Returned Averys Wine Merchants to profitability for the first time in three years, through a ten-point turnaround strategy and a data-led peak trading campaign.
→ Return to profitability within the year. 150% growth in the digital channel.
Problem
Averys Wine Merchants had not made a profit for three years running, with falling sales, underperforming digital, and a marketing plan that had drifted away from anything with real commercial teeth.
Context
I took on the Head of Marketing role on secondment, with the business needing a turnaround inside twelve months rather than a longer strategic rebuild.
Business objective
Turn Averys around and get it back into profit inside twelve months, with no room for a plan that took two or three years to pay off.
Customer/user objective
Averys customers needed a reason to keep buying beyond habit, since activity without a clear commercial thread wasn’t giving them one.
Constraints
Twelve months was the hard limit, which ruled out slower structural fixes and meant the turnaround plan had to show real commercial impact within the year.
Stakeholders
The Averys leadership who needed to see profitability return inside the year, and the wider marketing and digital teams delivering the ten-point strategy.
Research and discovery
I went back into the GA data and ran customer research to understand what Averys shoppers actually responded to, rather than repeating what had run in previous years.
Options considered
I considered a narrower fix focused only on the peak trading campaign versus a full ten-point strategy covering pricing and range as well. I chose the broader strategy, since the GA data and research showed the underperformance wasn’t confined to one channel.
Prioritisation
Getting the evidence from GA data and customer research came before rebuilding the peak campaign, so the campaign was built on what shoppers actually responded to rather than repeating last year’s plan.
Delivery
I put together a ten-point turnaround strategy covering pricing, the shape of the product range, and where digital investment should go, then rebuilt the peak trading campaign around the customer research findings instead of guesswork or the previous year’s plan.
Decisions made
Rebuilding the peak campaign from customer data rather than repeating the previous approach was the decision that mattered most, it was more work upfront but it was the piece that broke the business’s previous sales records.
Trade-offs
Running fresh customer research before rebuilding the peak campaign took time inside an already tight twelve-month window. I judged that worthwhile given how much the campaign’s success depended on getting the proposition right.
Business outcome
Averys returned to profit for the first time in three years, and the repositioned peak trading campaign broke the business’s previous sales records.
Customer outcome
Averys customers responded to a campaign built around what actually motivated them to buy, rather than a repeat of previous activity.
Lessons learned
A turnaround strategy needs both structural fixes, pricing and range, and a proof point customers can see and respond to, the peak campaign was that proof point.
What I'd improve today
I would turn the customer research commissioned for the peak campaign into a repeatable, ongoing input, rather than a one-off exercise tied to that single campaign, so future pricing and range decisions across the ten-point strategy could draw on continuous evidence instead of a point-in-time study.
