Barclaycard names Whitton marketing chief
Barclaycard has named former British Airways and American Express marketer Katherine Whitton as its UK marketing director.
She will work alongside Gary Twelvetree who retains responsibility for Barclaycard’s brand, sponsorship and advertising activities globally and report to jointly to Amer Sajed, chief executive of Barclaycard UK and Barclays’ chief marketing officer Elizabeth Chambers.
The appointment comes as the credit card firm undergoes a shift in its sponsorship strategy towards music this year in a bid to engage with customers.
It recently launched music Barclaycardunwind.com and signed a four-year deal earlier this year to replace Nationwide as sponsor of the Mercury Prize.
Whitton left her job as head of marketing communications at BA last October after only 15 months in the role. She was understood to be one of 450 employees from the senior management team to take voluntary redundancy.
She was credited with last summer’s “T5 is working” campaign launched in the wake of the terminal’s disastrous opening last March. Whitton joined the carrier from American Express in October 2007.
The credit card company announced last month that its iPhone application based on last year’s “Waterslide” ad has been downloaded more than 3m times.
The game was launched in June to coincide with a rerun of the TV ad, which shows a man travelling through a city on a waterslide.
