HCUK Marketing Department

The main role of the Marketing Manager is to work really closely with Kia Motors UK to create an attractive vehicle offer. When a customer purchases a car on finance there are normally three separate business entities involved; Kia Motors, Kia Finance and the dealership – however a customer will only see 'Kia’. Therefore it is really important that everyone works very closely together to monitor the market, plan, create and implement a competitive campaign and evaluate the results – at the same time ensuring that we are fully compliant to all advertising and finance regulations!

Marketing is a great team to be part of! We tend to be spread across various locations with lots of different projects on the go, but there is always someone at the end of the phone if you get stuck or need some inspiration. We try to all get together at least once a month to catch up and run through all of our key priorities.

One of my latest projects has been to investigate how we can talk about finance via social media channels. Any advertising featuring finance information is carefully regulated by the FCA to ensure that all communications are ‘clear, fair and not misleading’. However as social media is constantly evolving it can be a bit of a minefield to get right – I think we can be confident now that we have got a clear approach.

HCUK is an exciting place to be at the moment – it is growing and changing rapidly so there is loads to learn and get involved with. It is easy to feel that you are making a valuable contribution to a shared goal and that your contribution is appreciated.

My role at HCUK is twofold, firstly to lead the marketing function in terms of setting the strategy & direction and then supporting to ensure the team follow that through into tactical execution & delivery. Secondly to play as part of the wider Senior Management Team, to whom the operational management of the business is delegated from the shareholders of the business.

The sheer diversity of things we get involved in. For marketers the automotive industry is a really exciting sector at the moment, changes in consumer behaviour as a result of digital technology are really starting to have an impact and challenge the traditional models at an unprecedented pace. As the internal ‘voice’ of the customer we’re constantly looking at what consumers now expect and what that means for their car buying journey. As a result there are some exciting and varied projects we get to work on – Hyundai’s Click-to-Buy is a good example.

There’s so many, but winning Motor Finance ‘Captive Finance Company of the Year 2017’ in Frankfurt was special. It was a great exercise to pull together the ‘story’ of HCUKs growth over the last five years – both the tangible business results, plus the intangible growth of a business that started with just a handful of people in 2012. Weaving this into an awards submission left me in no doubt we had a strong proposition for the judges. Thankfully they agreed too and HCUK was not only shortlisted but won the overall category. It’s a nice project as it recognises the hard work, contribution and achievement of everyone in the business over the last few years.

Easy – working with great people. We’ve got a good team of talented people who work hard to make things happen. All the growth & success is a result of that. A big part of my role is supporting & developing them to help them be the best they can be.