In-depth features, interviews and insights into marketing’s biggest issues.
Supermarket price promotions are used in various ways to build brands, but, as Sainsbury’s has found to its cost, return on investment can take a long time For the past ten years, two philosophies of branding have been battling for supremacy in UK grocery retailing. One looked to a magical and elusive, but extremely powerful, […]
There was plenty of editorial cheer at this week’s British Press Awards but as circulation figures continue to fall, brands are getting better results from their websites than traditional press ads To the Dorchester on Monday night, the new venue for the revamped, cleaned-up British Press Awards. After last year’s ceremony, which was even rowdier […]
Advertiser-funded programming has been making headlines in recent weeks, with a wave of big name advertisers unveiling initiatives to be screened on television. Unilever is one of those, investing heavily in the launch of a Sure-branded football documentary that airs in the UK on ITV1 this week (MW last week). Other big names to announce […]
Churchill’s appointment of WCRS to handle its £20m advertising account is further evidence that the financial services sector is something of a “special case” when it comes to client conflict. Churchill is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, whic
Having the right name above an agency door can make or break a company, highlight its ethos and showcase the talent within – at least according to advertising folk. Interpublic Group plans to rebrand the beleaguered Lowe network in an attempt to sever its association with Sir Frank Lowe (MW last week). Up for consideration […]
The appointment of Publicis Groupe and Havas to handle France Telecom’s £200m pan-European advertising business brings to an end one of the most protracted and talked about reviews of recent years. However, the fall-out looks set to continue,
Free DVDs and CDs mounted on newspapers’ front pages have become a source of worry to the bosses of the nationals. They condemn the use of DVDs as an expensive way of boosting circulation, which fails to promote loyalty among consumers; yet marketing teams seem unable or unwilling to plan more inventive campaigns. Newspapers try […]
As “an industry run on gossip”, in the words of one senior agency figure, advertising can often appear to the outside world as frivolous and fragile. Clients and other observers witnessing the ongoing spat between WPP Group chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell and his former top Italian executive Marco Benatti, as well as the shockwaves […]
A bitter row is brewing between major food manufacturers and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) over how best to provide consumers with the information they crave. Consumer group Which? has accused the industry of undermining proposals by the FSA and written to the chief executives of food giants including Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft and PepsiCo […]
The news that the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) and the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA) are to partially merge is seen as a positive but necessary step for a medium that has lost its sparkle with advertisers. The plans, which were first revealed in Marketing Week (February 2), aim to help the groups promote the […]
London’s creative community will always toast a great advertising idea that translates into a series of award-winning campaigns, and Wieden & Kennedy has enjoyed its fair share of toasts recently. The agency that made Nike a global household name has been riding high on the back of its critically acclaimed Honda ads, but for all […]
Krow, the communications agency set up last year by a group of former D’Arcy and BMP bosses, has clinched Alfa as a major client (MW last week). It will handle the launch of the Alfa Romeo Brera, on the back of what the shop’s founders claims is a “new attitude to advertising”. Unveiled in October […]
Encapsulating the pop culture of the 1980s, Smash Hits magazine has gasped its last column. But it wasn’t just the victim of changing tastes, like the gallant Pink ‘un and Green ‘un of yore Smash Hits got a good send-off last week, with acres of newspaper and broadcast coverage about its demise. Journalists old enough […]
There is a growing feeling in the sponsorship industry that more brands will shun expensive headline deals in favour of creating their own events (MW last week). An increasing number of companies have turned to event creation in recent years because they do not want to “compromise” on an existing tie-up, according to Brian Greenwood, […]
Reports last week that Lowe London is putting “platinum handcuffs” on creative chief Ed Morris to stop him leaving came as the advertising industry’s trade bodies called for agencies to almost double the profit margin they charge to clients. One leading marketer says that if agencies want to raise their profit margins, they should cut […]