Rooney Anand, Sara Lee Bakery’s marketing director and
self-confessed foodie - ’I don’t have the healthiest lifestyle in the
world’ - is not one to toe the politically correct line on shameless
indulgence.
Sure, he says, women like to shop healthy when feeding the family. But
many’s the time a packet of apple Danish doesn’t survive beyond the
supermarket car park.
And what’s wrong with a bit of surreptitious snacking, he asks. What
better antidote to stress-filled 90s life could there be than a plate of
double-chocolate gateau?
Whether or not the guilt factor lies behind the relative
under-development of the frozen dessert market in Britain is an open
question. Nevertheless, the US-owned Sara Lee has resolved that the time
is right to give some sustained advertising support to brands whose
frequency of purchase still leaves something to be desired.
Anand’s appointment of Banks Hoggins O’Shea to handle creative work on
his pounds 1.5 million account (Campaign, last week) is his own
equivalent of comfort food - ’they’re small agency guys with big agency
experience and I find them a natural fit’ - but far from an indulgence.
’When you don’t have huge marketing budgets you spend a lot of time
looking at agencies,’ he says. ’You have to get it right and that means
putting a lot of thought and rigour into the decision you make.’
At the same time, Anand, 33, welcomes the frisson of working with an
agency which pushes him close to the creative edge. ’I like the idea the
Banks Hoggins has come up with because it makes me feel a bit
uncomfortable,’ he confesses. But the man who cut his professional teeth
at United Biscuits and McVitie’s candidly adds: ’I was never the most
ad-literate marketer.’
His nervousness may well have something to do with Sara Lee, a company
with an entrepreneurial business culture rather than a marketing one.
Anand comments: ’The marketing department always has to justify itself.
But if you argue with vigour and passion you get the money.’
