Everest Home Improvement marketing director Martin Troughton – the former DM agency boss who joined the company from bitter rival Anglian Home Improvements in 2015 – has left the company amid what he has branded “bizarre circumstances”.
The exact reasons for his departure are not known although it does not seem to have ended well after Troughton posted on LinkedIn: “Moving on from Everest. My best wishes to the team, partners and agencies I worked with. I believe Everest is a great brand and is stronger than when I started 3 years ago. I leave in the most bizarre of circumstances but my lawyer will protect my reputation and interests.”
Since Troughton was hired in July 2015, he has ramped up Everest’s offensive against Anglian by implementing a number of initiatives to boost the company’s marketing activity, including a CRM and data management platform to maximise ROI across its digital spend and contact centre and field operations.
The company handed that brief to Anaylin, the consultancy run by the “three data amigos” of Nigel Grimes, Jonathan Plowden Roberts and Neal Rimay-Muranyi.
Troughton also hired Anglian’s agency All Response Media to run its planning and buying account and brought in Tug to run digital marketing. MBA has been Everest’s ad agency since 2007 and picked up its direct marketing account in 2011.
It is not known how Troughton’s exit will affect these relationships.
Troughton, a highly respected figure in the marketing industry, started his career at Ogilvy Direct in the late Eighties, before moving to Bates and then switching client side as head of direct marketing at BT.
In 1998, he co-founded DM start-up HPT Brand Response, with Steve Harrison and Tim Patten. Three years later, Troughton and Harrison struck a deal with WPP to set up Harrison Troughton Wunderman.
Ulitmately the duo went their separate ways. Harrison quit the industry while Troughton moved within WPP to Red Cell, eventually linking up with Gary Sharpen and Nigel Owens, and rebranding it Sharpen Troughton Owens Response.
He quit agency-land and joined Anglian in November 2006, succeeding Andrew Pound, who left the company that summer.
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