John Noonan is Ireland’s top marketer

A big congratulations to John Noonan, Sales & Marketing Director of Flahavans who won Marketer of the Year last week. He’s the man behind the resurrection of one of Ireland’s most well known brands.

It is great to see that it was his marketing strategy creation and implementation that won over the judges. They said that they were particularly impressed by Mr Noonan’s strong focus on research and insight to identify customer trends and frame a very successful product development strategy to grow the business.

As a marketer, he clearly led and implemented his strategy successfully with the support of management and demonstrated that in this difficult economic climate (and against aggressive competitive challenges), marketing and effective leadership will achieve success.

I’ve always said that marketing is more than promotion and Mr Noonan certainly is one to share that view. Operating in a highly competitive  market where Flahavans competes successfully against international food giants Kelloggs, Nestle and Weetabix, he was responsible for crafting a finely tuned re-positioning of Flahavans which has resulted in market share growing to 65.3pc in the year to August 2009.

The brands profits increased by over 15pc and with a fourfold increase in turnover.

Well done to John and his team with congratulations to the other finalists.