MARKETING

SOCIETY AWARD SUBMISSION 2014 MARKETING LEADERSHIP

BURTONS BISCUIT COMPANY & TEXO CONSULTING

Helping Marketing to Make Everyday More of a Treat

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This paper tells the story of a revolution in Marketing at Burtons Biscuit
Company. Led by Chief Marketing Officer Stuart Wilson and his Leadership
Team, the scale of the task was enormous. The Marketing Department needed to
shift from a function supporting the business to leading the business growth
agenda to drive sustainable profit growth on its power brands, develop a healthy
pipeline of new innovation and manage a significantly up-weighted investment
in brand marketing.

A new Marketing Manifesto was created using the analogy of lighting beacons
to show the way and setting fires to drive change to achieve the company
purpose of Making Everyday More of a Treat for consumers, shoppers and
employees. The Burtons Marketing Academy was launched in 2011 to support
Marketers in developing the capabilities needed to make this vision a success. A
bespoke Marketing capability framework was developed, workshops were
created, best practice case studies from within and outside of the business were
written and hothouse coaching was embedded to ensure all new tools, processes
and templates were applied to all key marketing activities. It was a 2 year
programme of change for Marketing that reached all parts of the business and
transformed the reputation of Marketing team and the business as a whole.

The results speak for themselves. Cadbury, Maryland, Jammie Dodgers and
Wagon Wheels have all grown market share, adding value into the market
through price and increasing brand consideration scores. Innovation has step
changed in the business and the Marketing team has stamped its authority and
its brands back into the heart of the company and consumers. Whats more
Burtons Biscuits Co. was bought in November 2013 by Ontario Teachers
Pension Plan, a leading investor and Canadian pension fund, for around 350
million, which represents an increase of shareholder value of around 200
million since 2009.

THE LEADERSHIP INGREDIENTS CHALLENGE

Burtons Biscuit Company is the leading premium biscuit manufacturer in the
UK with a portfolio of brands, much loved by the Great British Public, including
Cadbury Biscuits, Maryland Cookies, Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels .





Burtons has seen many different corporate and financial owners over the past
79 years, however, it was a change of ownership in 2009 that saw a significant
step change in the business. The Old Burtons (named Burtons Foods)
delivered little innovation with inconsistent and low levels of brand spend and a
lack of investment in organisational capabilities. However, with a new owner in
place, a largely new leadership team appointed and a company rebrand to
Burtons Biscuit Company, a turnaround plan was identified which focused on
power brand growth, a pipeline of new innovation and a significant investment
in brand marketing. To deliver this would require the marketing function to re-
define and re-establish itself within the business coupled with a programme to
recruit, retain and equip its employees to create and deliver this new business
strategy.

In 2010 Stuart Wilson was appointed as the new Chief Marketing Officer and he
quickly established a Marketing Leadership Team - a team of individuals who
had built their marketing careers in well known FMCG businesses (Mars, Kraft,
Kelloggs, Inbev, Nestle, Kerry Foods) but were all looking for a new challenge.

The first objective was to set out the purpose of the Marketing department in
this new business, no longer was this a Marketing department supporting the
business but it must now lead the business growth agenda to drive sustainable
profit growth on its power brands and the analogy of lighting beacons to show
the way and setting fires to drive change became the Marketing Manifesto.

The key strategies were focused on:-

1
Seeking insights that deliver outstanding innovation to market


2
Exciting consumers and shoppers to choose our brands again and
again through brilliant innovation, distinctive communication, superior
product quality, pitch perfect packaging, smarter promotions and
revenue management


3
Constantly beating the competition focusing on driving value market
share growth, ensuring share of innovation twice our market share and
securing sources of sustainable competitive advantage


4
Executing with excellence to build legacies that last a lifetime

But to deliver all of the above the Marketing team needed to deliver


1
Leadership through superior collaborative working and excellent project
delivery


2
Superior commercial understanding of the competitive environment
and business


3
Accountability for the resources they manage and the investments they
make


4
Development of a highly motivated team of talented individuals



5
Enjoyment and pride in their achievements, learning from mistakes and
celebrating successes

MEASURING OUT THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS FOR THE

CAPABILLITY PROGRAMME

They knew from the very start of the Marketing Capability programme that the
approach taken to build capability at Burtons had to mirror the culture of the
business and help marketers to deliver the new Marketing Manifesto. They had
to be pragmatic and nimble, and tailor everything to the enormously fast paced
nature of the work that Burtons marketers do everyday.

So they started by defining a capability framework for Marketing at Burtons
based on Stuart and the Leadership Teams Marketing Manifesto. It was
practical, easy to use and showed the entire team what was expected of them
across all key competencies in order for them to deliver in their role and
progress in the future.

The Marketing Capability Framework

The Leadership Team then rated the current capabilities of the Marketing
function to enable focus on the areas of development where they could create
the biggest impact in the business, as quickly as possible. The capability
framework also set out very clearly the key content areas for the Burtons
Marketing Academy workshops. At this point it was also agreed that the
Marketing Academy would consist of both functional and leadership capability
building as leading the business in Marketing thinking was seen as such a critical
competency to delivering the new Marketing Manifesto.

