The Marketer Making An Iconic Move : Tesco's Becky Brock

In a world where lives are somewhat predictable, and where our algorithmic experience of brands is matched to our expectations - every so often a brand turns up in an unexpected way that cuts through the clutter and gets into the minds and hearts of consumers. Step forward Tesco's latest campaign, called ICONS created by BBH London, that loses its logo and playfully reimagines it. ICONS replaces logo letters with food.

At Creative Salon we put a spotlight on the best people, the best businesses and the best work - all in support of commercial creativity, that can clearly demonstrate its value in the boardroom. This bold reimagining of Tesco’s distinctive blue dashes signals fearless creativity. That is why its new(ish) customer director Becky Brock has been crowned as the marketer of the week.

Brock, the former global commercial, marketing & innovation director at Costa Coffee, was appointed to the role at Tesco earlier this summer. Prior to this she served as transformation director at John Lewis & Partners, having joined the retailer as marketing director in 2017. Before John Lewis, Becky undertook notable stints at Outdoor and Cycle Concepts, Home Retail Group and The Edrington Group. She began her career at Unilever.

Through her career she's forged a reputation as a bold marketer with a clear-eyed strategic nous and a firm focus on performance. A proper team-player Brock is also ambitious for experience, moving across categories and notching up an impressive range of sector knowledge along the way. And now at Tesco she has one of the biggest and best marketing roles in the business.

BBH London CEO Karen Martin has this to say about Brock: "Despite being brand new Becky brings an energy for and a knowledge of the Tesco brand in spades. She's passionate about great work and challenged both her team and us to be bold and brave. We're delighted with the result and with her at the helm, there's only great things for us all ahead."

The marketing push comes as Tesco achieved its largest supermarket market share since 2017 earlier this month, as its share hit 28 per cent, up from 27.4 per cent last year, according to new data from Kantar.

The figures follow Tesco raising its profit expectations at the start of October as half-year profits soared 10 per cent and sales jumped 4 per cent.

The new campaign is BBH’s response to a brief to make Tesco stand for quality food. Conventional marketing wisdom dictates that you should never alter your established brand logo. BBH recognised, however, that even stripped back to its five blue chevrons, the Tesco brand identity is still unmistakeable, and saw it as an opportunity to do something iconic.

Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes, deputy executive creative director at BBH, said: “You need to have icon status to be able to play with your logo with such confidence. We at BBH are lucky enough to have one of the most iconic brands out there, Tesco, and to work with a team which is willing to throw away the rule book which dictates how it’s used.”

Murray Bisschop, UK marketing director at Tesco, said: “We wanted a campaign that heroes the quality of our products in a clever and beautiful way and we love how the campaign has turned out. I hope people will have fun guessing the letters and might even find some inspiration for their next meal too!”

Mark Ritson also reminds us why this campaign is just so brilliantly memorable, because our brains are more likely to recall tasks that were left unfinished than those that were completed.