Archive

By our EC correspondent Ice cream advertising is poised for meltdown this summer after an historic conclusion to the four year-long freezer cabinet dispute between Unilever and Mars.

ITV is planning a push to increase sponsorship revenue following the announcement of a £200,000 study into TV sponsorship awareness. Research company Millward Brown has been employed to conduct a 52-week tracking study. The research – details of which are to be announced later this week – will enable ITV to give week-on-week awareness figures […]

Two Way Television has struck a deal with BSkyB to develop an in-pub quiz using TWTV’s interactive television system. A weekly quiz night will be tested in 50 Morland pubs in the Oxford area in early summer. An interactive quiz will be broadcast in each using a “spare” channel on pub TV sets that carry […]

Simon Esberger, marketing director at Spillers, gives his opinion.

Former Abbey National marketing services manager Mike Doyle has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the high street bank. Doyle was charged last week with four others including his brother, James, and wife, Bethan, after an investigation by the Fraud Office. The others are Stuart Nicholson – formerly of Major Taylor Nicholson – and Stephen […]

The Government must act to redress the balance in media ownership legislation, Mirror Group Newspapers chief executive David Mongomery told TV95 delegates last week. Montgomery was speaking soon after news emerged that the National Heritage Secretary, Stephen Dorrell, has ruled out radical reform of cross-media ownership regulations. Newspaper publishers re-acted angrily to reports last week […]

The Outdoor Advertising Association has appointed former LWT sponsorship chief Richard Holliday as director, replacing OAA secretary John Klue. CIA Group has announced a 24 per cent increase in pre-tax profits, to £5.3m, in 1994. Turnover rose 64 per cent to £468m. Michael Horner, former London Radio sales director and ex-LBC sales and marketing director, […]

Clue: `Find me in Gloucestershire on St Patrick’s Eve’

In the last three months of 1994 broadband cable passed more than 400,000 new homes, bringing the total to more than 4 million or one in five British residences, according to the latest Independent Television Commission statistics. The number taking cable TV is now close to 1 million – one in five satellite TV homes. […]

Virtual reality is hitting the British high street as Visionary Shopper transforms the way in which supermarkets study their customers. By Virginia Matthews

Chocolate retailer Thorntons’ first marketing director, Pamela Langworthy, who held the same position at Dairy Crest, will oversee a new ad campaign after the previous one was blamed for poor Christmas sales. Thorntons saw a 1.2 per cent fall in sales in the approach to Christmas, which normally accounts for 30 per cent of annual […]

In the Market Research special report “Techno Probe” (MW February 24) the second paragraph of the feature stated that many market research companies operate in an unprofessional way, using dishonest researchers and doing limited check-ups on their activities. The original copy made it clear that the writer was referring to a single personal experience as […]

If Simon Bullimore really was “Canute-like”, “Mars returning to earth” (MW March 3), at the ISBA policy conference then he was demonstrating that Mars was not omnipotent, rather than the other way round. Let us not forget than Canute got his feet wet to persuade his courtiers of what he knew to be true – […]

British broadcasters in the Nineties face a conundrum, delegates heard. Despite an increase in channel choice, overall, UK TV viewing has slipped by 4.6 per cent in the past two years. Millward Brown managing director Rosi Ware said viewers perceptions of poor programming and the better performance of other media were to blame. “Poor programme […]

Rival companies marketing to students have clashed over claims that student unions have refused to take one firm’s starter packs. The marketing company of the National Union of Students, NUSSL, is launching the Student Union Bag (SUB). It contains product samples and brand information, in direct competition with the Student Welcome Pack (SWP) from Reaction […]