Marie-Stella RAY
Marie-Stella is a strategic planner who has worked most of her life in advertising and its related communication methodologies (PR, promotions, design, branding, etc.).
Her key philosophy – and experience – is in the importance of a systematic approach to identifying the best opportunities for a brand: the market trends; competitors’ strengths and weaknesses; the optimum target consumers, their attitudes, aspirations and behaviours; the sort of ‘messages’ that are credible, motivating and persuading. And using all of this information to guide the team decision on the best way to position, market, promote and advertise the brand.
She has direct Market Research experience of commissioning, interpreting and also carrying out a broad spectrum of consumer and trade research in order to inform her marketing and communications judgement and recommendations. She has worked for global communications agencies Ogilvy & Mather/WPP and Foote Cone & Belding/Publicis. She then became board director in charge of strategic planning for clients at Wight Collins Rutherford & Scott/Carat, the most successful UK-based international advertising agency at the time. As well as being in charge of communication strategy in the UK across all clients, she was responsible for quality control of strategic output across all WCRS agencies in Europe, America and Australasia.
Her experience covers a huge range of markets, targeting both the UK and abroad; and covering local, national, international and global brands and sectors; consumer and business-to-business. She has specialist experience in new product development, sector brand work and the relaunch/revitalising of old brands. Much of her NPD work consisted of analysing the inter-relationship between the corporate brand and the new product brand(s) and cluster brand(s) – i.e. what the new development(s) could add to the corporate brand and in turn what the corporate brand gave to the new development(s).
She is a Full Member of the (British) Market Research Society, and a Member of the (British) Marketing Society. She has a BA Hons (King’s College/University of London) in Spanish with Portuguese, and a post-graduate diploma from the CAM Foundation in Communications, Advertising & Marketing.
Marie-Stella co-authored and won the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Advertising Effectiveness Award for Qualcast (lawnmowers), an account on which she worked and in which marketing played a major role in keeping the factory open and saving jobs.
She has been a guest speaker on Nation Branding at UN-organised seminars (Kingston/Jamaica, Abu Dhabi, Tunis). She was part of a London team coaching former Army, Naval & Air Force senior personnel about the world of marketing and communications prior to their seeking and taking up employment in civil life.