Aegon marketers face restructure

Life insurance and pensions company Aegon is axing 11 positions in its life and pensions marketing department.

The company says it hopes the majority of cuts will be voluntary redundancies or that staff may be redeployed elsewhere in the Edinburgh-based group.

The restructure follows the appointment of Andy Marchant as life and pensions marketing director in October and will also involve the creation of four senior management roles.

The new roles include head of individual marketing and head of corporate marketing. The head of individual marketing will concentrate on consumer-facing plans and the corporate role will target those who make intermediary decisions. It is thought Aegon will recruit externally for these roles.

The company is also to create two roles that concentrate on specific marketing disciplines, ecommerce and planning. The company hopes all the appointments will be made before the end of April.

Last year, Aegon said it planned to increase its marketing spend to more than £10m, in a bid to raise its profile and to compete more aggressively with rivals Axa, Aviva and Standard Life.

In September, the company signed a deal with British Tennis, the Lawn Tennis Association’s flagship sponsorship property, and appointed Edinburgh-based Leith, as its first lead advertising agency.