Former Amaze One and Edit chief Sarah Hooper has taken up the role of marketing director at adult retailer Beate Uhse – the company behind sites Adam & Eve and Pabo – as the business gears up for a major global relaunch.
Founded as a mail order firm by former German war-time pilot and sex pioneer Beate Uhse-Rotermund in 1946, the company opened the world’s first sex shop in Flensburg, West Germany in 1962.
And, following a period of exponential growth, Beate Uhse floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 1999. However, it declared bankruptcy in 2017.
Financial investment company Robus Capital took over management of Beate Uhse in 2018 and appointed former Scotts & Co chief operating officer Craig Wheeler as CEO to spearhead a major recruitment drive.
Hooper started her career in financial services at Morgan Stanley, and Octopus, eventually becoming head of marketing at Barclaycard.
In 2014, she joined Amaze One as director of planning, ultimately working across Amaze One, Response One and Occam. When the three agencies merged with Branded3 last year, Hooper was appointed board director of CRM.
However she quit in July to set up her own marketing consultancy before joining Beate Uhse this week.
The company is relaunching with the motto “be you” and overhauling its online presence to meet consumers’ expectations in the digital era. While Beate Uhse provided general sex education, toys and erotica, the new leadership aims to provide customers with a more personal online shopping experience.
In an interview with Forbes, Wheeler said: “We are working towards the launch of an awesome new website experience in September 2019 that will allow us to engage with our customers, encouraging them to be themselves, enjoy their sexuality, help them understand what is available and share with them how other feel and what their experiences are.
“Our new digital strategy is to build a platform where people can gain assistance in finding the products or advice to enjoy the erotic side of their personality.”
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