Brand strength vital for growth

Pepsi is to relaunch in France this year using a new recipe. A Ff50m (5m) advertising campaign will break in May to announce the change, complemented by a nationwide sampling campaign (see story page 7).

Casadevall Pedreño, the Barcelona agency, is understood to be talking to WPP Group, Omnicom and Interpublic about a possible network link-up.

DDB’s victory over Saatchi & Saatchi in the pitch for Volkswagen’s ad account (right) was down to last-minute additions to the agency’s creative staff, ac-cording to Ger-man reports (MW April 17). Future changes in handling the account will include the introduction of performance-related remuneration.

Nestlé has unveiled a major campaign in France for its Lion chocolate bar, designed to bring the advertising more in line with the styles and expectations of the brand’s target market of 15 to 25-year-olds.

Prisma Presse is claiming that the Intermarché supermarket chain took issues of a recent edition of Capital magazine from its shelves. The title carried an article critical of the company under the headline ‘Intermarché en panne’ (broken down).

Helbert Verlag, the Wiesbaden-based publisher, has closed For You, a weekly magazine aimed at 18 to 25-year-old women, after only four weeks on the market. It deemed an average circulation of 400,000 insufficient.

Melzer Randelhoff has been appointed to handle the launch of Zespri, the new brand name for New Zealand-produced kiwifruit, in Germany (MW February 28). The agency already handles advertising for Chiquita bananas in Germany and Austria.

Danone, in France, has extended its Taillefine yogurt brand into chilled meal substitutes, where it will compete with Yoplait’s Menu Minceur. Advertising from Young & Rubicam will support the new products.

McCann-Erickson has appointed Andreas Danyliuk, previously in charge of EURO RSCG’s German operations, to head its Frankfurt office. Danyliuk may eventually succeed Willi Schalk as chairman of McCann-Erickson in Germany.

Leclerc and Carrefour, the French supermarkets, are locked in dispute over the branding of their budget own-label lines. Leclerc uses the name Marque-repère; Carrefour’s line sells under the name Repère 1er Prix.