Colin Downing
Interim Marketing Director
Located in Cheshire operating UK-wide and internationally
07971 561278 colin@marketingdonewell.com
Summary
Board level interim marketing director with extensive UK and international experience in FMCG, Retail,
Travel, Leisure, Hospitality, Financial Services, Public Sector and Business Services gained both agency and
client-side.
Key areas of experience:
 Interim marketing, change management and business turnaround
 Multi-national, PLC, SME, family run, VC and PE backed businesses
 Branding and awareness building; Destination and guerrilla marketing; Digital marketing including
website build & design, App marketing and Mobile, UX, SEM, SEO, PPC and social media; eCRM
including personalisation technology; PR; Above the Line including broadcast, print and out of home;
Internal comms; Sponsorship; Sales Promotion; NPD and Product Management; Procurement; Direct
Response marketing; Venue hire, event and attraction ticket sales; Sales promotion; JVs and reciprocal
partnerships
 Management of small and large teams including multi-site and matrix management
 Six Sigma and project management
 Strategic, tactical, commercial, hands-on and creative marketeer with strong record of delivery to tight
deadlines who brings a fresh pair of eyes
Interim career 2007 to Date:
 Marketing Director – Riviera Travel
 Director of Global Marketing – The Late Rooms Group
 Commercial Director – Chelmsford City Council
 Sales & Marketing Director – Chill Factorᵉ
 Group Promotions Director – Merlin Entertainments
 E-Commerce Project Director – Goodwood Estates
 Sales & Marketing Director – LEGOLAND Windsor Resort
 UK Group Marketing Director – Randstad
 Online Marketing Director – Argos
 Group Marketing Director – Ralph Trustees Hotels
 NPD Consultant – Allianz Insurance
 Marketing Director – Allianz Insurance
Permanent career summary 1979 to 2006:
 Head of Marketing – Littlewoods Shop Direct Financial Services
 Marketing Director – MyTravel
 Director – JWT, Saatchi & Saatchi, Carat
Marketing Week’s Vision 100 for 2015 - Chosen to be a member of this prestigious group:
“This is a group of the 100 most visionary client-side marketers operating in the UK right now, who control
billions of ad spend between them. We picked our list based on criteria including innovation, track record of
success and influence within the marketing industry and beyond.”
Russell Parsons, Editor, Marketing Week
For examples of my interim work and client testimonials visit my website MarketingDoneWell.com
Independent interim management and consultancy career
Interim Marketing Director, Riviera Travel
May 2015 to November 2015
The UK’s largest world-wide escorted tour operator and river cruise holiday specialist. A business built
around national press white label reader offers, that following acquisition by PE house Phoenix Equity
Partners wanted to double its sales to £200m+ by expanding into the direct to customer market. Key tasks
for this assignment were:
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Supported senior team in cultural transition from a whitelabel business to a direct marketing
centric organisation. Leading the thought process to a trading focused direct marketing business.
Identified other business areas that needed to be part of the change programme – notably in the
Finance (planning, data structure and MI) and IT areas.
Took ownership of a number embryonic key marketing enablement projects. Accelerating them to
delivery, adding value and bring them together via a joined up project plan mapping out
deliverables and interdependencies.
Implemented new CRM database, full analytics package, contact strategy and email programme –
doubled sales from weekly newsletter and pushed live very successful abandoned search/basket
trigger emails.
Digital – Led design and delivery for new website. Re-structured and updated SEO account and
drove 3x PPC improvement. Created display test campaign and very profitable retargeting
programme.
Collaboratively evolved the brochure designs bring them up to date and increasing response rates
by 2x for River Cruise.
Devised foundations for the Riviera Travel brand and rolled out internally.
Brought on board new creative and media partners to plan out direct marketing acquisition
programmes for 2016.
