Morrisons appoints Pru man as first board-level marketer

MorrisonsMorrisons has appointed Angus McIver, the UK marketing director at Prudential, to it first board-level marketing role. The position was created earlier this year to lead the retailer’s £450m brand makeover.

The supermarket group’s marketing services director, Michael Bates – currently the company’s top marketer – will report to McIver when he starts at the Bradford-based grocer later in the year.

McIver, who was previously director of insurance, was promoted to the top marketing role at Prudential in April following the departure of Alison Wright, who left to join rival Citigroup when it acquired Prudential-owned brand Egg.

McIver joined Prudential in February 2003 from PepsiCo-owned Walkers Snacks, where he was vice-president of customer insight.

Morrisons chief executive Marc Bolland had initially created the board-level marketing position to spearhead an overhaul of the brand, but the rebrand has already launched. The retailer recently unveiled an advertising campaign featuring actress and television presenter Denise Van Outen. The ads have been created by Delaney Lund Knox Warren (DLKW), which won the £30m account last year.

As part of the revamp the company has replaced its 30-year-old “More Reasons to Shop at Morrisons” strapline with “Fresh Choice For You” and has developed a new strategy based around freshness, service and value.

The new strategy has already run into some problems after the supermarket became embroiled in an E.coli outbreak in August linked to two of its stores in Scotland.

An investigation into the source and cause of the outbreak is still going on.