Archive

By considering taxation of TV and radio advertising, Sweden is in danger of sacrificing long-term economic growth for a short-term fundraising `fix’

Procter & Gamble has lost a senior marketing director. He fills a year-long vacancy at frozen food retailer Iceland. P&G’s Andy Brent, marketing director for household cleaning products, is to join Iceland in the next two weeks, more than a ye

CompuServe, the Internet access provider, is to launch the UK’s first fully-fledged on-line shopping service this month. Virgin Our Price, PC World, Dixons, Great Universal Stores, Tesco, WH Smith, Interflora, Past Times and Innovations are among the retailers and mail order firms that have signed up for the scheme, which opens on April 27. The […]

Pulling together its customer records to set up a marketing database, Guardian Insurance Group called in US firm Harte-Hanks. And, as Jane Dudman reports, the company is already seeing the benefits of tightly-targeted campaigns

Abbey National will provide Travelex-branded Bureau de Change operations at its branches early next year, after buying a one-third stake in the foreign exchange operator this week. Branches will offer customers instant access to foreign currency and traveller’s cheques on a similar line to the Thomas Cook outlets at Midland Bank branches. Branches may also […]

NEWS ROUND-UP

IRI Software, part of Information Resources, has expanded its DataServer range of sales and marketing management systems with a new product, Reporter. The Windows-based analysis tool is targeted at head office and field sales management. Its purpose is to highlight which products are selling, and to which customers, and to identify where a return is […]

Controversial former Express executive Stan Myerson has been appointed group advertising director at Northern & Shell, publisher of OK! Magazine and pornographic titles. Myerson, former assistant to the managing director and deputy advertisement director at Express Newspapers. He will report to N&S chairman Richard Desmond and will have responsibility for the company’s advertising sales strategy […]

Automating a company’s sales and marketing is fraught with problems. Computerising existing procedures brings few particular benefits, while more complex systems can actually alter the sales process.

Sanyo, the electronics company which sells on the simplicity of its products, has had to withdraw its advertisements due to supply complications. Ads for Sanyo’s ActionCam camcorder, which broke in the national press last week, will be withdrawn for up to six weeks. The ads, fronted by Norman Wisdom, featured a series of accessories being […]

I used to work in the pet foods business and although stories abounded of managers eating canned pet foods, I never met anyone who claimed to have done it. I therefore arrived at the same conclusion as your Diary and assumed that the stories were apocryphal. To learn from Lucy O’Leary (letters, MW March 24) […]

The Interpublic Group is said to be in serious negotiations to acquire Campbell Mithun Esty from Cordiant. The intended deal would leave CME senior staff with a significant stake in the company. Hasbro, the international toy manufacturer, has consolidated its European advertising into Griffin Bacal/DDB Needham and BDDP, dropping Grey from assignments in France and […]

Safeway is the first UK supermarket chain to trial a new self-scanning system for shoppers from Symbol Technologies. The new scanning system, Portable Personal Shopping, which is being piloted by Safeway’s Solihull superstore. It allows shoppers to record product purchases as they take items from the shelves, see a running total of the bill and […]

To the Scottish bill-poster’s ball (as they say in all the best society columns) at Turnberry last week where the cräme de la cräme of the UK’s poster industry – or “pond life” as a lot of them call themselves – were entertaining in lavish style. One of the highlights was a speech by Portland […]

Windscreen replacement specialist Autoglass has lost both its marketing heads, following the appointment of its consumer marketing manager Alison Brolls as marketing manager at mobile phone company Nokia. Her departure from Autoglass on May 1 will follow the loss of marketing manager (professional) Paul Eyton-Jones last week to a motor industry management consultancy. An Autoglass […]