Hoover Euro chief faces new flight promo trouble

BYLN:

Hoover European Appliance Group has created the role of marketing vice president, but the appointee faces a difficult task as the company’s disastrous free flights promotion creates still more trouble.

Mike Rutter has been promoted to vice president marketing and sales. He was previously Hoover’s marketing director for the major ap-pliance product sector. Rutter has been taking on European responsibility since Hoover Europe president Gerald Kamman joined in 1993 with a brief to expand pan-European operations.

Rutter will still have to deal with the legacy of the 1993 free flights promotion, although he was not part of the team that conceived it. The promotion has already cost Hoover 48m and costs could go higher. This week a Merseyside judge threw out the company’s application to stop a mass legal action by 127 people. The claimants want between 4,000 and 5,000 compensation.

Hoover’s current promotion is less ambitious. A series of press ads offer customers 20 cash back on new purchases.