Month: October 1996

NATIONAL SAVINGS

Marketing Week

Much time and effort has been put into proving the link between outstanding creative work and advertising effectiveness. But creative ads are only one part of the equation. The National Savings campaign shows strategic and media “creativity” can result in outstanding effectiveness. National Savings exists primarily to help finance Government borrowing and has to compete […]

INTERNET WATCH

Marketing Week

For the Internet to pull in large numbers of home users and enter the mass market, it needs to be faster, cheaper, easier to use and more entertaining

Meccano strategy shift fuels UK agency hunt

Marketing Week

Meccano Toys is looking for a UK ad agency in a shift away from its current strategy of using world-aligned advertising agency Grey Paris. The metal construction toy was originally the brainchild of model train maker Frank Hornby, who patented it in 1901, and sold it under the name “Mechanics Made Easy”, but after falling […]

Gay bulletin board scheme launches online

Marketing Week

Planet Patrol, the gay bulletin board system backed by Allied Domecq and CHBi Interactive Media, is to launch on the AOL (Europe) online service this week. The year-old site, which features branding from drinks brands including Beefeater and Kahlua and online access to Gay Times, will also launch fully onto the Internet before the end […]

EXPRESS PURPOSE

Marketing Week

Reputedly a bit of a task master, Andy Jonesco nonetheless seems to inspire loyalty and praise among staff. But, with job cuts on the agenda at the Express, this could well change.

Producers are driving innoflation

Marketing Week

Innoflation is the buzzword used to describe a deluge of new products, often based on a good idea from one company. Despite the customer-focus rhetoric, it is primarily another way of beating the competition and may be crowding out healthy and

CPC moots launch of Pot Noodle in France

Marketing Week

After the huge success of “le sandwich Anglais” comes “le Pot Noodle”. Golden Wonder Pot Noodle, the instant hot snack beloved by Britain’s students, is likely to be launched in France. According to sources, brand owner CPC is looking at introducing the snack to the French market, as part of growth plans which could see […]

…as survey blasts copycats

Marketing Week

More than 30 per cent of companies fear the impact of lookalike products. Many believe the threat is as great now as it was before trademark legislation, designed to protect brand owners, was introduced two years ago and the launch of an industry code from the Institute of Grocery Distribution last year. A survey of […]

Littlewoods axes Quick Pix after PO pulls plug

Marketing Week

Littlewoods Leisure, the football pools operator, is axing its Quick Pix game after Post Office Counters pulled it from 17,500 of its outlets. Quick Pix was launched in October 1995 as an “easy-to-play” version of the pools, using the same rules and the same jackpot of about 2m a week. It was backed with a […]

Avalanche of channel launches frustrates the cable industry

Marketing Week

You might have thought Britain’s cable operators would be grateful for this autumn’s wave of new TV channels. For years, they cried out for new programmes. Granada Sky, the Weather Channel, Warner Brothers and Sky’s own new offerings might be thought an added incentive to lure new customers into buying cable. But nothing is simple […]

C&W merger deal sparks cable industry shake-up

Marketing Week

Mercury Communications, Nynex, Bell Cablemedia, and Videotron are likely to disappear and be replaced by a single branded company, following the announcement this week of a merger of the groups into one company – Cable & Wireless Communications. The deal puts Cable & Wireless Communications ahead of TeleWest as the UK’s biggest communication service provider […]

Millennium Exhibition hunts marketing boss

Marketing Week

The Millennium Exhibition is searching for a marketing director as it builds up its senior management in preparation for the event in 2000. The former chief executive of the Welsh Development Agency, Barry Hartop, was this month appointed as chief executive of the exhibition at Greenwich. A finance director, Thazia Kantor, has also been recruited […]

M&G hands Rainey Kelly 3m brief

Marketing Week

Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe has won the 3m TV ad account for investment house M&G, the UK’s second largest provider of personal equity plans (Peps). The agency will launch the first TV campaign for the company’s Peps between January and March next year. It is understood that M&G appointed Rainey Kelly without a pitch. The […]

Outdoor muscles in on ad revenue

Marketing Week

Poster companies are taking record advertising revenue, thanks to better accountability, consolidation of ownership within the industry and, as TV audiences fragment, increased presence as a medium.