Month: September 1996

Mitre, Europe’s leading teleservicing agency which owns The Decisions Group, Merit Direct, The Call Centre and Merit Communications, has merged with Sitel, the US-based telemarketing operation. Following the transaction, valued at about 208m, Sitel becomes the largest provider of global teleservices with over 5,700 workstations. Following the recruitment of John Menzies to the Smart membership […]

Reader’s Digest has picked Ogilvy & Mather Direct to handle its direct response TV planning and buying business. The move comes as part of a review of its estimated 2m advertising and direct marketing business.

Just as some of the best film scenes end up on the cutting room floor, so great ads wither and die on the drawing board. Take one bright idea from Walkers Snackfoods which never made it. The Diary hears the crisp giant, slightly miffed by a Safeway “Molly” ad for own-label crisps, considered getting its […]

Here’s the clue for round three of our Spot the Sponsor competition. This sponsor supports the English union weekly – Beware Wasps and Tigers etc.

Speculation is growing over who will buy Marco Benatti’s stake in the CIA Group, following confirmation that the second biggest shareholder is selling. Interpublic has held talks with CIA Group vice-chairman Benatti, as revealed exclusively in Marketing Week (September 6). The talks are thought to have been inconclusive and he is now looking elsewhere. Logically, […]

Music chain HMV is hunting for a UK marketing director following Paul Goodwin’s sudden departure after only a year at the company. Goodwin, who was poached from brewer Scottish Courage last July, resigned last week to take up marketing consultancy work abroad. He had left his marketing director’s post at Southern Inns to join HMV […]

Big Breakfast presenter and ex-Gladiator Sharron Davies is to appear with Gary Lineker in the latest Walkers Snackfoods ad, breaking tomorrow (Thursday). The futuristic-style execution in the popular ‘No More Mr Nice Guy’ campaign through BMP DDB supports an instant-win promotion called Champion Cheques.

Concern is mounting over ‘hijacking’ of Internet domains but with no UK legal precedent, companies risk being held to ransom over their brand names

Interesting piece about the motor trade “Spotlight: Car buyers put wheels in motion” (MW September 6). But I have to question the objectives of the research. If research on off-road vehicles had been carried out, would it have included the mini? I think not, therefore why include direct mail in analysis of recall? I work […]

NatWest marketing director Raoul Pinnell has lost his job after a wide-ranging restructure of the senior management at the bank. Tony Warren has been promoted to senior managing director and will develop opportunities across NatWest’s retail banking, life and investments, mortgage and general insurance business. Three executives will take over Pinnell’s marketing responsibilities. One, a […]

Publicis has lost the 3.5m account for painkiller brand Anadin. Anadin’s makers, Whitehall Laboratories, has reassigned it to an undisclosed agency. Although the move was unexpected, Whitehall Laboratories says the decision to reassign the brand was not connected to the fact that Publicis also holds the account of supermarket chain Asda. Asda delisted Anadin Paracetamol […]

Imagine you have two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. One represents a set of data, the other the geography affecting your business. To get the two to fit together, they need to be cut into compatible shapes. If you call the outline of those shapes an interface, then the concept of geographical information systems (GIS) […]

Phone company Mercury Communications is axing the controversial “World of Oliver & Claire” cartoon ad campaign only six months after its launch. The 5m campaign, which was criticised by the advertising community, was devised by HHCL & Partners. It broke in February in the press and on TV in May. The campaign was targeted at […]

Furniture and carpet retailer Courts reveals its second television campaign through Collett Dickenson Pearce this week, featuring entertainer Bruce Forsyth dressed as a judge. The push, which breaks on Thursday, will be supported by national and regional press and local radio and is part of a 9m spend. CDP deputy managing director Simon Myers says: […]

Some years ago, a building materials manufacturer with a new brick design he wanted to sell to architects and building specifiers decided to try direct marketing. He rented a list from one of the leading architectural magazines, sent out a mailshot and waited for the orders to roll in. Unfortunately, the response was far lower […]