18 March 2024
Author: Linzi McGuire
As Thumbprint continues to grow, so too does the team. We are delighted to welcome our new Customer Insights Manager, Ellie Smith, who joined the team in March.
In her new role, she supports clients with Thumbprint’s data products DART and Pinpoint. Ellie will be clients’ go-to person for getting the most out of the platforms including ensuring that insights garnered are not only relevant but actionable, and directly support their strategic aims. This includes making sure their data works as hard as it can to provide them with valuable insights on how or where to launch their NPD, as well as resolving existing or predicted issues in stores within the Grocery mults and Convenience channels.
Ellie joins us with a background in retail market analysis, retail financial analysis, and data analysis roles. Her expertise lies in querying databases, writing code to support this, and turning this into insight that her customers can act upon.
She started her career at AO.com as a market analyst supporting the research and accounting functions, where she began her CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accounting) studies, as well as assisting with new territory entries and product category launches. This gave her a more dimensional knowledge of retail, in addition to market and consumer analytics. Next, Ellie moved to renowned industry trade publication Retail Week where she spent 4 years as a data journalist and supporting then parent company Ascential as a data analyst focusing on ESG and DEI, achieving two Level 4 qualifications in data analysis whilst there. She also has experience in interrogating data in the Legal services industry.
On Ellie’s appointment, Gordon Neil, Thumbprint Managing Director and Avidity Sales & Marketing Director, comments, “I’m delighted to welcome Ellie to the Thumbprint team. Her expertise in analytics and insight, combined with her passion for retail, will help our clients unlock even more value from DART and Pinpoint. I’m excited about what this will mean for helping clients sell more through our Thumbprint EPOS analytics and insight proposition.”
Ellie comments, “I was attracted to this role at Thumbprint because of the sheer amount of data here. In my new role I’m excited to work on the other side of retail where I can get involved at brand level. I’m looking forward to understanding FMCG from the supplier side and experiencing first-hand how data and insight via the DART and Pinpoint products power brand strategies.”
Ellie, originally from Manchester, enjoys skateboarding and making music in her free time. She’s a keen musician and plays piano, drums, and dabbles in producing electronic tracks. If you see her whizzing about Manchester on her skateboard, be sure to say hi. Welcome to the Thumbprint team, Ellie.
Energy drinks are big business in the UK. For many consumers, these are part of their daily rituals and help them get through the day. Competition is fierce in this category with a huge number of brands fighting for market share. Use data to drive your strategy.
Guinness is currently one of the widest promoted brands while sponsoring the Rugby Six Nations tournament as their official beer partner, so with the help of Pinpoint, we're diving into the data to see how this exposure is impacting their sales in the Convenience sector.