Channel 4 this week launched what it claims is its strongest autumn schedule to date, with new investment in late night and daytime programming as well as new drama. Alan Bleasdale’s six-parter Jake’s Progress will be the channel’s flagship drama for the season. Channel 4 is also planning to put out a teenage soap from […]
Can anyone spot the odd one out from Mellors Reay, GGT, Butterfield Day Devito Hockney and Walsh Trott Chick Smith? All were on the pitch list for the 3m Burton Menswear account which Mellors Reay won; two of the agencies were created this year. But only one of them failed to turn up to the […]
Coca-Cola UK marketing director George Bradt has publicly rubbished PepsiCo’s heavyweight Pepsi Challenge promotion as a flop, three months after its launch. Market research figures from Nielsen suggest Pepsi’s market share has fallen since the promotion started on May 1. The high-profile campaign includes TV ads, 2 million coupons and a roadshow covering 60 cities […]
Manufacturers, facing a squeeze on traditional markets, are expanding into the financial sector
Bass Taverns has appointed a new commercial director to head the company’s sales and marketing, and is poised to restructure its marketing department after the takeover of Forte’s Harvester restaurant chain. The Bass retail arm has recruited Michael Bramley as commercial director from Bass Brewers, where he was managing director for sales of Bass North. […]
Britain’s largest fridge manufacturer, Lec Refrigeration, is about to appoint Banks Hoggins O’Shea as its advertising agency. BHO and Cowan Kemsley Taylor fought for the account, which is worth 4m over three years. BHO is reported to have won the account, although Lec says it will not announce its decision until September 4. BHO creative […]
EURO RSCG Institutionnel has been appointed by Microsoft to handle a forthcoming campaign aimed at combating youth unemployment in France. McCann-Erickson Frankfurt is to resign the Spalt analgesic account, blaming ‘strategic differences’ over the current campaign. The agency will continue to handle other brands marketed by Much Pharma, including Clear Blue and Fibrosine. The Publicis […]
Following the host nation’s poor performance at Cannes, the knives have been out for the jurors. Yet French agencies have no one to blame but themselves.
Bass Taverns has appointed a new commercial director to head the company’s sales and marketing, and is poised to restructure its marketing department after the takeover of Forte’s Harvester restaurant chain. The Bass retail arm has recruited Michael Bramley as commercial director from Bass Brewers, where he was managing director for sales of Bass North. […]
Computer firm Sega is launching a controversial pan-European advertising campaign, in which a game is shown simulating a seemingly fatal car accident. The ad, for next-generation games machine Saturn, breaks in cinemas on August 14 before the film premiere of Die Hard With a Vengeance. It depicts a shadowy character – Valcrie, the master games […]
Heinz is taking on rivals in the fledgling fresh soup sector with the launch of its Kitchen Garden brand at the end of this month. Heinz, which holds a 36 per cent value share of the 381m UK soup market, is also moving into the condensed soup market – dominated by Campbell’s – with the […]
EMAP Metro has registered strong circulation growth in the latest round of ABCs, while the IPC Weeklies Group of titles remained largely static. EMAP’s men’s glossy title FHM, purchased last year, has made the strongest turnaround, with a 50 per cent year-on-year increase in circulation during the January-June period taking it from 60,298 to 90,607. […]
I entirely agree with Torsten Nilson’s view in “Microsoft story hard to swallow” (MW July 28) that brand valuations should be based on an analytical, marketing-oriented model. This has been Interbrand’s approach since 1988. Since then, we have conducted more than 1,200 brand valuations – with a combined value of 40bn – for use in […]
Your piece about Damien Hirst, Tony Kaye and the potential of preserving a tramp as art, “Why Kaye is down and out on his luck” (MW July 21), is way behind the times. A few years ago, Plymouth artist Robert Liencowitz caused a sensation by claiming to have preserved his friend, the tramp Diogenes (who […]
Two former Young & Rubicam employees awaiting trial for VAT fraud have been released on bail from a Brussels prison, where they have been held since their arrest last February (MW June 9).