TRAVEL, LEISURE & HOSPITALITY
Paul
Gambrill
Managing director of marketing, Paddy Power Betfair,
Flutter Entertainment
Paddy Power’s attention-grabbing campaigns, such as the ‘Don’t think you’re special’ tie-up with Tottenham Hotspur manager José Mourinho and the #SaveOurShirt anti-football shirt sponsorship campaign, helped the brand boost its customer base by 12% during 2019. For both Paddy Power and Betfair combined, online revenues rose 6% to just over £1bn across the year.
Overseeing two bookmaker brands during a pandemic that forced all sport to shut down can’t have been easy, but a strong focus on content helped.
Paddy Power increased its volume of video content by 300%, launching online comedy series The Mascot and introducing all-star darts matches that were viewed more than 20 million times across 20 countries. During the first 20 days of April, Paddy Power’s share of voice had risen to 74% on Twitter and 65% on Facebook.
Meanwhile, Betfair shifted its ad spend online after the ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ad ban meant bookies could no longer advertise during live sport on TV. In response, it created 40 different ads to explain the peer-to-peer betting process that runs on its Betfair Exchange.■
Head of marketing, UK and Ireland, Uber and Uber Eats
Omar Gurnah describes his CV as “unconventional”, having been a Channel 4 presenter before working in various tech companies until he was appointed head of marketing at Uber in the UK and Ireland in April 2019.
He runs brand strategy, Uber’s creative studio, insights, social, paid media and CRM for the company, and in February 2020 launched the ‘Bring It’ campaign for Uber Eats, featuring comedian Guz Khan as a charismatic courier.
Like other businesses, Uber was hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic and had to make thousands of people redundant. But it published details of those who had lost their jobs on a talent directory, in the hope that other employers would hire them, a move Gurnah shared on LinkedIn.
The company also made trips free to NHS workers and called for passengers to contribute to a short film to say thank you to those who drove them. In July 2019, Gurnah pushed forward an initiative to celebrate Pride, adding the rainbow flag to its Jump bike brand, and telling the stories of LGBTQIA+ employees and customers, to give visibility to different orientations and identities.■
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Omar
Gurnah
Sara
Holt
UK sales and marketing director, Merlin Entertainments
Sara Holt joined leisure operator Merlin Entertainments as its sales and marketing director last June and as part of the leadership team, oversees marketing for UK attractions such as
The London Eye, Madame Tussauds and Sea Life.
She makes sure Madame Tussauds stays in the headlines, removing waxworks of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle from a royal family set when the couple stepped away from public life in January, a stunt she called “one of the greatest accomplishments of my team in my career”.
Tussauds also kept itself in the news during the coronavirus pandemic by updating prime minister Boris Johnson’s waxwork with a baby carrier when his son arrived in May, and tapped into a conversation about gender neutrality by not assigning a new penguin chick a biological sex when it was born at Sea Life London last year. The business also showed solidarity by lighting the London Eye in blue in support of health workers.
Net promoter scores for the Merlin group are over 50%, and in 2019 there were around 500,000 online reviews of its properties that averaged over four stars.■
Chief marketing officer, TUI UK and Ireland
Katie McAlister is on the board of tour operator
TUI, responsible for its customer and brand strategy, advertising, CRM, insights and PR, as well as ecommerce and contact centres for the group’s brands, which also include First Choice and Marella Cruises.
In November, McAlister launched the latest iteration of TUI’s brand campaign, showing customers how it “crosses the ‘Ts’, dots the ‘Is’ and puts ‘U’ in the middle”, emphasising the full range of holidays and services. She has also championed marketing at the company, introducing an academy last year that aims to give marketers a broader set of skills to help progress their careers, and encourages young women to “be authentic” as they move up the ladder.
As the pandemic hit, TUI temporarily closed its operations, but in May said that UK bookings for winter 2020/21 were up 6%, adding that its “trusted brand” was a clear USP. Then in July, McAlister oversaw the launch of a multi-million pound campaign welcoming customers back after “four months of hibernation”.■
Katie McAlister
Keith
Moor
Chief marketing officer, Camelot
Keith Moor joined Camelot as chief marketing officer in September 2019 after more than two decades at Santander. His goal is to take the National Lottery’s purpose – making extraordinary happen for everyone – to the “next level”.
The National Lottery almost doubled its Buzz score year-on-year, according to YouGov’s BrandIndex, in part as a result of its ‘The Magic Number’ campaign developed to mark its 25th anniversary year in 2019.
In the year to 31 March, National Lottery sales rose 10% to £7.9bn, while the amount of money given to good causes increased by 12% to £1.85bn, a core metric of success for the team. During the period, online sales also rose 34% to £2.45bn, with mobile sales hitting an all-time high of £1.6bn.
