Pioneer: Roddick had a big influence on retailing. Photo / Bloomberg
Tributes flowed yesterday after news Body Shop founder and ethical marketing pioneer Dame Anita Roddick had died from a brain haemmorhage at her home in Chichester, England. She was 64.
Barrie Thomas - who holds franchises for the 27 New Zealand Body Shop stores - said he had
known Roddick for 25 years and she had been "a huge influence" on his life.
She was a regular visitor to New Zealand, he said. Summing up her approach, Thomas recalled: "She once said, 'If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito'."
Wayne Taylor, an Auckland-based retail industry consultant who worked with Roddick in Britain said her death was "terribly sad". Taylor was Body Shop's UK head of marketing operations from 1997 to 2004, when Roddick was easing out of her day-to-day role to sell in 2003.
Taylor remembers Roddick arriving at Body Shop's West End design studios "like a whirlwind".
She continued to have a pervasive influence over the company after she stepped down as CE, he said. "She had a very big impact on retailing and began things like ethical trading that have become mainstream in business now, but that we forget they were unheard of before she arrived," he said.
It was an approach that, for many, took some getting used to. Taylor said: "At Body Shop we doing things in business that were sometimes harder or more expensive but that fitted with the approach.
In marketing terms, Body Shop had pioneered the notion of "guerilla marketing" eschewing big expensive advertising campaigns, focusing instead of store-based promotions.
The Body Shop chain had grown in large part due to Roddick's energy and passion, Taylor said.
The Roddick approach to marketing would live on and was apparent in high profile campaigns like one for Dove soap that promoted womens' self-esteem, he said.
Roddick started her first store in Brighton England in 1976 and the company grew to boast 2000 outlets in 50 countries.
