From disaster to comeback: Zoe Hayward on The Big Issue’s large challenge

I studied human geography on the University of Leicester and I used to be at all times in point of fact curious about folks and puts. My first task was once at Unilever as a challenge supervisor, running within the Best Foods department. This kicked off my advertising and marketing profession and hooked up the dots between advertising and marketing and behavioral science.

I labored my manner up via Unilever, running on a few of its largest manufacturers whilst finishing the Unilever advertising and marketing basis lessons. This was once an implausible grounding for my profession. On Persil, I introduced the ‘Dirt is Good’ logo platform in the United Kingdom, which continues to be going robust lately. I then moved directly to the feminine deodorants class, which integrated Dove. Both Persil and Dove had purpose-led logo platforms, giving me a robust grounding in how manufacturers may play a task in turning in actual alternate via systems such because the Dove Self-Esteem Project.

I left Unilever and joined Cobra beer, a founder-led, small trade in the hunt for expansion each off and on industry and I used to be accountable for innovation. We introduced a variety of new merchandise in a brief area of time and, residing in London in my 20s, it was once an excellent spot to paintings with a number of beer on faucet.

I then joined Bird’s Eye, which had up to now been owned by means of Unilever and lately been bought by means of a non-public fairness company. Birds Eye was once extremely industrial with complete responsibility for the P&L, offering me with nice monetary enjoy.

After a number of years at Birds Eye, I then had the chance to sign up for M&S, heading up advertising and marketing for one of the vital meals trade divisions. There, I partnered up with the heads of shopping for, technical and product construction. It’s a trade steeped in innovation and I’ve fond recollections of the fantastic product construction journeys, exploring new meals and bringing new product concepts again to get them introduced directly to the cabinets for UK customers.

I used to be promoted to steer the meals advertising and marketing workforce and sat at the meals board. Our technique was once to create ‘A Foodhall for All,’ making the foodhall probably the most thrilling position to buy at the top boulevard. We introduced ‘The Adventures In’ marketing campaign, thinking about new and thrilling merchandise, and redesigning the feel and appear of the foodhall.

I then went to go up clothes advertising and marketing: an overly other problem. We had to ‘bring style back to M&S’ in a extremely aggressive marketplace. Bringing in new taste ambassadors. This integrated the release of the Holly Willoughby taste edit, which proved very a hit. It cleared the path for the issues that you simply see lately, just like the Sienna Miller partnership.

After seven years at M&S, I sought after to develop my enjoy in impact-led trade, so I joined the Big Issue Group, the place I’ve been for the final 5 years. It has been a fantastic adventure with an overly other set of demanding situations.

I joined in January 2020 and the Covid pandemic hit in March. We needed to take distributors off the road for the primary time within the group’s historical past and in a single day we misplaced an important percentage of our source of revenue. We needed to put investees on fee vacations and lift sufficient investment to save lots of the group and make it during the pandemic, in addition to make stronger the ones we paintings with.

We have been a hit in elevating the budget we wanted and saved our reason best of thoughts with the United Kingdom public. At the similar time, we seemed forward as we knew that the United Kingdom panorama was once converting considerably. We had to shift to a digital-first way at tempo and get nearer to our audiences, create new income streams and start to alternate perceptions of our paintings, with a view to lift extra source of revenue and ship extra influence.

We advanced a brand new five-year challenge, technique and influence targets. We rebranded and introduced a brand new worth proposition. We introduced new ventures, together with Big Issue Recruit – aiming to get extra people who find themselves dealing with boundaries to paintings into the office, running with company companions to create employment alternatives for marginalized folks. The pandemic compelled us to switch for the easier.

I’m specifically proud that we’ve accomplished all of this paintings on very restricted useful resource and budgets. We’re all about turning in influence. It is essential to be sure that we’re getting the most productive worth for cash or preferably running professional bono. It has been an implausible adventure during the last 5 years and I’m very pleased with the selling and communications workforce we’ve constructed.