Then when the coronavirus crisis hit, the brand “very quickly” turned around an ad campaign to highlight the beneficiaries of the National Lottery’s £600m Covid-19 relief fund. Managing the tricky job of making Camelot’s products stand out in a competitive market, Moor is on a mission to grow sales as the brand heads towards licence renewal in 2023.■
Director of marketing and communications,
Formula One, Liberty Media
Ellie Norman is on a mission to improve diversity in Formula One and “make it as relevant to as many people as possible”. Since joining in 2017, she has pushed to remove ‘grid girls’ from the sport and worked with younger influencers such as Millie Bobby Brown from Netflix’s Stranger Things.
In January, Norman represented F1 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, speaking on a panel covering brands as changemakers. A month later, F1 announced it was in profit for the first time since 2016, making $17m (£13.7m) in 2019.
When the coronavirus struck and the Australian Grand Prix was cancelled in March, F1 got rival UK motor racing teams to collaborate to make medical equipment, producing 10,000 continuous positive airway pressure devices in six weeks, and to agree to manufacture 15,000 Penlon ventilators.
Norman also oversaw the launch of a virtual racing series in late March, attracting more than 30 million viewers, and then in June unveiled F1’s ‘#WeRaceAsOne’ campaign, celebrating diversity and inclusivity in the sport.■
Ellie
Norman
Angela Porter
Marketing director, Ladbrokes Coral,
GVC Holdings
Angela Porter joined GVC-owned Ladbrokes Coral in January and found herself straight into a pitch process that saw BBH London appointed to relaunch both brands – with several ads being produced in just a few months.
Porter’s background at Dunelm, Tesco and Vodafone has given her a head start when it comes to creating ads in a sector that’s new to her. Both brand relaunch projects sought to shift away from the ‘disposable advertising’ typical to the gambling sector and focus instead on entertainment, with a view to building brand affinity.
Coral’s tagline ‘For the passion of the bet’ aims to tap into the emotion created when having a flutter; while Ladbrokes’ ‘For the nation’ positioning is a way of showing the variety of people wanting to bet with the brand.
As the coronavirus pandemic hit, Porter had to contend with a lack of sport for people to bet on, at a time when European regulators were tightening rules around gambling advertising. However, in 2019 net gaming revenue across both brands rose 12%, so she has a good base to work from.■
Global brand marketing director, Premier Inn
Tamara Strauss joined Premier Inn from an interim role at Hilton Hotels in November 2019. She was tasked with managing marketing for the brand, which operates more than 800 hotels in the UK and Ireland, and helping it expand overseas.
Her team is also responsible for extra revenue streams such as partnerships with gym pass provider Hussle and luggage-storage company Stasher. Premier Inn boosted its scores in YouGov’s Hotel BrandIndex study in the year to the end of February, ranking in first place for satisfaction, impression, value and likelihood to recommend.
Like all travel industry marketers, Strauss had to deal with a huge blow in the form of the coronavirus outbreak. In June, she launched the company’s CleanProtect promise as properties prepared to reopen, detailing Premier Inn’s increased hygiene measures and directly employed housekeeping team. The idea was to reassure guests of a warm – as well as safe – welcome. Strauss has also promoted the company’s programme to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastics by 2025.■
Tamara Strauss
Kathryn Swarbrick
Commercial and marketing director, The Football Association
Kathryn Swarbrick joined The Football Association as its commercial and marketing director from PepsiCo in October 2019. She oversees a portfolio that includes 29 England teams, Wembley Stadium and the Women’s FA Cup.
Hailed as a “world-class” marketer, she sits on the FA’s senior management team, reporting to chief executive Mark Bullingham. On her appointment, Swarbrick insisted that the FA’s commercial gains should be re-invested in grassroots initiatives.
In January, she was part of a drive to highlight mental health issues via the FA’s ‘Heads Up’ campaign, stating on LinkedIn: “In life, as in football, everyone has ups and downs.”
Then in March, Swarbrick oversaw the FA’s ‘Football’s Staying Home’ campaign, encouraging footie fans to stay put during lockdown.
A key player in Project Restart, in April Swarbrick helped stage the Football’s Staying Home Cup, which saw 16 international players take part in a FIFA 20 tournament watched by 3 million people.■
Chief marketing officer, Hostelworld Group
Yale Varty was appointed chief marketing officer at online travel agent Hostelworld in October 2019, joining from Asos. Tasked with “supporting a fresh strategy” for the brand as it celebrated its 20th anniversary, Varty’s role is to tap into what travellers want. Hostelworld describes these travellers as “not your average tourists”, but people who want to avoid the well-trodden path and are prepared to spend longer in fewer places.
Brand is likely to become especially important for the group as it looks for merger or acquisition opportunities, and to tap into the needs of its customers who might be looking for experiences as well as a place to stay.
As the coronavirus pandemic hit, travel brands had to react fast. Hostelworld created a website, Virtuallyahostel.com, to bring travellers together. Featuring five video chatrooms hosted by different hostels, visitors to the site can take a cocktail-making class, learn salsa or do a sushi-making workshop, and can choose to make a donation to support the host property.■
Yale
Varty
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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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