Akintola admits to Naked love letters stunt

Oddbins’ managing director, Ayo Akintola, has admitted that he was behind a recent attempt to poach Naked Wines’ staff via love letters and bottles of wine.

Speaking to the drinks business, Akintola said: “Yes it was me – I’ve been tracking Naked staff for a while as they’re good at what they do but the question was how to approach them.

“I could have gone after a senior member to push whole team over but that would have been crass so I went about identifying individuals in a creative manner, then The Guardian got wind of it, which made life difficult,” he said.

One of Oddbins’ quirky posters

So far, no one has switched allegiances. “I’ve been speaking to the staff and they’ve been listening to what I have to say. It’s an ongoing process – no one has been offered a job yet,” he told db.

Akintola worked with recruitment firm Profiles Creative on the stunt that targeted select members of Naked’s marketing and e-commerce team in late June with love letters and bottles of wine.

The move came about due to a desire to ramp up Oddbins’ online sales. “We haven’t given a lot of attention to the online side of things over the last few years – year on year sales are growing by 50% but from a very low base.

“I want to take what we know works in store and transfer it online but to do that you need tech savvy staff with wine knowledge,” Akintola told db.

The aim is to raise online sales from 3% to 25% of total sales in the next three years.

Since the likes of Tesco and Morrisons have started shrinking their wine ranges, he’s noticed the phone ringing more often.

“Suppliers that were chasing the Tesco accounts are calling us up now and are showing an interest,” he said though wouldn’t reveal whether he’s taken on any of the wines dropped by the big four in recent months.

At this moment in time, Akintola isn’t in a huge hurry to expand, having learnt from his predecessor’s mistakes.

“The plan is to open more stores but it’s not an arms race. If opportunities present themselves then I’ll look into it but the old company went belly up from wrong sites and I’m not going to make that same mistake,” he insisted.

An in-depth look at the health of high street wine retail will appear in the August issue of the drinks business.