Morrisons marketing services director Michael Bates will now take on a group role, with control of Safeway's marketing department. He will continue to report to joint managing director Marie Melnyk, who has board-level responsibility for marketing (Marketing, March 11).
Bates will oversee the rebadging of Safeway stores. Pricing and product marketing will be handled by Morrisons' trading department.
Morrisons had planned that Jack Sinclair, Safeway marketing and trading director, would take on the group job. However, he left in March, having earlier announced his intention to step down once the merger was complete.
Marketing has learned one option for Morrisons could be to bring in another marketer between Bates and Melnyk to head a combined trading and marketing division.
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