Morrisons recruits Vision 100 marketer Mike Hoban

Hoban, who is listed in Marketing Week’s inaugural Vision 100 cohort of marketers, takes the title brand and communications director. He takes responsibility for brand identity and external marketing and reports to Nick Collard, Morrisons group marketing and customer director.

He has experience in many sectors including financial and retail with time at Scottish Widows, Barclaycard and British Airways. At Thomas Cook he focused on developing the customer experience and distribution platforms and oversaw the roll out of the new global brand identity into the UK. Thomas Cook lifted the Best Customer Experience trophy, sponsored by Quadrangle, at the Marketing Week Engage Awards last month.

Hoban left the travel company a few weeks earlier when it restructured to a more centralised marketing operation.

Morrisons is facing a number of challenges to growth, including the rise of the discounter, the trend to home delivery and the drive to smaller convenience store formats from its supermarket rivals.

It has just launched a test of its own home delivery proposition in North London in partnership with Ocado. The managing director of Morrisons.com is former Honda and Apple marketer Simon Thompson.

It is also testing its new Shine loyalty programme, which rewards customers’ fresh food purchases. The supermarket is hoping the launch of that scheme, alongside its “Love it Cheaper” price cuts marketing strategy will help turnaround its sales decline.

Like for like sales in the quarter to 4 May slumped by 7.1 per cent, an increase on 5.6 drop it experienced over Christmas.