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Whole Foods Lays Off Marketing Staff

Apr 11, 2018 | The Dive

The Facts

Reports have surface that Whole Foods has terminated their in-house corporate marketing department and staffed up regional offices to be closer to the action at retail. This move comes as dozens of marketing executives have left this year already due to cultural differences with new owner Amazon.

Spiker Insights

This concerns us. Is the grocer is going to lose its strong and unique brand and nationwide identity, and how much that of identity matters to their customers and their future revenues? These let-go marketers set and maintained the Whole Foods brand nationwide, and they did a great job. No doubt their high operating costs needed to be reduced as they had the highest in the industry, and they are implementing new marketing fees with their larger suppliers − at the expense of their smaller providers we might add. But this is a very valuable brand and a risky strategy where a competitor, or competitors, could move into this slot once held by Whole Foods. Dangerous indeed. It does bear watching.