The UK's biggest retailer Tesco has scrapped the chief marketing officer role and replaced it with two roles. One focussed on creative, and one on the customer. Is it the shape of marketing to come?
The supermarket has been struggling with poor performance for the past two years and CEO Philip Clarke is making attempts to turn it around with changes across the business from supply chain, to stores, products and marketing.
Former CMO Matt Atkinson will become chief creative officer tasked with “injecting creative brilliance into new products and services”. Atkinson took on the CMO role in 2012. He was previously group marketing and digital officer and joined the supermarket from joining from agency EHS 4D.
Jill Easterbrook, who has been in a number of strategic business roles within Tesco since 2001 becomes its chief customer officer. She will oversee all customer communications and marketing.
Both will sit on the supermarket's executive committee.
This new roles are part of a broader boardroom reshuffle as the supermarket tries to adapt for the future and operate in a way that reflects consumers needs not just the way retailing has always run operated.
Tesco CEO Clarke said in a blog post: “Everything this business has ever achieved has been delivered by a relentless focus on how we can make our customers' lives better and easier, bringing them products and services that might otherwise be inaccessible. But if you had looked at the job titles of our leadership team, you wouldn't necessarily have known that. Like most large consumer-facing businesses, our roles have been built around the way business has traditionally done things, not necessarily around the most important person for any retailer - the customer.”
One local industry source close to the supermarket category said the notion of loyalty in retail is fundamental but it can be a little two dimensional, which is why customer experience is replacing it.
“To retain customers, you have to deliver a better experience and the way you build that experience is by doing it creatively. Companies like Cocoa Cola, P&G and Unilever have had these roles for years. This is just the supermarket sector catching up,” he said.
Both Coles and Woolworths have customer experience teams roles but both still have a CMO function.
Woolworths appointed a former Coles marketer as CMO earlier this year after the roll went unfilled for six months. At the same time it shifted Jess Gill, who was general manager of marketing into the new role of director, customer experience.