Burtons Marketing Academy Workshop Programme




Putting Insights at the heart of everything we do



Building Brands that consumers want




Creating Killer Communication Plans



Delivering Outstanding Innovation




Bringing Our Brands to Life


Driving the right Commercial Decisions for your


brand

MIXING UP ALL THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS TOGETHER

The team continued with the theme of pragmatism into the development of the
Academy workshops. Each workshop was owned by a member of the Leadership
team and they constantly built on the content of the previous module to
reinforce the key Marketing tools and processes that needed to be embedded.
The workshops were highly interactive 2-day off site sessions focusing on Big
Win skillsets to support marketers in their development in line with the
marketing capability framework.

Where templates, tools or processes needed to be optimized or re-invented the
Burtons team and Texo Consulting made it happen to ensure that what they
were working on in the workshop was the most relevant, up to date and most
importantly bespoke to Burtons.

All exercises that delegates undertook in the workshops were developed around
real Burtons Marketing issues. The mantra was simple they wanted delegates
to walk out of the workshops having developed something that they needed to
do anyway but having learnt something on the way and done it better than they
could have done back in the office. Whether it was a brand plan, a killer insight, a
Brand Positioning or an innovation idea.

This workshop has been a gift I could never have got to this Brand
Positioning on my own back in the office





Cadbury Biscuits Marketing Manager

Consistent feedback like this summed up that the approach was working.

Workshops were scheduled around the business planning cycle to ensure timely
inputs to Marketing thinking. Where relevant, invites were extended to other
functions to ensure joined up thinking and shared visions. Agency partners
inputted best practice and case studies and without fail each member of the
Marketing Leadership Team including the Chief Marketing Officer attended
every workshop to coach, facilitate and inspire the very best learning for the
team. Feedback from participants was excellent and workshops were
consistently scored 4.8 out of 5, with particularly high scores around I am able
to immediately apply this to my role'

EMBEDDING THE PROGRAMME THROUGH HOTHOUSES

In addition to the workshops for the total team Hothouses were developed to
provide every brand team with a bespoke follow up half day facilitated session
designed to embed the tools and processes from the Academy and apply them to
a current brand opportunity or issue. Again, Burtons constantly strived to keep
the programme pragmatic and relevant, Marketers had to be working on
something that they already needed to deliver to the business, but how could
they make that project even better and help all of Marketing to approach it in a
consistent way. Hothousing specific tools in groups of no more than 6 produced
excellent results:

Working on this project with a coach alongside me to help me apply the Tools
we learnt in the workshop has been really helpful






Jammie Dodgers Brand Manager

WHAT ARE THE RESULTS?

Burtons Biscuit Companys greatest asset is its people with great people come
great ideas / strategies / plans and ultimately business performance. The
Marketing team at Burtons, empowered to set fires to drive change and
equipped through the Marketing Academy have done precisely that.

They have driven to seek greater insights, to unlock outstanding innovation that
consumers genuinely want, they have built killer communication strategies and
brought brands to life through outstanding project delivery and all of this is
reflected in the Power Brands Performance:-

Strong Power Brand Growth in market share and improved brand
consideration

Market share

Step Change in Innovations since 2010

Brand consideration

Endorsed further by - Grocer Gold NPD of the Year 2011; Tesco NPD of the
Year 2011; Asian Trader NPD of the Year 2011; Marketing Society Awards
for Excellence 2011; 2013 IGD Industry Award for Consumer and Shopper
Excellence; 2013 Grocer award for Top Launch of the Year in the biscuits
category and the Top Campaign for Maryland Gooeys TV campaign.
From an advertising perspective:-

Further, Burtons Biscuit Company completes an annual engagement survey
across the whole business encompassing over 30 engagement metrics. Over the
past 3 years the overall marketing engagement score has grown, however it is
the metric I feel well trained to do my job that has significantly increased and is
clearly being driven by the Marketing Academy programme.


4.5
4
3.5
3

Total Engagement

2.5
2

Well Trained to do
my Job'

1.5
1
0.5
0
2011

2012

2013

The programme has further enabled a number of marketers to earn well

deserved internal promotions over the past 3 years including 3 Assistant Brand
Managers to Brand Managers; 2 Brand Managers to Senior Brand Managers and
1 Marketing Manager to Senior Marketing Manager.

WHATS STILL TO COME FOR PROGRAMME

The nature of a private equity business is that it is constantly evolving, both
from a commercial and people perspective. The Burtons Marketing Academy
programme will always adapt to reflect this. Marketing Managers are being
empowered to own elements of the Marketing Academy modules to, new
starters attend concentrated versions of Academy sessions as soon as they join
the business to ensure they gain the most from the Burtons Way of Marketing,
and Hothouses are being upweighted to ensure continual embedding and
learning for everyone in the team.

KEY TREATS TO LEARN FROM

Think hard about the culture of the business you are in and match the
capability development approach to your culture for the best chance of
success.

Pragmatic and Flexible is achievable in developing capability programmes
focus on the Quick Big Wins and the rest will follow

Marketing Development Programmes dont have to be just for global
business and for an individuals long-term career development - they can
be focused on making the here and now even better

Always be working on something relevant in the workshops to enhance the
delivery of existing projects

Mix all this together and it Makes Everyday More of a Treat for Burtons
Biscuits.

































Word Count: 1942