What is the be offering on the Big Issue Group?

We’re an impact-led trade pushed by means of the desires of folks suffering from poverty. We’re a social undertaking running to finish poverty in the United Kingdom.

Today, poverty is on the easiest price it’s been in the United Kingdom within the 21st century, with 16 million folks residing in poverty and 3.8 million folks experiencing destitution, not able to feed, dress or stay themselves heat.

The Big Issue introduced in 1991 as a trade reaction to a social disaster – homelessness. The Big Issue mag was once created for homeless folks to promote to earn a sound source of revenue.

As the disaster of poverty has escalated in the United Kingdom, we’ve needed to extend our services and products. Big Issue distributors are promoting bodily magazines in the street: they’re dealing with demanding situations that we will be able to’t forget about – footfall decline at the top boulevard, the upward push of ‘cashlessness’ and the decline of print.

In reaction, we’ve introduced a brand new vary of services and products that allow us to increase our challenge of running to finish poverty and succeed in extra folks via other trade answers. This contains Big Issue Recruit, our recruitment trade that permits folks to get into paintings in a supportive solution to be sure that employment may be sustainable.

A social influence funding group known as Big Issue Invest, the place we facilitate funding into social enterprises which might be running to finish poverty and inequality in the United Kingdom. This trade extends our influence: our investees paintings with thousands and thousands of folks throughout the United Kingdom each and every yr. And, maximum lately, Big Issue Impact Advisory Service, serving to company purchasers and companions to fortify their ESG & Sustainability considering, functions and go-to-market methods.

We’ve constructed a Big Issue coverage serve as campaigning for alternate inside of the United Kingdom executive. We are these days campaigning for a ‘Poverty Zero’ coverage, calling for the federal government to enforce statutory poverty aid goals and create a approach to ship towards those.

What had been the large achievements for the Big Issue Group within the final yr?

Christmas is, as anticipated, our largest quarter, now we have extra folks coming to us to promote the Big Issue mag, in need of to earn an source of revenue at a essential time of yr to pay meals, gas expenses and Christmas for his or her households.

Over the previous few years our technique has been to construct a extra cohesive and larger Christmas marketing campaign to herald new audiences to ship extra influence. We have created new merchandise for customers to shop for to lift income. We introduced a Winter Support Kit so customers can make stronger distributors with the gear to earn and paintings during the iciness.

The package features a beanie hat, espresso and meals vouchers, gear to move cashless and make stronger folks into coaching or employment post-Christmas. It’s no longer as regards to what occurs at Christmas; it is going past that. This new product has been in point of fact a hit for us. We doubled the gross sales year-on-year and now we have been ready to make stronger extra distributors to earn and paintings over the Christmas duration.

We introduced our Christmas marketing campaign with a Christmas advert originally of November, when all the large manufacturers release their campaigns. We produced our advert on a shoestring finances. Our good in-house communications workforce controlled to get the advert introduced on Good Morning Britain at the identical day that John Lewis introduced its Christmas advert. Effectively, going head-to-head with John Lewis, our marketing campaign was once trailed throughout Good Morning Britain all morning, with our founder, John Bird, and considered one of our distributors, André, interviewed too.

That was once a selected spotlight in relation to a in point of fact a hit process which has generated nice influence.

What large tasks have you were given bobbing up?

The large alternative for us is to interact a much broader target audience in our challenge. We’ve simply introduced a club fashion and it’s a large focal point for us this yr. Through club, we will have interaction all the other audiences we paintings with. The concept is to construct a neighborhood through the years this is engaged with our reason and a neighborhood this is concurrently serving to to fund our challenge to finish poverty.

Consumers can grow to be individuals for simply £5 a month. For corporates, this can be a greater rate and, crucially, when you’re suffering from poverty you’ll be able to sign up for without spending a dime.

How is your workforce structured?

When I joined the Big Issue Group, advertising and marketing was once a small serve as, centered predominantly on PR and social media. The workforce was once doing an implausible task, however I knew there was once a lot more that shall we carry to the trade as a advertising and marketing serve as and play a extra strategic function within the expansion of the group.

