Flight Centre's new global CMO of leisure brings vast experience, having managed most facets of marketing for the travel retailer among others
Darren Wright has once again changed roles within Flight Centre. He’s leaving his position as global CMO of retail to become global chief marketing officer for the group's leisure division, including the global Flight Centre brand and Travel Associates.
Wright has vast experience in the airline industry and particularly with Flight Centre where he started in 1996 as marketing manager for five years. This was followed by stints in marketing and commercial management from 2002 to 2014 with Virgin Blue, Scoot and Air Asia. Concurrently, Wright was chairman of Destination Tweed’s board.
He returned to Flight Centre in 2014 as head of brand and marketing, then managed product, advertising and customer experience before managing marketing for premium retail brands. Wright then became general manager, marketing.
Now, as global CMO of retail, Wright will be based in Flight Centre’s Brisbane headquarters, reporting to FCTG’s Global Leisure CEO, Melanie Waters-Ryan.
Wright said he’s looking forward to reinvigorating the brand through communication with customers and engaging a younger audience who are looking for security and advice.
“As we continue FCTG’s globalisation, we are focused on building scalable capabilities with core agency support from long-term partners such as Rapid Media in Australia. We will be looking at new agency agreements globally to support smaller more agile in-house teams to drive success,” he said.
Read more: Darren Wright's industry view
Waters-Ryan said the past 18 months have been tough for Flight Centre’s leisure brands and the travel retailer used this time well to reinvent itself and gear up for a bright future.
“We are moving our brands to a new level of engagement and want to ensure a global approach delivers irresistible deals for our clients from a brand that is savvy online and offline, in a mass retail or a premium leisure context,” she said. “Daz’s ability to deliver marketing and brand strategies that engage our customers will be key to making our brands stick.”
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