Interim Director of Global Marketing, The Late Rooms Group
March 2014 to March 2015
TUI owned, market leading online travel pure play that operated three core businesses in Europe, Asia and
South America. A hands on commercial role in a very competitive market directly managing teams in UK
and Singapore plus providing best practice guidance to Brazil. Brought in to reposition the brand and
rebuild the marketing function.
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Protected and reversed a declining sales position – stabilised and increased by 15%
Lead the marketing stream as part of wider business change programme - Restructuring, recruiting and
on boarding new senior team. Winning back marketing’s self-respect and that of the wider business.
Shifted the focus from an unsustainable acquisition model by supporting the building out of CRM and
data marketing, plus appointment of new CRM provider – Increased weekly email bookings by 40%+.
Re-positioned the brand, creative and tone of voice – Defined a clear winning value add position,
delivered via realignment of in-house design team to produce new and exciting creative. Built out a
family of sub-brands to exploit niche segments notably Secret Rooms, LateLates and LateHolidays.
Additionally, delivering an exciting commercial partnership with Secret Escapes - LateLuxury.com significantly adding to the P&L.
Delivered 2014 ATL brand campaign – Devised innovative outdoor campaign across London
Underground and key UK cities which saw x3 increase in key metrics.
Integrated marketing – Changed silo channel mentality bringing together annual £20m+ spend, built
out theme led integrated cross-channel campaign planning, optimised channel mix and established
holistic end-to-end programmatic campaigns built around new personalisation and on-site
merchandising technology. Saw on-site conversion rates increase by 5% to 10% in key areas.
Defined content strategy – Brought together the SEO, Social Media, PR and Editorial Teams to fully
optimise and integrate activities driving content relevance, shareability, amplification and SEO equity.
Helped lead scaling of innovative social media Surprise & Delight strategy. Additionally, created multilayered content strategy deliverable at the individual county level across key markets in Europe, USA,
Brazil and Asia.
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Mobile App downloads – Ran App marketing and ASO campaigns across the UK, Singapore, Australia
and Malaysia markets that delivered over 750,000 downloads.
Interim Commercial Director, Chelmsford City Council
October 2013 to March 2014
With costs ever increasing and tax revenues remaining flat this forward thinking authority wanted to find
new profitable income streams to supplement their annual budget. Working with their Cabinet Members
and Directorate I devised three initiatives worth over £500k pa taking them from concept to delivery. These
were driven out of their corporate & wedding venue hire businesses and festivals programme by
restructuring the pricing, capacity planning, sales and marketing strategies. Key enablers to this programme
being my recommendation and hiring of a CMO, additional sales support, new/refreshed brands and
creation of five new web microsites sites.
Interim Sales & Marketing Director, Chill Factorᵉ
May 2013 to August 2013
With some 1.4m visitors each year, it is stand-alone destination attraction with a breadth of retail outlets,
bar and restaurant offerings plus an indoor ski centre with real snow. Working closely with the CEO and
management team key achievements in this business turnaround assignment were:
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Redirected strategy to launch a new attraction based Snow Park alongside the core skiing activities.
Devised the customer value proposition, marketing and PR plan. Via strong creative awareness building
marketing sales exceeded budget and the halo effect meant the rest of the business also over
delivered.
Changed the marketing approach from discount and deal focused to excitement and fun centric. By reengaging with the customers this produced an immediate effect - improved the open rate for the
weekly eNewsletter by 16% and reduced the home page bounce rate by 5%.
De-cluttered the offering making it simple and easy to communicate and re-launched the website - all
of which significantly improved sales.
Devised and delivered successful short term tactical campaigns and promotions that were key to
trading the business through the challenging off-peak summer period.
Provided clear strategic direction and project planning for the future development of the website and
ecommerce capability.
Realigned the marketing team roles & responsibilities. Shortlisted applicants and set up an assessment
centre day for the recruitment of a Sales & Marketing Director.
Interim Group Promotions Director, Merlin Entertainments
November 2012 To March 2013
Europe’s leading and the world’s second largest visitor attraction operator. Merlin operate 74 attractions in
17 countries across four continents. Sunday Times ‘Britain’s Best Brand’ 2013 winner.
