general retail
Nathan Ansell
Marketing director, clothing and home, Marks & Spencer
Since Nathan Ansell took on the new role as marketing director of clothing and home at Marks & Spencer, he has overseen a dramatic shift in its marketing. The company split its clothing and home and food accounts, with Ansell opting for fashion specialists ODD to run the creative account for its clothing business.
Since then, M&S has adopted more of an always-on approach to marketing that heroes particular collections or pieces. It has launched its first standalone men’s casualwear campaign, as well as the first denim-only campaign in a bid to boost sales. Christmas had a similarly product-focused approach, focusing on its festive jumper range.
Ansell says his main job is to get people to remember the products and drive reappraisal of the brand. “If everyone forgets the advertising but remembers the product then I’ve done a great job in that context.”■
Chief marketing officer, Moonpig
Kristof Fahy started his role as CMO at Moonpig several months before the Covid-19 outbreak, fresh from a position as interim CMO at Checkatrade.com. He already had extensive experience of sectors as diverse as gambling, travel and media, but nothing could have prepared him for marketing under lockdown. Moonpig had previously made several changes to its management to drive growth but it was hit by a surge in demand as consumers turned online.
Quick thinking saw the brand introduce eCards and a ‘stay-at-home’ range, which during lockdown made up 10% of sales, as well as simplifying ranges to ease pressure on the supply chain. App downloads tripled, as Fahy’s team capitalised on the significant demand for Moonpig’s range of products.
“The crisis has given us a real energy in the business to try and find ways of getting things done, potentially a bit more simply and quickly than when you have the luxury of thinking time,” he says. Fahy is now leading the charge for accelerated decision-making and greater collaboration between marketing, operations, product and commercial.■
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Kristof
Fahy
Gareth
Jones
Global chief marketing officer, Farfetch
Online luxury fashion platform Farfetch was among brands that saw sales rocket during the Covid-19 lockdown, with year-on-year revenues up 90% to $331m (£267m) as customers sought a fashion fix. But the group had already been growing strongly throughout 2019.
Farfetch global CMO Gareth Jones started his career as a marketing assistant at Rolls-Royce, with a stint at Royal Mail before progressing through roles at T-Mobile and Capital One. A one-year stint at Best Buy was followed by senior marketing roles at Carphone Warehouse and Compare the Market. Jones was marketing director and then CMO at eBay before joining Farfetch in March this year.■
Chief brand officer, N Brown Group
Some may still think of N Brown as a venerable mail order company – the oldest part of the company was founded in 1859 – but it has a much broader profile.
The appointment last year of Kenyatte Nelson as chief brand officer reflects that; Nelson headed up marketing at Missguided when that brand saw sales jumping by 40% on nights that Love Island, which it sponsored, was airing on ITV2. He described the strategy as providing a new way to talk to customers with “depth, frequency and high levels of engagement”.
However, Nelson only moved into the fashion sector five years ago, via Shop Direct, after a lengthy stint at Procter & Gamble, where he became global communications leader for the group’s Prestige range of fragrance and make-up brands. Nelson is N Brown’s first chief brand officer. The company has been going through a substantial restructuring, closing physical stores to become an online-only retailer.■
Kenyatte Nelson
Helen Normoyle
Marketing director, Boots UK and Ireland
Boots marketing director Helen Normoyle has worked for brands that consumers might think of as familiar and comforting – the BBC, Boots and DFS – but she has always sought professional challenges designed to put her outside her own comfort zone.
“You’ve really got to embrace change. It’s important not to become complacent,” she says.
Starting her career in market research at GfK gave Normoyle a grounding in, and a passion for, understanding people. But she keeps one eye on how unreliable people can be when they tell researchers what they want, reflecting on Henry Ford’s observation that what his customers wanted was a faster horse. “The art of great marketing and great insights and research is a combination of really deep customer insights and data with instinct and intuition,” she says. This is a discipline she seeks
to bring to Boots, as it copes with the challenges of changing high streets and the reality of the Covid-19 pandemic. ■
Chief marketing officer, The Very Group
After holding marketing roles at several banking brands, including Virgin Money and the NatWest Group, in April last year Carly O’Brien was appointed as CMO at online retailer The Very Group, which was formerly known as Shop Direct and incorporates the Littlewoods brand.
