THIS WEEK: JS reviews its store strategy

Sainsbury’s marketing director Kevin McCarten has launched a shake-up to

explore how individual Sainsbury’s stores can market themselves more

effectively.

McCarten has also called in IDV’s director of market research, Phil

Robinson, to be his new director of marketing services to boost

Sainsbury’s FMCG expertise.

Robinson, who has worked in a variety of marketing posts at Mars, Sara

Lee and Procter & Gamble, will bring his FMCG experience to bear on a

marketing department that is heavily weighted towards retail.

‘What I want is good consumer goods expertise in order to give our

traders a sound understanding of what our customer wants,’ said

McCarten. ‘Phil brings us 23 years of unadulterated consumer goods

marketing.’

Robinson, who starts at BMW on August 19, will replace John Renshaw who

has moved to a newly-created role at the same level - director of

location marketing.

Through a combination of areas such as store layout, range of produce,

and customer purchasing patterns through the Reward Card, Renshaw will

be able to assess the strengths and weaknesses of each of Sainsbury’s

365 stores and act upon it with a variety of marketing initiatives.

‘What we are talking about is taking each store as a microcosm and

treating it as a separate business,’ said McCarten.

Further changes are expected in the coming months but the company is

unwilling to release more details.

Since joining in December, McCarten has initiated a number of

strategies, including the Reward Card, and corrected the balance of

products towards premium brands.

This article was first published on Marketing