Adnams Brewery appoints tennis chief as marketing head

Adnams Brewery has poached LTA marketing director Steve Curzon to lead its marketing team.

Curzon, who will hold the newly created position of head of marketing at Adnams, will start at the beginning of February. He will report to Andy Wood, who was moved from sales director to marketing director earlier this year (MW March 27, 2003).

In his four years with tennis’s governing body LTA, Curzon helped to transform it into a more commercially driven organisation. He has revamped and expanded the marketing team, and relaunched the LTA brand, involving changing its name from the Lawn Tennis Association, to attract new sponsors (MW July 31, 2003).Curzon also signed key sponsorship deals for the LTA, such as that with Procter & Gamble’s Ariel brand in 2001 and Barclays Capital last month (MW December 18, 2003).

Curzon says his decision to move was spurred by a desire to return to commercial marketing. Prior to the LTA, Curzon held various posts at Nestlé, including marketing manager for Sun-Pat peanut butter.

Curzon will be asked to create a marketing strategy for the Suffolk-based brewer, which launched its first national advertising campaign last summer through Campbell Doyle Dye.

CDD beat Soul, WCRS and Fox Murphy to the £1m account at the beginning of 2003. Adnams sells a range of beers and operates a chain of 84 pubs across East Anglia.