Month: October 1996

As more and more companies move their brands into international markets, greater emphasis is being placed on designs that can work in all countries, transcending cultural and linguistic differences.

Research shows that there are 312,000 elite investors in the UK.

Ambrose McGinn, Marketing director, Abbey National

Cable channels Carlton Select and Carlton Food Network are looking for an advertising agency to handle their 1m account. The account was with M&C Saatchi for the launch phase of both channels. But M&C was criticised by some ITV broadcasters for handling the work while at the same time handling ITV’s business. The channels are […]

Keith Bedell-Pearce, the controversial managing director of Prudential UK, has left the UK operation to take an unspecified position at Prudential Corporation. A spokesman says his new role will be to oversee Prudential operations in Australia, New Zealand and Italy. The move follows a restructure at the UK’s biggest life assurer, which includes the creation […]

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

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 […]

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.

Cereal manufacturer Quaker Oats is launching two microwaveable hot cereals into a market which Tesco and Sainsbury’s abandoned earlier this year. The company is introducing Hot Oat Crunch, backed by a 1m advertising campaign through Young & Rubicam next month, and Quick & Hearty, a cereal sold in individual sachets, that is available in the […]

Philips is re-entering the PC market six years after it was forced to abandon the sector because of poor sales. The Dutch electronics giant is launching a range of branded palm-top computers and notebooks next month. The palm-tops will be launched in the US, while the notebooks will target the Netherlands and the growing Asia […]

“If you want to get ahead, get a beard,” seems to be the order of the day at electronics company Amstrad. The Diary was enjoying a convivial lunch with Bordan Tkachuk, the plain-speaking managing director of Viglen, the Amstrad-owned PC manufacturer. Pouring himself a glass of Côte du Rhône, Tkachuk fixed the hirsute Diary with […]

Neil Morgan is the man who intends to kick-start UK advertising on the Internet. He is also the man who compiles the light-hearted daily “e-zine” Anorak. So is Morgan a man to be taken seriously? First, let’s clear up a couple of things. If Morgan does wear an anorak, it is for walking at weekends. […]

Research shows that there are 312,000 elite investors in the UK.

CompuServe’s most senior executive outside the US, Steven Stanbrook, has become the third director to leave the company’s European operation in two months. Stanbrook, who is vice-president international, will take up a post as executive vice-president of household cleaning products company SC Johnson. He had been the first to fill the new post at CompuServe […]

If ever there was a company typifying the ‘think global, act local’ slogan it is Coca-Cola. It has defied the current orthodoxy favoured by other global brands (notably IBM and Colgate-Palmolive) and decentralised its advertising roster. More than 30 agencies, including the likes of Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Wieden & Kennedy, attempt to bring a […]