Sourcing commercial partnerships, delivering joint sponsorship and sales promotion campaigns with blue
chip brands – Kellogg’s, Sky TV, News International, Nestle, Unilever, United Biscuits, Pizza Hut, Tesco and
Sainsbury’s to name a few – these promotions are a key driver of Merlin’s annual £1bn ticket sales. Key
deliverables were:
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Manage and maintain continuity with the team during a key time of year ensuring delivery of 2013 plan
Work with partner brand teams to develop compelling customer campaigns
Develop new group partnership opportunities and closely support the individual attractions with
delivery of their solus promotional plans
E-Commerce Project Director, Goodwood Estates
February 2012 to September 2012
An iconic luxury brand that is a family owned. It plays host to some of the county’s headline sporting events
– Glorious Goodwood, Goodwood Festival of Speed and Goodwood Revival.
Led the delivery team for an new online social media publishing venture that became Goodwood Road &
Racing – designed to leverage Goodwood’s unique position as a trusted authority in the world of motoring.
Key deliverables were:
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Created a compelling brand and editorial proposition that fully leverages the Goodwood heritage.
Took the project from outline conception to delivery in a demanding 20 week timetable.
Project management within a complex multi-supplier and stakeholder environment
Lead the design for the UX, functionality and page templates of the website.
Content creation - devised the editorial strategy, recruited and managed the editorial team
Defined commercial sales strategy and sourced 3rd party web sales team.
Delivered an engaging marketing and social media plan for the launch of the site.
Created the CRM strategy, set objectives and implemented.
Interim Sales & Marketing Director, LEGOLAND Windsor
July 2011 to January 2012
Premier UK visitor attraction with some 2 million visitors each year. There are six LEGOLAND theme parks
around the world.
This was a challenging business turnaround assignment. The senior marketing team had exited the business
and the department was in a state of considerable distress. Following the unsuccessful launch of a major
new ride, the business was under performing and about to enter a key trading period without any clear
marketing direction. In addition a new fully LEGO themed hotel was due to open with no sales & marketing
plan in place. Key achievements were:
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Stabilised the team, created and implemented a successful multi-channel resort sales & marketing plan
including TV, press, radio, PPC, SEO, social media and PR. Additionally, ran successful tactical ticket
pricing promotional campaigns. Improved sales and beat previous years EBITDA.
LEGO Hotel – Devised the global branding and customer experience proposition. Delivered local pricing
and marketing strategies. The opening exceeded all expectations and is now the blue print for the
global hotel roll out programme.
The new hotel was a key enabler for the transition from a theme park to resort property. Successfully
provided the brand and customer experience realignment that was needed.
Worked closely with external IP partners in the licenced usage of their brands, creating content for
multi-media campaigns and collateral accordingly. Specifically with the LEGO brand and product teams,
Lucas Films for the launch of a new Star Wars Miniland and Warner Bros for a Scooby Doo themed
fireworks event.
Implemented improvements to the CRM strategy and activities for the annual pass holder database
through improved clarity of the proposition, offer and better targeting.
Represented LEGOLAND Windsor at and as an active member of the global LEGOLAND Sales &
Marketing Directors forums to share best practice and the close co-ordination of activities.
Re-launched the LEGOLAND Windsor website improving the content, structure and UX flow of the site.
Interim UK Group Marketing Director, Randstad UK Holding Ltd
February 2010 to April 2011
Global recruitment agency and HR provider, with sales of €15bn and employing some 28,000 staff. The task
was to turn the £1bn UK business that operated through some 24 separately branded and managed
companies into one mono branded and run entity. A classic large scale business change programme and
key deliverables for marketing were:
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Member of newly formed UK change management board designed to create the target operating
structure and strategy. Led the marketing workstream.
In conjunction with Interbrand defined and launched the UK brand proposition adapting the global
Randstad brand to the UK opportunity and context. Working closely with the OpCo management
teams to define the aggregate customer and brand journey.
