Meet the DMA Awards category chairs: Deborah Dolce, Retail

Category: Retail

Chair: Deborah Dolce, SVP, group brand and marketing director, TJX Europe

“No gimmicks and stunts, rather demonstrate real results.”

Tell us who you are, what you do and who you do it for

After a degree at London University in French & Italian, I began my career in journalism and communications, switching from agencyside to clientside when I joined TK Maxx in early 1994.

It was around the time of the first store launch in Bristol, yet now we trade two brands - TK Maxx and HomeSense - across two channels, including over 500 brick and mortar stores across six European markets, so the business has changed dramatically!

Today, I sit on the executive committee for TJX Europe in my capacity as leader of the European Brand & Marketing group.

Alongside the traditional marketing disciplines, this group is also home to Corporate Responsibility, Store Design, Customer Service and Internal Communications since the business takes a holistic view of brand and reputation.

There have been lots of proud moments in my career. Getting Comic Relief on board with TJX Europe in 2005 was a real highlight, and so far our partnership has helped raise over £20 million for some of the most disadvantaged people in the world, ditto our decade long partnership with Cancer Research UK.

In latter years, the excitement of launching our second brand HomeSense and helping TK Maxx to launch in Germany, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands has kept us all busy.

What will you be looking for from the work in your category?

I'll be impressed by work that is commercial and drives true value to the business.

No gimmicks and stunts, rather demonstrate real results.

Specifically for retail, I’d like to see a shift in the KPIs used to measure impact to a more holistic view of performance.

And I'll be interested in entries that demonstrate an embracing of omnichannel and digital - and the transformation that many retailers need to make to remain relevant as customer behaviours shift.

What are your predictions for the 2017 DMA Awards?

Here’s three thoughts:

• The prevalence of tech-enabled creativity and ideas, particularly with a dominance of mobile innovation
• Brands working to harness AR & VR to drive deeper relationships with customers
• Gamification in campaigns the use of experiential and live experience to generate a sense of community and engagement