Schweppes rejig hits minor lines

Schweppes Europe has embarked on a major management reorganisation designed to give more power to the company’s headquarters and increase its focus on the Schweppes, Dr Pepper and Crush brands.

The plans leave a question mark over future marketing spend for brands such as Sunkist, Canada Dry, Gini and Oasis.

According to sources, the shake-up, which will also affect the African, Indian and the Middle-East markets, has been instigated by the division’s new president Doug Tough in an attempt to recover lost market and volume share.

He wants to reduce the influence of local national management to put an end to conflict between the regions and the Watford head office.

There was no one available at Cadbury Schweppes to comment, but Marketing Week understands that Dominic Lowe, vice-president of marketing, will assume more control within the new structure, with regional marketing teams and their heads reporting directly to him.

Kevin Pratt, formerly commercial director and general manager, becomes managing director of Great Britain and Ireland.

Chris Van Steenbergen, the former head of Schweppes France, has been promoted to vice-president of commercial services, in charge of consumer marketing, customer sales development and product and packaging development. While Matthew Litobarski, the former vice-president of franchises in Europe, becomes managing director of the European bottling operations with a brief to increase efficiency.

The restructure follows the decision by Schweppes Europe to hand Saatchi & Saatchi its $20m (12.5m) pan-European advertising account to raise the profile of the Schweppes name (MW November 1 1996).