Successfully delivered new national multi-million pound media and PR campaign; including the idea for,
delivery and management of what is now an annual event - the takeover of London’s Canary Wharf
with the Williams F1 Team.
Devised an innovative CRM strategy which placed an identified customer need of ‘Thought Leadership’
at its heart. Backed up by our own generated content this delivered some £5m gross profit in 2010.
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Launched www.Randstad.co.uk and today it is the most successful of Randstad’s UK websites. At the
time of launch delivered some 25,000 candidate CVs, 1000 ‘hot client leads’, regularly achieved some
100,000 unique visitors each month and ranking top 3 in Google search.
Mentoring and best practice leadership for the 38 strong community of UK marketeers.
Member of the international marketing board helping to share and co-ordinate best practice across the
40 countries Randstad operate in.
Interim Online Marketing Director, Argos
November 2009 to January 2010
FTSE 250 retailer trading primarily under the Argos and Homebase brands. This interim business
turnaround assignment required marketing solutions for two of their businesses.
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www.ArgosCompare.co.uk - Re-launch of an Argos branded financial services price comparison website
for insurance, savings and loans. Created a clear brand proposition to fully leveraged the Argos brand,
corporate identity, website and launch marketing campaign. Prior to being bought by and integrated
into Google this was a very successful financial services price comparison website. It successfully
competed head-on with the other leading players price comparison websites in the market.
www.argosonline.es – Targeting expats and those with a second home in the Spanish Costas. Argos
Spain is an online only retail venture with strong sales amongst the English speaking community.
Consultancy style project to clarity the offer, brand proposition and website re-launch.
Interim Group Marketing Director, Ralph Trustees Hotels
April 2008 to July 2009
Privately owned luxury hotel group specialising in the high end five star market. The group consists of
Hertfordshire’s The Grove, Piccadilly’s Athenaeum Hotel and Runnymede-on-Thames Hotel & Spa near
Windsor. This business change assignment was to bring to life and deliver a number of group marketing
initiatives, namely,
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Conducted extensive programme of customer research to define the property brand strategies,
customer segmentation strategies and the mapping of customer journeys through the sales, marketing
and reservations process.
Worked closely with each property’s senior management team and staff to implement the strategic
outcomes in respect of the product and service delivery in the operational environment.
Athenaeum Hotel – Realigned the hotel’s brand, marketing, PR and collateral following an extensive
refurbishment. Supported by an innovative marketing campaign to increase average room rates by
20%.
Runnymede-on-Thames Hotel & Spa – Completely re-launched the hotel and its brand following a
major refurbishment of the property. Again supported by an innovative marketing campaign to
increase average room rates by 15%.
Group ecommerce – project managed, designed and implement a customer driven ecommerce
platform that enabled integration of all online and offline activities from web sites to email marketing
to brochures to corporate sales and more for each property – www.thegrove.co.uk,
www.athenaeumhotel.com and www.runnymedehotel.com
Reviewed group marketing partner relationships, realigned as appropriate running completive tenders
and negotiating contracts. Resulting in significant cost savings and added value.
NPD Consultant, Allianz Insurance
November 2007 to March 2008
Part of Allianz Commercial Insurance, Premierline Direct is the leading insurance provider to the SME
market. The company is run on rigorous direct marketing principles and drives new business through a
number of its own web sites, direct mail, outbound telemarketing, directories, data marketing and a direct
sales force.
Following the successful completion of a 9 month interim assignment I was further retained on a
consultancy basis to create and deliver the following marketing led projects:
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New Product Development – By aligning customer and competitor market segmentation with internal
product capabilities identified a number of potential opportunities. Wrote the business case and gained
Board approval to launch two of them - Buy to Let and New Business Start Ups insurance. Successfully
designed the products with Underwriting, defined and built the business model and ran the project
team to deliver them.
Email Marketing – Defined business requirements, designed business process, sourced supplier, ran
tender process and implement functionality.
