The UK’s pet retail market has a bold new challenger making serious noise. Jollyes Pets, the country’s second-largest specialist pet retailer, has appointed seasoned marketer Sean McGinty as its first Chief Marketing Officer, and he’s wasting no time turning up the volume on the brand’s ambitions.

Who Is Sean McGinty?

McGinty isn’t new to high-growth retail. He joined Jollyes in October 2025 after three years as Marketing Director at furniture chain Dunelm, and before that spent four years as Marketing Director of Aldi UK, a brand famously built on challenger positioning and value leadership. He has also held previous roles at Debenhams and Asda, giving him a deep well of experience across both value and mid-market retail.​

In his new role at Jollyes, McGinty takes direct ownership of customer strategy, marketing, digital platforms, and the brand’s loyalty proposition. His mandate is clear: make marketing the engine that drives Jollyes from a well-kept secret into a household name for UK pet owners.​​

The ‘Unapologetic’ Challenger Strategy

Jollyes has been on a quiet but relentless growth trajectory, almost doubling its number of UK stores over the past three years and surpassing 100 locations nationwide. New openings in Hartlepool, Ponders End, and Whitehaven in February 2026 continued that momentum, following eight store launches in the preceding three months alone.

Despite that physical footprint, brand awareness sits at around just 15%, a number McGinty openly acknowledges but sees as a massive opportunity rather than a problem.

“There’s a huge opportunity for marketing to come and make a difference,” McGinty has said, describing marketing as “an absolute growth engine for the business.”

Part of the fix is surprisingly simple: Jollyes is rebranding its storefronts from “Jollyes, the pet people” to “Jollyes Pets,” a direct and clear name that tells shoppers exactly what they’ll find when they walk through the door. It’s a small change with a big strategic intention, because clarity builds awareness, and awareness builds market share.

Building the Marketing Growth Engine

McGinty’s approach to growth is built on a few interconnected pillars, and it reflects exactly what modern retail marketing needs to achieve in order to cut through in a competitive landscape:

• Going all-in on social: Jollyes already maintains a social presence, but McGinty wants the brand “all over social,” with serious attention paid to platforms like TikTok Shop, where he sees customers having “one-to-one conversations with brands.”​
• Physical stores as the heartbeat: Despite the digital push, McGinty is clear that shops are “the heart of the brand” and that digital should “amplify the strength of the stores” rather than replace them. The goal is a seamless experience as customers move between online browsing and in-store buying.​
• Local footfall, frictionless digital: Marketing is focused on “driving footfall locally, while using digital to remove the friction and add value,” McGinty explains. These aren’t competing strategies — they’re the same strategy working in parallel.​
• Data-driven effectiveness: McGinty is working closely with Jollyes’ internal data science team to measure every pound spent, noting the business is “more set up from a marketing effectiveness point of view than many businesses” due to its tight focus on EBITDA-level growth.

The ‘Value Specialist’ Positioning And Why It Matters Now

The linchpin of Jollyes’ brand strategy is its commitment to being the UK’s only specialist pet discounter. In January 2025, the retailer lowered more than 3,000 prices, previously available only to loyalty cardholders, to all shoppers, covering over two-thirds of its 4,500 core product lines.

Then in February 2026, Jollyes went further by launching Simply Jollyes, billed as the lowest-priced own-label pet range in the UK, covering essential food and accessories designed to help households care for their pets without financial strain. CEO Adam Dury put it plainly: 

“Shopping at a specialist pet retailer doesn’t have to come with a premium — customers can care for their pets on the tightest of budgets.”

This matters because the UK pet care market is under real pressure from cost-of-living challenges. Jollyes is betting that being both a specialist and a discounter, offering quality and affordability under one roof, fills a gap that neither budget supermarkets nor premium pet chains can credibly occupy. For businesses looking to carve out their own defensible niche, it’s a textbook example of strategic positioning done right. Marketeller helps brands develop exactly this kind of differentiated identity through targeted creative marketing and brand strategy.

What Challenger Brands Can Learn from Jollyes

Jollyes’ playbook is relevant well beyond pet retail. Any challenger brand operating in a crowded market can take notes:

• Low awareness isn’t a failure, it’s an opportunity: Jollyes built a strong physical presence before investing heavily in brand awareness. McGinty is now unlocking that latent equity with sharp, focused marketing.​
• Value positioning is a genuine competitive moat: Offering quality at accessible prices, backed by specialist knowledge, builds trust across multiple customer segments and not just budget shoppers.​
• Digital amplifies physical, not the other way around: In an era of online-first thinking, Jollyes is a reminder that stores still drive brand love, and that digital works best when it supports the in-store experience.​
• Hire marketing leaders who’ve done it before: McGinty’s pedigree at Aldi, a brand that turned value into a cult identity, is not accidental. Leadership with proven challenger experience accelerates growth.

The Road Ahead for Jollyes

Backed by TDR Capital, also the private equity backer of Asda, Jollyes is well-funded for its next chapter. With over 100 stores, more than 1,200 employees, and a freshly sharpened brand identity, the pieces are firmly in place. The question now is execution, and with McGinty at the marketing helm, armed with data, digital ambition, and an unapologetic challenger spirit, the brand looks ready to grow its 15% awareness into something the competition genuinely has to reckon with.

Businesses watching from the sidelines should take note: strategic marketing leadership, a clear value proposition, and a seamless omnichannel presence aren’t just advantages in pet retail; they’re the new table stakes for growth in any competitive market. If your brand is ready to build that kind of momentum, Marketeller’s marketing services are built to help you get there.