Yorkshire Tea restructures marketing team as it looks to ‘get ready for the future’

Taylors of Harrogate marketing director Dom Dwight will take on the newly created role of strategy and innovation director as the Yorkshire Tea owner seeks to position itself for the future.

Dwight has been marketing director at Taylors since 2016, leading marketing across Yorkshire Tea and the company’s coffee offerings.

During Dwight’s leadership, Yorkshire Tea has scooped many accolades for its marketing, notably the long-running ‘Where Everything’s Done Proper’ brand platform, which scooped the Grand Prix at this year’s Effies.

This has translated into commercial success, with Yorkshire Tea now being the UK’s biggest black tea brand, holding 38.9% of the market (as of the 12 weeks to the beginning of December 2023).

Dwight’s new role, focusing on strategy and innovation, will seek to prepare the Taylors business for the “uncertainty and change” the future might bring by putting a greater emphasis on product innovation and business diversification.

“Although our current business model is thriving, we’re conscious of all the uncertainty and change ahead, and want to get ready for the future now, rather than waiting until it’s right on top of us, and discovering it’s too late to adapt,” Dwight says, speaking about his new role.

While Yorkshire Tea has seen bumper growth in recent times, it is a market leader in a category that is declining.

‘We need the help of our competitors’: Yorkshire Tea on reinvigorating a declining category

Speaking to Marketing Week last month, Dwight said that, given the current market conditions, there’s a “ceiling” for growth unless the category can be reinvigorated. 

Innovation, whether that’s through communicating the product of tea differently or exploring new formats, will be crucial to this reinvigoration, he said.

“We have got to find a way to keep stretching; to work out if there’s something we’re not saying? Is there something else we could be doing?” Dwight told Marketing Week.

Dwight’s new role has also been created to support Taylors’ managing director Andy Brown in ensuring the strategic integration of the business.

Taylors will not be recruiting for a new marketing director, with Dwight retaining some responsibilities from his previous role, such as long-term creative strategy.

Most of the responsibilities held by Dwight in his previous role as marketing director will be passed onto the business’s two heads of brand marketing: Ben Newbury, who heads up Yorkshire Tea, and Laura Burton on Taylors of Harrogate.

Additionally, these marketers will now join a newly created commercial team at Taylors. This team brings together the business’s sales, marketing and category functions, and will be led by UK market director Matthew Huffer.