TRI-POD Series 4: Alex Cook on ‘Purpling the world’

In this episode, we meet Mexico-based Alex Cook, Managing Partner and General Manager Americas at integrated marketing and design group WEPURPLE. Not only that but also a rugby union international player.

May 29, 2025 - 17:50

TRI-POD Series 4: Alex Cook on ‘Purpling the world’

Welcome to series 5 of TRI-POD, The Moodie Davitt Report’s video podcast in association with The SEVA Group.

In this episode, co-hosts Martin Moodie and Roger Jackson (The Seva Group) meet Mexico-based Alex Cook, Managing Partner and General Manager Americas at integrated marketing and design group WEPURPLE. Not only that but also a rugby union international player (more of that in a moment).

He and his fellow shareholders intend to ‘Purple the world’, a nicely evocative mantra encapsulating the heady ambitions of a company that represents some of the biggest brands in global travel retail and beyond with immense distinction and creativity.

WEPURPLE’s work embraces store design, retail merchandising, brand activations, packaging, digital development, production, public relations and communications.

WEPURPLE’s stellar reputation – built around its core values of wisdom, imagination and creativity – has been founded on a host of standout campaigns, installations and collaborations down the years.

Its efforts have resulted in many awards for WEPURPLE clients and, notably, a Frontier Award in 2021 for Collaboration of the Year alongside The Moodie Davitt Report in creating and running the acclaimed Virtual Travel Retail Expo 2020.

(From left) Nick Sutton of WePurple (then FILTR) and Sarah Genest, Colleen Morgan, Hannah Tan and Dermot Davitt of The Moodie Davitt Report celebrate the Frontier Award in 2021 for Collaboration of the Year

Born in Worcestshire, England, Alex has lived a globe-trotting life, with stints in Greece as a child and then working subsequently in Singapore for 13 years before his move to Mexico City.

Alex talks candidly and insightfully about the pressures of owning one’s own business. As with all companies specialised in travel retail, the 2020-onwards pandemic came as a brutal shock.

**Where is TRI-POD Airlines taking Alex Cook after he leaves our desert island?**

“What we thought was our biggest strength [our position and focus in travel retail] turned almost overnight into probably our biggest weakness,” Alex admits. “We had an excellent year in 2019, a record year with real momentum and really strong relationships with our client base.

“The phone was ringing frequently with new opportunities, and then it just got cut at the knees. From that point on, I started to really think about the composition of our business and whether we should concentrate so much either on one region, one market, one channel, one category, even though we had never done that by design.

“But actually it was a case of following where the wind is blowing and it taking you in that direction.” Listen to this compelling conversation to discover how resilience and flexibility saw WePurple weather the most brutal of storms to be thriving today.

As for his rugby international status, you will have to watch the film to see for which country he won his caps. You will see far more than that, we promise, in what may prove to be the most exhausting video clip you will ever view.

**What happened next in this international rugby match? Watch the arrowed player in red (not purple) in TRI-POD to find out.**

As always with TRI-POD, we also fly our guest on ultra-low cost carrier TRI-POD Airlines to our resident desert island (with offshore duty-free status, of course).

There Alex reveals his favoured duty-free purchase, choice of reading, his choice of music, and a wonderfully eclectic and intelligent trio of guests he would invite to a private dinner party.