Claire Andrews Promoted to Marketing Director for Mazda UK

DARTFORD, UNITED KINGDOM – Sept 10, 2010: Mazda Motors UK has promoted Claire Andrews from Senior Marketing Manager to Marketing Director effective 1st October reporting to Jeremy Thomson, Managing Director. This reflects the recent restructure of the sales and marketing functions at Mazda UK.

Claire Andrews took on the role of senior marketing manager in April 2010 from the role of brand manager, a position held since 2007. Prior to that, Andrews spent two years as a business manager responsible for one of the South East territories, following on from her first role at Mazda UK as an events and brand@retail manager. Andrews originally started out her career with Mazda following a move from Lotus Cars in 2002.

"Since joining Mazda in 2002, Claire has demonstrated a true commitment to the company. She shows real passion, team spirit and a willingness to challenge convention,” commented Jeremy Thomson, Managing Director, Mazda UK.

While in the senior marketing manager role Andrews focused heavily on the development of the Mazda brand strategy in the UK, which she will continue in her director’s role. Already she has put in place radical brand building initiatives such as the Zoom-Zoom Weekends fully integrated campaign.

“Claire’s commitment to ensuring consistency across all communications ensures a sustainable and enhanced future for Mazda,” highlighted Thomson.

"Short term, Claire’s priorities will be to continue to strengthen the brand in the UK market and increase car buyer’s purchase consideration, while successfully launching our cars and consistently portraying our brand as ‘Stylish’, ‘Insightful’ and ‘Spirited’ across all customer communications and touch points," explained Thomson.

Andrews commissioned the sponsorship of Channel4’s ‘Jamie’s American Road Trip’ and ‘Kevin’s Grand Tour’ in 2009 followed by ‘Gordon’s Great Escape’ in 2010, all of which have demonstrated strategic fit with the Mazda brand values; insightful, spirited and fun. This month, Mazda is about to launch its latest sponsorship with ITV1’s new program ‘71 Degrees North’. The programme’s content perfectly compliments the Mazda MX-5 Thrills campaign theme ‘Once driven, thrills are harder to find’ and is due to launch on 11th September.

Furthermore, Andrews’ lead on the Thrills campaign has challenged the normal conventions seen in traditional automotive advertisingby not showing any imagery of the car itself. Instead, the ads focus on the thrill drivers experience when driving the Mazda MX-5, and feature images of people embarking on extreme thrilling experiences such as whale somersaulting, condor gliding, buffalo derby, lilo rafting down a waterfall, tea-tray sledging off the top of a mountain, or skateboarding down the Hoover dam, in order to match the feeling experienced when driving the car. To view the Thrillseekers digital films visit: http://thrillseekers.mazda.co.uk