Gumtree restructures marketing team amid wider eBay streamlining
Ebay-owned Gumtree.com has restructured its marketing team which has seen the head of brand and communications role scrapped completely, a move that comes against redundancies being made elsewhere across the wider eBay Group.
Sam Diamond held the now defunct role for the past three years, briefly stepping up to become interim head of marketing for six months in October 2013 following the exit of Hamish Stone. He returned to the positon when Hannah Wilson joined as head of marketing last March.
The marketing operations at Gumtree.com has now been streamlined, The Drum understands, while some of Diamond’s more senior responsibilities, which could include everything from above-the-line (ATL) advertising, to media buying, and brand strategy, will now fall under Wilson’s remit while a junior campaign manager will likely handle PR, social media and customer communications.
Diamond is expected to leave the business in the coming weeks, despite Gumtree having last week launched an ATL campaign comprising TV, out of home, radio, social and digital. It was the latest phase in an effort to drive brand awareness, which also saw the brand sponsor Channel 5’s Celebrity Big Brother.
The change comes as 2,400 ongoing redundancies are made across the eBay Group globally, first revealed in January, as the business gears up to spin off its online payment service PayPal in the second half of the year.
Redundancies are expected to be spread across the board at its eBay Marketplaces, PayPal and eBay Enterprise divisions.
The Drum understands 40 redundancies were recently made at its UK headquarters in Richmond, Surrey.
In a statement to The Drum, eBay declined to go into detail about the UK redundancies. It said: "As we confirmed in our 4th quarter 2014 earnings, we plan to reduce our workforce globally by 2,400 roles or 7 per cent across eBay Marketplaces, PayPal and eBay Enterprise."