Initially joining the group as customer management and performance marketing director, O’Brien was elevated to CMO within a matter of months. Since then, she has appointed Grey London as the group’s creative agency after a pitch – most of which was conducted remotely due to Covid-19 lockdown measures – to replace long-serving incumbent St Luke’s. The first campaigns from the new relationship are expected this autumn across multiple channels.
In an August trading update, Very revealed sales were up 36% and website visits had surged 65% driven by growth in gaming, DIY and garden products, success the retailer credited to its online, multi-category offering and flexible payment structure.■
Carly
O’Brien
Jane
Shields
Group sales and marketing director, Next
Retailer Next describes its group sales and marketing director Jane Shields as having a “profound understanding” of the company’s operations, gained from long experience across different parts of the group.
Shields has followed a classic one-company career path from the shop floor upwards, having joined Next in 1985 as a sales assistant. After rising rapidly through store-level management, she was promoted further. By 2000, Shields had been appointed sales director, responsible for all store operations and training. Additional responsibilities were added to her role until she was given a seat on the Next company board in 2013.
Next has seen consistently strong performance, with its last annual results statement before the Covid-19 crisis showing sales up by 3.3%. Future developments are expected to include an onsite marketing system to more accurately target items to online shoppers, as well as the expansion of digital marketing capabilities in overseas markets.■
General manager, integrated marketing EU, Amazon
Last year, Amazon overtook Apple and Google to become the world’s most valuable brand – worth $315.5bn (£248bn), according to Kantar’s global BrandZ rating. The research group calculated that Amazon’s value had grown by 52% during the preceding year.
Speaking at The Shipping Forecast event last year, Ed Smith, EU general manager of integrated marketing at Amazon since 2017, unveiled a manifesto calling on consumers to have a more conscious relationship with the mobile devices and apps they all carry. “Turn off our notifications, choose when we want to read and reply to messages, put your phone face down when you are with others… and stuff your eyes with wonder… see, smell and touch the world,” he implored them.
When Smith, a former executive at Foxtel, arrived in the UK, the Australian interviewed 500 people in 100 towns and cities to get under the skin of a population that had just voted for Brexit. No doubt he is applying what he learned to ensure Amazon keeps giving consumers what they want.■
Ed
Smith
Katherine Whitton
Global chief marketing officer, Specsavers
As Global CMO at Specsavers, the world’s largest privately owned optical group, Katherine Whittonis in charge of marketing for more than 1,800 physical sites across 10 countries. But Whitton is no stranger to big numbers or travel, having extensive experience at Barclaycard, British Airways and American Express.
The optical brand’s humorous ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’ campaign has arguably entered the public consciousness, and the tagline is frequently used a joke and internet meme. The company has referred to passing on the ‘baton’ of the campaign to subsequent generations of marketers. Its consistency is also rare in being supported by an in-house creative agency. This was established in 1988, becoming a full-service internal agency in the early 1990s.
Whitton describes Specsavers as having “a unique business model and a truly supportive and empowering culture”.■
Chief marketing officer/attract and activate manager,
Ikea Group
With an FMCG background as Diageo marketing director, Peter Wright was responsible for a range of alcohol brands, including Gordon’s Gin, Malibu and Drambuie.
After 11 years with the company, he moved to the retail sector as marketing director of Tesco for eight years, then filled the same role at chocolate brand Thorntons before joining Ikea as UK country marketing director. He has risen steadily through the ranks at the ubiquitous home furnishings retailer since then, spending two years in its Swedish office as global strategy, planning and insight director. His current role, since 2018, is chief marketing officer/attract and activate manager.
Wright joined Ikea in 2011, when he was thought to be the first British person to lead Ikea’s UK marketing team. He was behind the retailer’s ‘Wonderful Everyday’ campaign and a push for the company to become less secretive with the introduction of better storytelling.■
Peter
Wright
food & drink retail
BACK TO TOP
Has the pandemic accelerated a digital shift, or is it a temporary blip?
Why marketing transformation is taking on new urgency
Unified data: the key to understanding post-lockdown consumer trends
Has the pandemic accelerated a digital shift, or is it a temporary blip?
Why marketing transformation is taking on new urgency
Unified data: the key to understanding post-lockdown consumer trends
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