Working on the Big Issue Group during the pandemic enabled us to exhibit how advertising and marketing may in point of fact pressure income for the crowd. We additionally confirmed how central advertising and marketing may well be, in relation to growing the trade technique and our trade influence targets.

We are actually a workforce of 10, accountable for a large remit together with direct-to-consumer income – this contains club, subscriptions and making monetary contributions to our paintings. Today now we have a far more potent web site and electronic editorial proposition and my workforce works around the web site and our app. We lead coverage, campaigning and public affairs for the crowd; we’re accountable for all logo and advertising and marketing and interior and exterior communications.

Our problem is to carry a much broader target audience into the Big Issue Group and inspire those audiences to make use of extra of our services and products. All with the purpose of enabling our trade to ship extra influence for folks suffering from poverty.

Drawing for your management experience, what has your profession taught you that is helping you’re making a perfect advertising and marketing workforce?

I’ve learnt over the previous few years that perfection is an unobtainable superb. It’s about ensuring that you’ll be able to get impactful determine the door, as temporarily as imaginable, in probably the most cost-effective manner. Ultimately, what’s essential in my function now could be that we allow the group to generate extra income, to ship extra influence and, in consequence, alternate extra lives.

AI in advertising and marketing: what are the professionals and cons?

There are some execs in relation to some tough gear that let for extra time to be spent on actions that may’t be delivered via AI. We’ve been taking a look at social media gear that would lend a hand us extra temporarily generate content material and pull content material from different resources. This has massive time- and resource-saving attainable, liberating up sources for different key priorities.

In phrases of the cons, we wish to get the steadiness proper between folks and AI, however we surely wish to include one of the vital gear to be had to us extra temporarily.

Could you let us know a couple of buyer analysis discovery you made that you simply discovered unexpected?

One of the large issues that has formed what we do on the Big Issue Group, from a trade and advertising and marketing viewpoint, is the analysis that we undertook a couple of years again to in point of fact perceive belief of the logo and the way shall we stretch the logo.

We undertook an enormous belief find out about, checking out a sequence of hypotheses to raised perceive the logo, our audiences and long term alternatives. This knowledgeable our five-year challenge, technique and influence targets and the rebrand that we delivered in 2022. We are actually in yr 3 of our five-year technique and we’re turning in smartly towards the influence goals we set.

It was once an enormous piece of study. It has pushed our trade technique during the last 3 years and can proceed to take action.

What recommendation would you give your more youthful self if it’s good to return in time?

I’d inform myself that no longer the whole thing needs to be very best and more than likely set up my work-life-balance higher … If you might be running on the tempo we do, with the complexity of the other trade gadgets we paintings throughout, with an article serve as publishing every day, it’s a must to transfer at tempo and set up your power and time and be capable to temporarily prioritize.

Tactical alternatives are so essential for us – now we have fine-tuned our processes to capitalize on those. It’s a large a part of the paintings that we do, given the spokespeople that we’ve got and the place we take a seat within the political and social panorama. We have to stick on best of the scoop time table with a view to maximize alternatives to lend a hand us make alternate.

What query do you want me to invite the following senior marketer that I interview?

Which logo or group do you suppose is getting their advertising and marketing improper these days and what may you be informed from it?

Your query from a senior marketer: ‘Who most inspires you in the marketing industry in general?’

There are some improbable entrepreneurs available in the market. I’ve had the excitement of running with a variety of very proficient entrepreneurs. Someone who has sustained a profession at an overly top stage is Margaret Jobling, CMO at NatWest. I used to be fortunate sufficient to paintings along with her at Bird’s Eye, the place Marg was once advertising and marketing director. I’ve an enormous quantity of admiration for her as a marketer, and what she has accomplished in her profession.

If there’s something you understand about advertising and marketing, it’s…

Proposition and positioning are key. Once you get this proper, the whole thing else slots into position.