Heineken to Restructure UK Marketing and Insight Team

Heineken UK is restructuring its London/Edinburgh-based marketing team to reflect what it describes as the increasing importance of 'innovation, media, and digital communications'. DRNO sources say that up to 60 posts will be affected by the changes, including some in the Insights team.

According to these sources, Heineken currently employs 104 marketing staff in the UK - thirteen of these are defined as market research or insights positions and this number is set to drop to ten after the reorganisation.

Heineken says the changes are necessary to ensure that the company meets and exceeds its future commercial ambitions to compete in the cider and beer markets, adding that following the reshuffle, the overall size of the UK marketing team will be 'broadly similar' in size and headcount to the existing team, split between London and Edinburgh.

A staff consultation is currently underway and it is expected that the new structure will be in place by 1st May 2013. However, individual duties may change, be located in a different office, or the grade/seniority/reporting line may alter.

In an e-mail to DRNO, a Heineken spokesperson said: 'As far as Insight/MR is concerned, this clearly remains a key area for us as we keep up our momentum on NPD and innovation. We have already established a new Marketing Strategy & Planning department which will centralise and govern strategic thinking and ensure the Commercial Planning, Insight, Operations, Media and Capability teams support the goals of the department. Within this department we are proposing that we will have our Consumer Market & Intelligence team.'

Web site: www.heineken.co.uk .