Graham Thomas

As promised, here is the first of our series on Retail Media Stars.

Graham Thomas is currently the head of dunnhumby Retail Media which, as the name suggests, is the retail media arm of the retail experts dunnhumby. According to dunnhumby doctrine this means he uses a combination of IT, data analysis, creative skills and business expertise to treat marketing as a science. The application of science to retail media is long over due as the flurry over measurement suggests. He currently specialises in emerging digital technologies and the creation of mobile advertising models managing, developing, creating retailer-owned media (in-store, out-of-store, in-home, .com, magazines etc. as well as marketing and media evaluation and optimisation (MMO).

Graham Thomas originally worked outside of retail media, spending much of his career with Saatchi & Saatchi. He was Vice Chairman of the UK agency during the late 1980s and then worked as Regional Director in Asia/Pacific where he was awarded Ad Ages's International Agency of the Year.

Thomas is passionate about the utility of retail media and has strong views that advertising agencies need to revise their thinking and work out what creative content will work best with which group of consumers in each medium. “Despite what they (the big creative agencies) claim, they are still driven by the profitable economics of the 30-second television spot. They need to realise this will become of secondary importance to most brands.”

Much of his career was spent working on P&G business across a broad range of brands. Among his achievements he was able to build Ariel to be market leader in the UK during the 1980s; he led the agency team that transformed the European Pampers business and drove it to a 50% share; in 1991 he was handed P&G’s Robert V Goldstein Award for global advertising excellence for the work done on making Oil of Olay the pre-eminent global skincare brand; during the 1990s he helped build H&S to be one of the largest hair-care brands in the world and he helped introduce a raft of brands into Japan, China and across Asia.

Rufus Evison

Oh and Graham is rumoured to be the creator of the Milk's gotta lotta bottle slogan showcased below...