Iceland hires home-shopping chief

Iceland, part of The Big Food Group, has appointed a new marketing chief for its home-shopping division.

Lee Pinnington joins as head of home-shopping marketing from the Reality Group, where he was a consultant working in the development of clients’ customer relationship strategies. He has worked in a similar field for Sainsbury’s, GUS Home Shopping and credit card company MBNA.

Pinnington replaces Gerry Bagnall, who left Iceland in March to set up his own business (MW March 7).

Pinnington will be responsible for all aspects of marketing to customers and will be expected to introduce new initiatives to capture a larger share of the home-shopping market.

He will report to Iceland home-shopping managing director Jon Grey, who says: “We have plans to serve our customers better both online and through the range of products we offer. Lee brings great experience in building successful customer relations.”

Iceland’s national home-shopping service is available over the Internet; through interactive TV on NTL and Telewest Broadband; and over the telephone.

The retailer is also conducting a trial of a service called ISeeTV, which allows shoppers to speak to an operator over the telephone while watching pictures of product ranges on their TV. It is testing an extension of its home-shopping product range, from 3,000 items to 9,000, in Birmingham and Chester.