Mary STEWART-HUNTER
Mary is a Brand Development and Communications specialist. She has an MA (Cantab) from Girton College, Cambridge (UK).
Her career covers
- Market Research (quantitative and qualitative) – with particular interest in brand analytics and how marketing and communications activities should be measured.
- Advertising: as an Account Planner (strategist) in various multi-national agencies, she focused on how advertising ideas can be created to connect with consumers, thus contributing to sales, and to enhance brand equity.
- Brand Communications: working in Omnicom Media Group EMEA during a period of unprecedented change, seeing the rise of digital communications of all kinds and especially that of social media.
- Brand re-positioning: to change experience and/or perceptions of brands (consumer or corporate) among their customers and other important constituencies such as investors, politicians, Government, the media.
- Brand Design: developing new brands and refreshing or re-positioning old brands, for fast moving consumer goods (fmcg), financial services and online retailing. These projects involved working with other specialists (e.g. design consultants) to create the brand identity and collateral.
- Brand Master Plan projects – including Regional Development Boards, Government Ministries and Economic Development bodies. She was co-opted to a special committee to advise the Board of Lloyds Bank on its Brand Master Plan and Brand Architecture following its acquisition of two other banks.
Mary has written, lectured and trained on the subject of brand evaluation. Her contributions were recognised in 1997 by being awarded a Fellowship of the UK’s leading advertising body (FIPA). As a Partner at UK-based SRU (brand strategy consultants), her experience extended into Intellectual Property Development.
One of Mary’s key areas of interest has been the development of social media for purposes of building awareness and imagery of brands, new or old.