Matt Barwell
Chief marketing officer, Britvic
The repositioning of cordial brand Robinsons was a key highlight for Barwell this year, while Britvic aimed to remind people of its role as a "trusted family favourite" during the pandemic.
Matt Bushby
UK marketing director, Just Eat
It has been a busy year for Bushby, including a multimillion-pound merger with Takeaway.com and a focus on supporting restaurants, couriers and customers during Covid-19. Just Eat offered discounts to key workers and took part in ITV's "Britain get talking" mental-health push. And it launched a campaign starring Snoop Dogg.
Yilmaz Erceyes
Chief marketing officer, Premier Foods
Promoted to the top marketing role in 2019, Erceyes has seen a third consecutive year of growth at the UK company, with the lockdown boosting penetration of some of its brands, such as Sharwood's.
Katie Evans
Chief marketing officer, Burger King
Burger King had another year of mischievous marketing activity, the highlights being "Whopper on a bus" just before the general election and "The meltdown", which encouraged children to donate unwanted plastic toys as the brand pledged to stop giving them away with its meals.
Meghan Farren
Chief marketing officer, KFC UK & Ireland
Farren ensured KFC navigated a year of change with trademark good humour. First, the brand pulled its latest campaign in March because it showed people licking thier fingers, then it mocked customers' homemade fried-chicken efforts as restaurants reopened and later it made the bold move to pause its famous slogan.
Olivia Hibbert
Director brand building, Northern Europe, Kraft Heinz
After launching the first masterbrand campaign for Heinz in a decade in 2019, Hibbert continued the brand's momentum in March when it partnered Magic Breakfast to provide 12 million meals to kids at risk of going hungry.
Jeremy Kanter
Chief marketing officer, Fever-Tree
The Diageo veteran joined the mixer brand at the start of the year and, since taking over, has appointed Lucky Generals to Fever-Tree's creative account and unveiled the brand's first TV spot.
Sarah Koppens
Marketing director, Birds Eye UK & Ireland
During the outbreak, Koppens worked with her counterparts in Germany, France and Italy to quickly turn around a campaign, "What's for tea?", using stock footage. The next focus is to highlight frozen food as healthy and high-quality, rather than a fallback option.
Alistair Macrow
Global chief marketing officer, McDonald's
Macrow was appointed top global marketer in June, having previously been UK CMO. Although it has been hard to keep the brand relevant around the world with many restaurants closed, McDonald's played its part in a nascent return to normality later with the "Welcome back" campaign.
Kevin McNair
Marketing director, KP Snacks
McNair has had a busy year, appointing Publicis Groupe as its media agency and St Luke's to work on advertising for Tyrrells, Popchips and KP Nuts, all while sales of these snacks surged as people stayed at home.
Kris Robbens
Marketing director, Coca-Cola Great Britain & Ireland
After playing his part in the launches of Coca-Cola Energy and Signature Mixes, Robbens took the bold step of pausng all Coca-Cola marketing spend during the pandemic. Instead, he has shifted focus to support small businesses.
Arslan Sharif
Global digital and loyalty director, Costa Coffee
Costa found itself in an advantageous position during the pandemic, having already invested in rolling out click-and-collect services at more than 700 stores, contactless mobile payment and delivery via Uber Eats. Sharif later spearheaded the "First one on us" campaign, welcoming back customers with a free drink.
Hannah Squirrell
Customer and marketing director, Greggs
Squirrell presided over Greggs during a record-breaking year and won accolades for fun ideas that went beyond traditional marketing, such as its iPhone-style spot launching the vegan sausage roll. The reopening of stores was also marked with humour: two-metre spacing for queueing was measured in sausage roll-lengths.
Tom Wallis
Chief marketing officer, Gousto
The recipe-box subscription service was hit by the double whammy of strong growth on the back of fresh marketing activity and lockdown leading to higher demand for home-cooking, resulting in a shortfall in "operational capacity". With capacity now expanded, Wallis will be looking to continue that strong growth.