior to Lidl, Gomer worked at Tesco for more than five years, latterly as brand communications and campaign manager.■
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Michelle
Graham-Clare
Customer and marketing director, Greggs
Hannah Squirrell joined Greggs as customer and marketing director in 2017, when its transformation from sausage roll maker to food-to-go powerhouse was in full swing.
Squirrell, who has worked at brands including Tesco, Capital One and Avon Cosmetics in her 20-year marketing career, was tasked with continuing that journey, as the brand worked to overhaul customer perceptions and enhance its high-street value proposition.
Her many smart marketing moves in recent years include a clothing partnership with Primark and ‘black cards’ to A-listers like Ed Sheeran granting them free food for life. Greggs now takes almost £2 in every £100 spent on UK hospitality, according to research by Hospitality Data Insights.
And it appears to be working. Greggs increased like-for-like sales by 7.4% year on year to £960.6m in the first half of the year, while profit before tax increased 16.3% to £74.1m. The business also credited a “strong improvement” in brand health metrics. Greggs continues to boost perceptions, building on the “record levels” it achieved in 2023 when its consideration score on YouGov’s BrandIndex increased from 36.9 in 2022 to 39, outstripping its category rivals. Its purchase intent score also improved by a statistically significant amount in 2023 versus 2022.■
Chief membership and customer officer, Co-op
Kenyatte Nelson joined Co-op in January 2023 with a clear plan to bring its membership model back to the forefront of customer communications.
Under his leadership, the group initially set a target to attract 1 million new active members to its loyalty proposition by 2028, after reporting growth in the Co-op membership scheme in 2023 for the first time since 2017. But having already smashed that goal, boosting membership by 20% to 5.5 million members in the first half of 2024 alone, it now aims to hit the 8 million mark by 2030.
This success has been underpinned by a £55m investment into its exclusive member pricing in first six month of the year. As part of this drive, Nelson overhauled Co-op's rewards scheme to focus entirely on exclusive deals and discounts for members in January, after research showed the financial benefits compared to the previous model yielded a 90% increase in rewards. Its members will also benefit from price reductions on branded and own-label foods for the first time and have access to a choice of personalised offers each week.
He is also behind the brand’s biggest marketing investment in eight years, with the launch of its new brand platform ‘Owned By You, Right By You’, to remind consumers of its investment in communities, membership structure and ethical values.■
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