NO.7 MARKETING DIRECTOR: IF YOU LET THE BRAND MARKETING SLIDE IT TAKES 3 TIMES THE INVESTMENT TO GET THE BRAND BACK TO WHERE IT WAS

In this week's Little Grey Cells interview, No.7 Marketing Director, Richard Bowden, discusses the value of balancing mass-marketing and sales activations, his passion for re-igniting brands, and how his fascination about ‘what makes people tick’ has ultimately taught him more about himself.

Little Grey Cells: You’ve had a impressive career moving from agency to client-side. Please share your journey to No.7.

Richard Bowden:?I'm going to start at College because I'm a bit of a frustrated creative. I can't draw for toffee but I was into the world of design. I also loved adverts. I grew up in the 1980s, with super-memorable ads by the likes of British Airways and Guinness. I was taken in by this world and it looked like a lot of fun as well.?

I was also interested in what makes people tick as well and I believe that came from moving around as a child. I moved from living with my mum to living with my dad, I changed schools and I was just fascinated what drives people to think and act how they did how they did.

I saw that marketing combined both those areas, so I post college I began working agency side: I joined a tiny agency one summer holidays. I banged on their door to say ‘please let me work for you for free’. And they obliged. So I started off at?Dynamo Marketing?a beautiful agency, and I learned my craft - working with wonderful brands like Coca Cola and Birdseye -??I absolutely loved it.?

Next, still agency-side, I joined an agency called Tequila?which was?part?of TBWA. I moved to Australia, working for BBDO, and then moved to the media side, working for a radio company, and got a great understanding of media ownership and learned how to sell media inventory.

I flew back to the UK and ‘crossed over’ to what they call client-side. If I am really honest, I wanted more control and ownership of the marketing plan. My goal was to become a Chief Marketing Officer. I loved the idea of creating a marketing plan and building brands. I joined British Airways (BA) and was able to combine my love of digital and data that I had learned in my time at creative agencies.?

At BA I worked with a fantastic team that launched the BA?mobile app, and then was engaged on on relaunching the brand with a?Abi Comber as part of the Global marketing team.?She is an amazing CMO. I learned all about brand building from her. We reignited the BA brand, sponsoring the London 2012 Olympics all under our strap-line ‘to fly to serve’.

Next, I worked for Unilever and I fell in love with the beauty industry. I found it allowed me to focus on?emotional engagement?- but also you could be super effective. In beauty we solve real problems that our customers see in the mirror. I had returned to ‘younger me’, loving artistry and art and design and understanding what makes people tick. Beauty for me combines those two passion areas.?

Here I learned how to run digital marketing hubs for Unilever and worked with some amazing brands. Next I settled at No.7, which also has its own iconic brands. No.7 cosmetics and skincare is an absolute behemoth of a brand that consumers want to us to build greater emotional connection and love, underpinned by groundbreaking science at an affordable price. My mission is to re-engage customers with the No.7 brand and the other brands in the No.7 portfolio: Soap and Glory and Liz Earle.?

I have learned that I'm attracted to?brands?which could be seen as big change projects: where there’s the opportunity to change the way a brand does their marketing or they brand needs help to re-establish smaller brands. From British Airways to No.7 - the mission has been the same: how do you re-establish brands in the hearts and minds of consumers??

LGC: The No.7 brand is almost 90 years old - established in 1935 it is positioned as both premium and yet affordable. How do you square the two in marketing?

RB:?For me it's about perception: when customers go to the shop they need to be surprised by both the offering and the quality of the product. It might be the science behind the product or how effective it is - and then there’s the price. There need to be “wow” moments. We do loads of qualitative and quantitative research to validate this.?

We also invest more in the products: both in the science and the product’s overarching offering versus our competitors - this is hugely?important. The No.7 brand is exclusively sold at Boots stores which gives us scope to explore this and deliver that “wow” moment.