Benetton Formula One marketing director John Postlethwaite is in talks with the late Matthew Harding’s reinsurance company, Benfield, to set up a sports and sponsorship consultancy. The company’s aim is to challenge major players in the sector, such as Alan Pascoe Associates and International Management Group. Benfield executives have met Postlethwaite a number of times […]
Sainsbury’s DIY chain Homebase is looking for a board-level marketing director for the first time. The new post combines functions such as market research and statistics, as well as financial functions and communications and advertising, which were previously handled separately. The creation of the position does not affect the structure of Homebase’s marketing department, which […]
Midland Bank is opening a pilot branch inside a Morrisons super-market – a month after Morrisons forged a similar deal with Barclays Bank. Barclays opened a trial branch at Morrisons in Newark in February, with cashpoint, telephone banking and personal banking facilities. But yesterday (Tuesday), Morrisons said it was entering into a “strategic partnership” with […]
Not that long ago ITV and BBC believed programme quality was enough to win audiences. But competition has forced a rethink.
Trigon Snacks is supporting its new range of nuts – Lounge Lizard – with an ad campaign parodying the society pages in glossy magazines. The ads, from Duckworth Finn Grubb Waters, will run in the April issues of Tatler, GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue and The Sunday Times. They were shot at a real party and […]
Greene King has dealt Guinness a blow by putting the UK’s leading standard lager, Bass’s Carling Black Label, on sale in its pubs alongside Guinness’ Harp. The decision by the Suffolk-based regional brewer comes despite Guinness’ decision to relaunch Harp with a stronger alcohol content and new advertising (MW January 17). A Greene King spokeswoman […]
British Airways is poised to an-nounce Eagle Star as the partner in its much-trumpeted financial services division. The division’s products will carry joint branding and will be sold to the public, not just to British Airways Executive Club members. Product details are not yet known but are likely to include household, motor, life insurance and, […]
Whitbread is being sued by a specialist beer importer for 1m in a row over the trademark and distribution rights for its recently launched Boston Beer from Samuel Adams. Premier Worldwide Beers claims the national brewer infringed its existing contracts with the Samuel Adams microbrewery in Massachusetts, US. Premier says it had the sole importing […]
Technology gives direct marketers the chance to build individual relationships with their consumers, to find out what they want, and to meet those needs. As Judi Gehlcken reports, it is a chance they cannot afford to miss. Judi Gehlcken is chi
Saatchi & Saatchi has picked up the 2m media buying account to promote the launch of “alternative” music station Xfm in London from September.
The old ones are always the best, as they say. Last week the Diary was sharing a drink with a cheerful beer marketing man when the conversation turned to that old workhorse of Scottish & Newcastle, the cheap and cheerful Kestrel lager. “Well, you know what they always used to say about Kestrel,” he says. […]
League studies shake-up of lower divisions to free 35m in sponsorship cash for first division
Jill Hilliard, PepsiCo Foods International vice-president marketing for Europe, is leaving the company following a reorganisation of its marketing department. It is understood she will not be replaced. Hilliard is joining Oxford Corporate Consultants as a senior consultant. Prior to her last role at PepsiCo, Hilliard was new product development director for the Walkers snack […]
It’s time the Government realised that its attempts to make us healthy are doomed – it should simply leave us alone
The InterLotto site is currently being promoted at the “UK National Lottery” site operated by Merseyside-based Richard Lloyd. The site, though giving information about the UK’s National Lottery operated by Camelot, directs visitors to gambling on the Liechtenstein lottery site. A spokesman for Camelot, which has no plans to launch Internet-based services to UK gamblers, […]