Former Tesco head of hard-lines marketing Catherine Stewart has joined as Asda Living head of marketing, as the fledgling operation aims to double its store numbers this year to 26.
An Asda spokesman said: “Catherine’s remit is to raise awareness of our non-food offer at Asda Living for all customers, of all budgets and demographic profiles.
“We are committed to providing stores with a leisurely feel to them, making it easier for customers to browse our extensive non-food ranges.”
Retail Knowledge Bank senior partner Robert Clark said awareness of Asda Living is “fairly low” outside areas that have stores.
He added: “Asda has the problem of not enough stores and space so, in the short and medium term, the format is important to sustain Asda’s overall brand momentum and dynamism.” The Wal-Mart-owned grocer has 353 supermarkets in the UK.
The Asda spokesman said its marketing will focus on individual stores over the next year, rather than national campaigns.
Last month, George managing director Anthony Thompson said the growth of Asda Living would be key to plans to become the UK’s largest retailer of clothing by 2011. Asda chief executive Andy Bond has said there is potential for about 200 Asda Living stores in the UK.
* Tesco – which this week put on hold the roll out of its Fresh & Easy stores for three months – has responded to speculation that it has cut its marketing team’s headcount by up to 20 per cent over the past week and made wide-ranging job cuts in other departments across the business.
A Tesco spokesman said: “Roles do change and others become redundant. However, there are plenty of growth areas such as Tesco Direct and the work we are doing on climate change.”
Separately, Tesco head of corporate responsibility Debora Stones left the business last week.
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