Close-Up: Profile - Robin Gray.(Biography)

As Tesco's 'perfect client' bows out after 32 years at the retailer, Claire Billings looks back on a career that has spanned 2,000 ads and locations as diverse as Los Angeles and Bracknell.

The fact that Tesco's head of advertising, Robin Gray, has lasted 32 years in the same job is remarkable in itself. But add to that a 16-year relationship with the same agency, Lowe, that has seen Tesco become the only three-times winner of Campaign's Advertiser of the Year accolade, and his retirement becomes even more poignant.

Gray has lived through a lot of changes at the retailer, the biggest of which was the appointment of Lowe in 1989. During its pre-Lowe career, Tesco's advertising was traditional and formulaic and frequently just involved scenes of families sat round the dining table for a roast dinner with an array of Tesco products on show. Lowe's subsequent work changed all that.

Gray remembers the Tesco pitch well. One of the agencies turned up on a coach with Tesco shopping bags filled with props. 'I never understood what they were banging on about,' he says. More popular was Lowe's approach.

Gray says Frank Lowe had nothing much to show them but illustrated his vision for where the brand would be in five years. He triumphed.

The campaign was, Gray says, a transitional time for Tesco. Lowe's first work showed Dudley Moore travelling around the world on a three-year search for free-range chickens during which time he discovered all manner of products. The advertising strategy, aimed at ditching the company's 'pile it high, sell it cheap' image originally espoused by its founder, Sir Jack Cohen, helped Tesco gain ground on the more quality-focused ...