About Me...

I’ve spent a career learning how to build brands that inspire the loyalty and passion of customers and deliver an engine for growth.

Aha moments

My approach was shaped by three key aha moments.

First, as a young marketer in retailing, I quickly learnt that your brand is not what you say it it is, but what your customers experience. Brand-building is about shaping those experiences, rather than creating an image through advertising.

Second, as CMO for Tesco, I found that when your brand is defined by your customers experience, brand-building involves the whole company, rather than just the Marketing department. I worked to mobilize the company behind its brand purpose “every little helps”, unleashing 5 years of the highest market outperformance Tesco has ever seen.

Third, customer loyalty needs to be cultivated as both a habit and a positive choice, in order to drive growth. This was something I learnt as a pioneer of Tesco's Clubcard and a former director of Dunnhumby.

Creating Loyal Brands

From these, I’ve developed a simple, but powerful approach to building loyalty and generating growth in today’s connected world. I refined it at Tesco and now use it to help other brands.

Featured in a number of publications, and with several keynote conference speeches behind me, I have a blog, a popular Flipboard magazine, and a book, all around the central idea: Creating Loyal Brands.

Uwins Research Group

At the heart of brand-building is understanding people. So in 2017, I also co-founded a qualitative research agency, on the belief that great insights come from connecting with the real person behind the consumer.

Since the deepest insights often come from combining approaches, we utilize a variety of in-person, ethnographic, and online methods, dependent on your research objectives.

Educator

To inspire a new generation of marketers, I teach a popular class on loyalty and branding at USC Annenberg School of Communication, as part of their Masters program. I bring a CMO's perspective to the disciplines of marketing and communication, as well as a career of building brands through customer experience.  

Just me

An MA from Oxford University, I grew up in London, England. Based now largely in Los Angeles, with a wife and 4 children, you'll normally find Radiohead or Neil Young blaring when I’m behind the wheel...