P&O Cruises and Cunard Line recruit marketers
P&O Cruises has recruited Chris Edgington, previously commercial director at Coral, to take the newly created role of marketing director.
Senior director of global communications for Tripadvisor Angus Struthers joins sister cruise brand Cunard in the same role.
The appointments are part of a management restructure initiated by chief commercial director for Carnival UK Gerard Tempest. Earlier this month P&O Cruises managing director Carol Marlow left the company. Both marketers take up duties from the end of August.
Tempest was brought in with a remit to overhaul digital sales, distribution and marketing operations at the cruise lines.
He has also named Jeremy Tait, currently director of proposition development and insight for Direct Line, as insight director covering both P&O Cruises and Cunard Line.
Tempest says: “These three key senior appointments will help us to evolve and strengthen our brands and customer experiences still further. Their proven blue chip backgrounds within marketing and communications will bring new focus, creativity and insight to our leadership team.
“Cunard Line and P&O Cruises are brands which have shaped British cruising over the last 175 years and are amongst the most famous cruise brands in the world. We have a unique heritage to preserve, while at the same time we need to ensure we are instrumental in developing the future of British cruising. We want strongly appealing and highly differentiated brands, without compromising their core values.”
Edgington was responsible for a £15m budget for marketing, sponsorship, broadcast, PR, insight and internal communications at the Gala Coral Group. He has previously worked at McDonald’s, Disney and William Hill.
Tait’s achievements include the creation of branded proposition strategies and delivering two new propositions: the Green Flag “one-hour promise” and the multi-product Direct Line “together” proposition that starts to reward customers for engaging with the brand. Struthers is a former Virgin Atlantic marketer and at Tripadvisor is credited with building an international team across Europe and Asia and developed an overarching global PR strategy.
P&O Cruises came under fire from customers this week for its price promise on early cruise bookings via its Vantage fare. The company says the price promise did not include its budget Getaway fares.
