Tesco won’t be BBH’s 'cash cow' says CMO as she outlines why clients need strategically risky relationships with their agencies
Tesco’s new top marketer has said agencies working on a brand is a strategic risk but argues that it's needed to make sure clients get the best creative execution.
Group brand director Michelle McEttrick has shed light on Tesco's advertising ties for the first time since its £110m ad account was unceremoniously shifted from Wieden+Kennedy to BBH without a pitch in January, saying she believes agencies working on a brand is a “strategic risk."
McEttrick has been in the role three months, joining shortly after the agency shake-up. However, she is more than familiar with the inner workings of BBH, having spent several years at the agency most recently as business director.
Speaking at an Oystercatchers event in London last night (8 September) on how she manages agency relationships, McEttrick said Tesco’s intention is to become either the largest part of an agency's business or the account that “everyone wants to work on” so that if it leaves “the best people don’t want to be there either”.
“You need to quickly get yourself out of cash-cow status and into representing an equal strategic risk to the agency,” she explained. “You need to make sure your size presents a risk to their business. When it’s a strategic risk for both sides, that’s when you get the best work out of agencies.”
As such, she has set up a tight team across BBH, Rubicon [PR agency] and Mediacom [media agency] and will bring in specialists as required.
“Marketing is not the solution to building trust”
The ailing supermarket hired the trio of agencies to help the turnaround of its reputation following the £250m accounting scandal which saw several senior execs dismissed coupled with a falling marketshare sparked by the increasing popularity of discount supermarkets Lidl and Aldi.
Since then, the industry and analysts have been waiting for the campaign that will reposition the brand, though adverts so far have continued to focus on price cuts. It appears everyone will be kept waiting, with McEttrick revealing that for the time being its agencies will not be focused on rebuilding the trust.
She said it's “a big issue for Tesco” that has to be dealt with from the inside out.
“When I think about where you start [rebuilding trust] it’s not with marketing. It’s with an inside out approach to rebuilding your brand; especially when you have 320,000 colleagues in the UK. Dave Lewis [Tesco’s chief executive] famously says you can’t advertise your way out of problems you behaved your way into and I agree.”
McEttrick is well versed in reestablishing trust with staff and customers. She spent five years at Barclays as brand director where she developed and launched ‘Barclays Values’ in the wake of the damming Libor crisis.