Subway promotes UK marketer to top European role

Subway has promoted its UK and Ireland marketing chief Manaaz Akhtar to the newly created role of regional marketing director for Europe as it plans to pick up the pace of openings across the area.

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Subway is to accelerate the number of stores it opens across Europe.

Akhtar is responsible for putting in place a pan-European marketing strategy that is in line with Subway’s global positioning, which currently pushes the health benefits of its products and targets families.

She will work with local marketing teams on various events throughout the year such as promotional tie-ins as well as bolstering its customer insights offering. Akhtar will also look at how the brand’s products and media planning can be tied closer to shifting consumer demands. Upcoming activity will support the company’s plans to launch as many as 1,000 new locations across Europe next year. The sandwich shop operator, which has more outlets than McDonald’s, currently has around 4,000 stores in the region and has marked the UK as the best area for growth.

As head of marketing for the UK and Ireland, Akhtar is credited with developing the “Subway Lunch” promotion, which it claims helped it gain share in the lunchtime market. She is also said to have devised the brand’s latest push into the breakfast category.

Akhtar will continue to manage UK and Ireland marketing until her replacement is hired and trained.

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