Built a single, coordinated 40-day peak trading plan across three Direct Wines brands, replacing unaligned activity with one shared roadmap that became the standard template.
→ Record peak trading delivered across three brands.
Problem
Peak trading activity across the Direct Wines group ran largely independently brand by brand, with nobody holding a single view of what was happening across the 40-day trading period, whether that was CRM, digital, or campaign delivery.
Context
This was the first time a single, coordinated, cross-brand plan had been built for this trading period, rather than each brand working from its own version.
Business objective
Build a fully coordinated peak trading plan that worked across three brands at once, Laithwaites, Sunday Times Wine Club, and BA Wine Flyer, rather than three plans running in parallel and hoping they didn’t clash.
Customer/user objective
Customers across all three brands needed a consistent, well-timed trading experience rather than one shaped by whichever team moved fastest.
Constraints
The plan had to cover every touchpoint across email, digital, and CRM for three brands inside a fixed 40-day window, with no precedent for a shared cross-brand plan to build from.
Stakeholders
Marketing, CRM, and digital teams across all three brands, each of whom needed to work from the same plan rather than their own version.
Research and discovery
I reviewed how peak trading had run in previous years brand by brand, to understand where activity was clashing or duplicating effort across the group.
Options considered
I considered leaving each brand to plan independently with light central coordination versus building one fully shared roadmap. I chose the shared roadmap, since light coordination was closer to what had already produced unaligned activity.
Prioritisation
Mapping every touchpoint across all three brands came first, since briefing stakeholders against a plan with gaps in it would have recreated the same misalignment it was meant to fix.
Delivery
I built a 40-day campaign roadmap mapping every touchpoint across email, digital and CRM, briefed every stakeholder against that one plan, and held the delivery cadence throughout the 40 days rather than letting it slip once trading started.
Decisions made
Building one shared roadmap across all three brands, rather than a lighter central coordination layer, was the decision that mattered most, it took more upfront work but removed the risk of brands clashing during the highest-value trading period of the year.
Trade-offs
Building a single detailed roadmap across three brands took longer to construct than three separate brand plans would have. I judged that worthwhile given how much value sat in avoiding brand clashes during peak trading.
Business outcome
Peak trading delivered record results that year, and the roadmap approach worked well enough that it became the standard template the business used for future peak periods.
Customer outcome
Customers across all three brands experienced a coordinated trading period rather than overlapping or clashing activity.
Lessons learned
A shared roadmap only works if every stakeholder is briefed against the same version, partial adoption would have recreated the misalignment it was meant to solve.
What I'd improve today
I would start building the shared roadmap earlier in the year, giving brand teams more lead time to align their own plans against it before the 40-day window began.