Providing the client facing marketing support to a number of embryonic white label and outsourcing
affinity opportunities.
Interim Marketing Director, Allianz Insurance
February to October 2007
To drive forward a series of marketing led significant business change initiatives for Premier Line Direct.
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Realignment of marketing strategy and activities to support transition of core operating model from
direct mail/call centre to fully online transactional website.
 Utilised programme of customer focused research and segmentation techniques to deliver an extensive
revision of the brand proposition, CRM strategy and marketing programme.
 Launch of new second tier brand – Cornhill Direct Business – targeting the broker led market.
 Successful re-branding and re-launch of main Premierline Direct brand.
 Launch of new transactional websites fully supported with extensive SEO and PPC marketing, driving
online response up 70% year on year
 Undertake a full review of all offline marketing activities revising as appropriate resulting in significant
cost efficiency.
 Supplier procurement review - resulting in a 15% agency and 17% data supplier annual savings
 Design and implementation of the marketing and sales process for a new B2B Direct Sales Force.
Providing marketing collateral to best support their activities.
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Permanent employment career
Head of Marketing, Littlewoods Shop Direct Group, Financial Services
2002 to 2007
Stand-alone Financial Services business within the group, providing retail credit and insurance products
across the group’s diverse mail order and e-commerce brands. One of the UK’s biggest providers of retail
financial services providers with a credit loan book of some £1.3bn and insurance sales of £160m. Key
functions and achievements were:
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Successful integration of the Littlewoods and GUS financial services marketing in respect of customers,
credit & insurance products, processes and staff. Seamlessly delivering an additional £13m P&L
improvement in insurance sales.
Directly managed a team of 90 staff via 8 direct reports
P&L responsibility for the groups £160m warranty, general and personal lines insurance portfolio.
Consistently delivered growth via NPD and initiatives – resulting in an additional £8.5m sales
contribution for the 2006 financial year.
Developed and managed a detailed CRM programme of highly profitable and successful cross channel
campaigns to a budget £16m. Implemented sophisticated propensity and modelling techniques.
Group credit marketing – provided the retail brand directors and marketeers with clear commercial and
regulatory implementation and strategic guidance.
Launched a new fixed term retail credit product, incorporating IFO and DIFO
Outsourced the previously in house claims functions and then managed the ongoing relationship for an
£80m and £40m book of creditor and electrical warranties.
Marketing Director, MyTravel
2000 to 2002
Formerly Airtours Plc and now part of Thomas Cook, at that time My Travel was one of the largest providers
of air inclusive holidays in the world. My role was principally direct marketing, online and branding which
encompassed a number of specific responsibilities:
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Member of the international change management board that created the strategy for and then
delivered the transition of the group’s global businesses under the new MyTravel umbrella. Specifically
devised and implemented the MyTravel global brand strategy and transition programme within
complex international multi-channel environments.
Airtours Direct – Delivered sales of £250m into the UK call centre operation and instigated a number of
direct marketing and PR initiatives that delivered a 40% (£4m) saving in expenditure but with a net gain
of 25% additional revenue. Increased call conversions by 30% via pricing and strategy initiatives.
Directly managed a team of 50 staff.
Built a £30m partner relationship travel business from scratch.
Founder director of the group’s international website MyTravel.com – which at the time quickly built
sales in excess of £500m.
UK Group Marketing – Co-ordinated and Chaired UK group activities across 14 core businesses.
JWT, Saatchi & Saatchi and Carat
1979 to 2000
Senior roles held in planning, segmentation, research, strategy, media buying, client services and new
business. Nine years main board director of Carat. Key accounts with senior level involvement were: Tesco,
Asda, Iceland Frozen Foods, Allied Carpets, Matalan, Warburton’s, Holland’s Pies, Wines of Bordeaux,
Regatta, Craghoppers, Travelodge, Little Chef, Axa Insurance, North West Trains, British Nuclear Fuels.