Co-op to ramp up digital communities

The Co-Operative Group is looking to ramp up its use of digital and emerging channels across its businesses as part of a strategy to focus on its community values in marketing.

Co-op

The group is looking to appoint a head of digital, the last of a raft of senior marketing roles created by group marketing director Gill Barr. Barr joined The Co-op a year ago tasked with unifying marketing across the group’s diverse business divisions such as food, banking and travel.

Speaking to Marketing Week, Barr admitted that The Co-op is not as active in digital channels as it could be, particularly in line with its focus on community.

“If you think about community, virtual and real communities are clearly close bedfellows and we can be much more participative in that,” she says.

The Co-op also believes that as it becomes increasingly sophisticated in its use of digital channels, they will become more useful as part of co-creation, crowdsourcing and building a dialogue with members and customers.

The Co-op is also set to name a head of brand who will be responsible for the brand on a strategic level across the group.

It previously named Neil Carden as head of insight and created a head of strategy and planning role, both of which are responsible for the group as a whole, as part of its efforts to raise awareness of the smaller businesses within the group.

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