Adrian Mooney is Global Marketing Director for Digital at Britvic plc. He has won numerous awards for creativity and effectiveness, including in a previous role as Sauces Marketing Director at Heinz, and he managed Tata’s drinks portfolio across EMEA.
Mooney, along with Britvic CMO Matt Barwell, will be speaking at the Festival of Marketing 2019. We caught up with him to find out what his typical day looks like.
Please describe your job: What do you do?
Adrian Mooney: My background is as a marketing director for classic icon brands such as Heinz Ketchup and Tetley Tea. However, I’ve recently worked on more disruptive digital roles with PepsiCo and have founded and run an exercise start-up. So my role as Global Category Director at Britvic plc allows me to demonstrate a unique blend of both.
Firstly, I head up Marketing for Energy Drinks for Britvic – and we are just repositioning Purdey’s with its first TV ad for over 25 years with VCCP – which has helped see 35% year on year growth in GB
Secondly, we are raising our game across all brands by setting up a new Digital and PR Consumer Centre of Expertise team for the likes of Robinsons, Tango and J2O, where, I am currently recruiting a team of seven.
Whereabouts do you sit within the organisation? Who do you report to?
Adrian Mooney: I report to the Britvic CMO who sits on the main exec. I work as part of a talented senior marketing team of fellow Category Directors for Kids, Adult and Family brands as well as Marketing Directors for key markets like GB, Ireland and France. We work together to develop capability and prioritise initiatives across innovation and communications in our markets.
What kind of skills do you need to be effective in your role?
Adrian Mooney: This is a key leadership role which requires ability to not only inspire marketeers, but also sales teams, supply chain, finance and partner agencies. I need to be able to analyse insights and performance in order to develop a vision and strategy that works in multiple markets.
The role brings me into close contact with the board who offer robust challenges over brand positioning and development that require resilience and agility in managing. My career began in innovation and our CEO has an enormous amount of passion over where we go next, with targets for turnover from new ventures a key metric. On a coaching level, you are only as good as your team, so I really enjoy listening and helping enable their skills.
Tell us about a typical working day…
Adrian Mooney: I really love the variety of what any day can bring! It could be a meeting with agencies on latest TV ad production, reviewing research for a new market entry, talking to sales teams about e-com strategy on Ocado or contributing to an innovation review meeting. We have a culture which supports flexible working and besides being face to face in Hemel’ head office, meetings could be in London agencies, at a factory in Rugby or Chester or through Skype or over the phone.
What do you love about your job? What sucks?
Adrian Mooney: There is real pace and agility at Britvic. An idea you may have does not get lost in the machine, as we can move quicker than other businesses of our size. We are also incubating small brands like Aqua Libra and LEC which promote more start-up thinking. Every day is a chance to build on an opportunity or solve a problem in reaching new consumers.
Like many businesses, we suffer from poor meeting culture and its easier to set up a meeting than picking up the phone or walking over to talk. That grabs time from other more value-add activities in trying to scale and grow our brands.
What kind of goals do you have? What are the most useful metrics and KPIs for measuring success?
Adrian Mooney: We use a number of external and internal metrics to measure our performance. For consumers we measure awareness, engagement and consideration across our brands, messaging and channels. In market, we look at market share across channels and customers and internally our budgeted profit targets are measured monthly.
What are your favourite tools to help you to get the job done?
Adrian Mooney: Regular 1:1s with teams to see how they are doing and how they are feeling are unbeatable.
How did you end up at Britvic, and where might you go from here?
Adrian Mooney: I was asked to come in to accelerate progress with Energy Drinks, and besides the new ad, we are planning a new look and feel to the brand and a pipeline of new variants. The CMO then asked me to take on the set up of the digital function.
I am really lucky to have evolved as a marketer – I feel I have a unique combination of running blue chip global brands with big budgets versus having to be agile and entrepreneurial in smaller businesses. I feel that these skills would be valuable to most consumer goods or D2C brands looking to grow their brands through digital and brand building.
Which campaigns have impressed you lately?
Adrian Mooney: I really love the work that my colleagues on Tango have run recently with Tanguru as it harks back to the sense of mischief at the core of the brand and You’ve Been Tangoed in the 1990s. Its creating great traction for the brand also!
As a Liverpool FC fan, I do quite like the Nivea ads with the players and Jurgen Klopp, although the last execution has maybe lost a little of its charm. I would love to know how the brand has benefitted.
What advice would you give a marketer starting out in 2019?
Adrian Mooney:
- You shouldn’t be afraid to be brave – as there really are no experts
- Don’t be shy and do ask questions – as you could help find a better answer
- Prepare for how you would like to show up in meetings – prepare questions, give yourself a target for how often you speak
- Think about how you would like to be remembered when you have left and plan for that