Bacardi, the spirits maker that owns brands including Grey Goose, Bacardi and Dewars, has split its global CMO role into two regional positions as part of a restructure of its marketing function.
Mauricio Vergara will oversee Northern America and Shane Hoyne, who joins from William Grant & Sons, will oversee Europe and be based in London. Both will report to CEO Mike Dolan.
At the same time, Bacardi had created a global 'head of creative excellence' role to manage global agency relationships and the central creation and delivery of integrated communications. It will be filled by Zara Mirza who will be based in London and will report directly to Mike Dolan.
Bacardi is also building 'centres of excellence' in regional locations to be more agile in the way it executes in local areas. The full plans are being finalised. Bacardi operates as a joint venture with Lion in Australia. It's not clear who will take regional responsibility for Australia.
Dima Ivanov, who had been global CMO since January will step down.
The restructure of global functions comes several months after Bacardi handed global duties for its brands to BBDO and awarded its global media business to OMD. Both OMD and Clemenger BBDO picked up the briefs locally.
The restructure is not expected to impact those arrangements.
“Several months ago we consolidated our creative and media activity with BBDO and OMD. In addition, we are in the process of doing the same thing with our below the line spend. With these changes, we will be able to adapt our focus to our brands, not categories, and position ourselves to fully leverage the benefits of having world class global agency and media partners,” said CEO Mike Dolan.
“It has become increasingly clear that we have to change in order to win, and believe me we are in this to win. We have world-class brands and agency partners. Now it’s about changing how we organise to give our people, our partners and our brands a real shot at success.
"Our goal is to be the envy of our industry – to be the company that attracts and retains the best of the best. The ultimate test of that is selling more cases, growing share and driving the bottom line so we can re-invest more in our iconic brands and industry leading innovation.”
AdNews is awaiting comment from Bacardi.
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