Virgin Holidays hires O2's head of direct marketing

By Loulla-Mae Eleftheriou-Smith, marketingmagazine.co.uk, Friday, 20 May 2011 10:36AM

Virgin Holidays has appointed Sam Otter, the head of direct marketing at O2, as head of loyalty and customer insight.

Andrew Shelton: Virgin Holidays marketing director (photo: Steve Orino)

Joining on 20 June, Otter will report directly to Andrew Shelton, marketing director at Virgin Holidays. She will be responsible for growing the holiday operator's retention strategy, in line with consumer and market trends.

She replaces Kyri Kilakos, the brand’s head of insight for the past six years. Kilakos is leaving the company, but has not disclosed details of his next position.

Otter held the position of head of direct marketing at O2 UK for six years. During her time at the company, she developed O2 UK's strategies for customer loyalty, convergence and brand protection.

At the 2010 Direct Marketing Awards, Otter and her team won eight Gold awards and a Grand Prix award for her work on O2.

Shelton said: "Sam's got some fantastic experience and a very strong career history to date, so we're really delighted to have her join the team.

"These are exciting times for our brand, and customer loyalty and insight have never been so important. I'm sure she’ll have a very positive impact."

Last week, Virgin Holidays released a new marketing push for its Rockstar Service campaign, issuing a new "manifesto" that outlines its service to consumers.

Shelton told Marketing that the introduction of a brand "manifesto" to the latest ad push was an opportunity to be "very explicit" about what Virgin Holidays offered to consumers.

This article was first published on marketingmagazine.co.uk