T-Mobile axes head of advertising and sponsorship role

Taylor, who joined T-Mobile in 2002 from IBM, took redundancy as part of the restructure overseen by new chief marketing officer Srini Gopalan. He does not have a job to go to.

Taylor told Marketing Week: “A change of direction at T-Mobile UK saw marketing move towards a more strategic sales culture. With that in mind, the senior advertising role has been removed.”

Taylor was part of the team responsible for overseeing the development of the company’s “Dance” and “Sing” brand campaigns that helped to broaden T-Mobile UK’s profile in 2009.

However, these campaigns might not fit in with a possible change in direction when the proposed merger between Orange and T-Mobile UK comes into effect next year. There is speculation over whether both brands will survive if the merger is approved.

“The campaigns last year were about building the brand and showing how mobile can benefit life through sharing. But T-Mobile might be Orange within a year so the marketing could well be sales-led as opposed to brand-led,” says Taylor.

However, Gopalan said in December last year that the brand will “continue pushing and building the T-Mobile brand in terms of its emotional and rational value” and last week it launched the latest phase of its “Life’s for Sharing” campaign.

T-Mobile was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.