Former Saatchi & Saatchi creative director Alex Donald wants to make a comeback. He left the agency in 1989 but now believes it is time to return, but to the other side of the camera.

Martin Loat

Having survived two world wars and 150 years of competition, R Whites lemonade is facing its most serious test yet in the form of own-label competition

The future of the Total Home Entertainment (THE) account at J Walter Thompson Manchester is hanging in the balance following a series of acrimonious exchanges between THE and the agency’s London offices. The confusion over the account’s future follows JWT London’s resignation of the Nintendo UK account last week (MW September 15) which is controlled […]

Somerfield is embarking on the biggest campaign of its 18-month life in a bid to attract younger, more affluent consumers. In many ways, it is a relaunch of the supermarket chain and an implicit admission that the name change from Gateway in May 1994 has failed to achieve all its desired aims. The 8m offensive […]

The fmcg marketers have climbed down from their pedestals and are embracing the fundamentals. They are now using business-to-business tactics – which focus on relationships – as their guide.

Ray Rohrbach, Promotions manager, Warner Bros Consumer Products (UK), London W1

The Hub, a new full-service agency, is being launched this week by former SP Lintas board director Sam Rudder and Marek Grabowski, previously a creative director at Batey Ads Singapore. The start-up, based in West London, is described by its founders as “a digital agency”. It has been structured around a permanent staff of six […]

Toyota GB is seeking a new marketing director following the promotion of Graham Smith to managing director. Smith’s promotion takes effect from January but the company is beginning its search now. His promotion was triggered by managing director Trevor Taylor becoming chairman of Toyota GB and chief executive officer at Inchcape Toyota Motors. The marque […]

National Savings is ditching the Larson advertising campaign developed by McCann-Erickson in a radical 8m relaunch of the Government department. The new campaign through HHCL & Partners will focus almost entirely on direct response ads in national newspapers and TV. Ad sites will be promoted as “virtual shops”. The work forms part of a 20m […]

City analysts believe Laura Ashley is about to hive off its manufacturing operation. Laura Ashley chief executive Ann Iverson is expected to unveil the company’s long-term plans tomorrow (Thursday), together with the company’s interim results. NatWest Securities analyst Sean Eddie says Iverson’s bias towards retailing is reflected in the four resignations over the past three […]

The real media news is often buried because journalists are far more interested in outrageous, but relatively unimportant people – mentioning no names.

Three times the number of anticipated calls were received in response to Commercial Union’s London’s Burning sponsorship, Granada/LWT has revealed. It is the first time a response number has been included on-air as part of a TV sponsorship. As well as sponsorship credits, CU branding is shown at the end of each episode inviting viewers […]

Brand owners are calling for ever more sophistication from their designers. Sophie McKenzie reports on consultancies that have created very different techniques to tackle the same problem – tired packaging

Senior management at the Lintas group of agencies are in conflict over the future structure of the business. Staff at SP Lintas, whose chairman is Anthony Simonds-Gooding, were told last week that the agency would merge with Lintas i, the agency created when Lintas Worldwide bought Kevin Morley Marketing in June (MW June 2). Its […]