Asda appoints marketing director amid restructure
Asda has appointed Chris McDonough, former Molson Coors managing director and Muller marketer as marketing director as part of a restructure of its marketing team.
McDonough joined earlier this month and will lead the overall marketing strategy, activity planning, communication planning and creative and execution divisions alongside the insight, pricing and data teams.
Asda CMO Steve Smith told Marketing Week: “I wanted someone with a CPG (consumer packaged goods) background as we needed someone with the idealism of brand thinking and where we want to go as a brand, but also the ability to move fast and react quickly.”
At Molson Coors, McDonough was responsible for the development of brewer’s global Brands and Innovation programme. He joined the brewer as marketing director in 2010.
At Muller, he was marketing director and general manger of the Ireland business.
McDonough will report to Smith, who joined a year ago from parent company Wal-Mart’s China business. Since joining Smith has set in motion a restructure of the supermarket’s marketing division to bring the in-store marketing, advertising, insight and pricing teams closer together in an attempt to ensure more joined up thinking internally.
He has also introduced a new planning and strategy function to improve the marketing division’s front-end processes.
Smith says: “We need to be better at planning and strategy as I’m a big believer that the more you plan, oddly, the more flexible you can be and retail needs to be flexible and react to market pressures.”
