The Mars Agency has equipped itself and its clients around the globe with more formidable strategic planning expertise by naming 30-year commerce marketing professional Craig Elston to a new role.
As Group SVP, Strategic Planning, Elston will lead the U.S. team of planners working across all of The Mars Agency’s CPG and retailer clients. He’ll also spearhead the agency’s strategic consultative services.
“I don’t think there’s anyone more qualified than Craig to lead the agency’s strategic planning capabilities as we continue aggressively expanding our global agency ecosystem,” says Rob Rivenburgh, The Mars Agency’s Global CEO. “We’re thrilled to have him join our growing team of industry-leading experts.”
Although most recently Head of Strategic Services at customer experience platform Iterable, Elston spent nearly 20 years at Omnicom, including 15 years at The Integer Group. His highly successful tenure at Integer culminated with 4+ years as Global Chief Strategy Officer, a role that put him in charge of strategic planning activities across 16 countries and 100+ planners.
In addition to working with senior-level clients on strategic investment opportunities and priorities, trend identification, competitive analyses and innovation, Elston internally created numerous strategic development frameworks and spearheaded the launch of a centralized analytics group.
Elston is also a well-respected thought leader, having authored numerous research reports and white papers and spoken at countless industry events around the world. His extensive body of work includes authorship of an ongoing series about changing consumer and shopper behavior derived from proprietary research studies.
“Craig will be instrumental in supporting and scaling our growing strategy team and services,” says Fern Grant, EVP of The Mars Agency’s Global Strategy Practice. “He’ll also play a critical role in helping both Martians and clients unlock the wealth of shopper and business insights available through our Marilyn data platform.”
Elston will be based in Denver, Colorado, reporting to Grant.
About The Mars Agency
The Mars Agency is an award-winning, independently owned, global commerce marketing practice. With talent around the world, they connect people, technology and intelligence to make clients’ business better today than it was yesterday. Mars’ industry-leading MarTech platform, Marilyn®, helps marketers understand the total business impact of their commerce marketing, enabling them to make better decisions, create connected experiences and drive stronger results. Learn more at www.themarsagency.com and meetmarilyn.ai.