Broadcasting has changed beyond recognition in recent years; unfortunately the way it is regulated has not yet moved with it. By Nick Higham. Nick Higham is BBC TV’s media correspondent.
Magnet, the kitchens and building merchants group, is reviewing its 5.5m advertising account at McCann-Erickson Manchester. The review follows the appointment of Andrew Airey, who joined the company as group marketing director in April of this year. McCann has held the account since 1990 and has repitched for the business, and retained it, three times […]
Senior managers at AOL Bertelsmann Online Europe have confirmed that they will adopt a softly-softly approach to tampering with the branding of Britain’s leading online service provider, CompuServe. AOL and CompuServe’s US owner, H&R Block, confirmed details of the takeover of Compu-Serve UK by the AOL joint venture last week, as they outlined the $1.2bn […]
Pools giant Littlewoods is understood to be considering buying rival operator Vernons, although it acknowledges in public that its owner Ladbroke has not yet put it up for sale. Vernons, which has lost almost three quarters of its turnover since the launch of the National Lottery in November 1994, suffered falling profits in the first […]
Grand Metropolitan’s Pillsbury UK has consolidated its 7m media business for UK brands into TMD Carat. The 7m account is the entire media business for Häagen-Dazs, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Pillsbury Toaster Pockets and UK-only brand Jus-Rol. Carat’s win follows a five-way pitch, which included Western International Media – the incumbent on the 3m […]
Coca-Cola is appealing against the European Commission’s scrutiny of the takeover of Coca-Cola & Schweppes Beverages (CCSB). When the deal, which saw Coca-Cola Enterprises take control of CCSB, was approved in February, Brussels attached a number of conditions. It insisted on monitoring the performance of each brand in the CCSB portfolio – half of which […]
Motorola is rolling out an estimated 30m pan-European branding campaign. The largest campaign in the European subsidiary’s history comes four weeks after McCann-Erickson scooped Motorola’s 100m global account (MW August 21).
This week’s issue announces the appointment of MGM by the Times Supplements to handle its media (MW September 11). Sorry, but credit where credit is due. It was The McWilliams Partnership which won the business. And it was McWilliams which appointed MGM. Colin Gottlieb Managing partner Manning Gottlieb Media London W1
There are signs that, just as in the US, parts of the European fast-food market are reaching saturation. David Benady looks at the market’s future.
Nowhere is the relationship between business, glamour, sport, and raw greed more obvious than in Formula One motor racing. So the Diary was amused to read in last Tuesday’s Daily Mail that Monza Grand Prix winner David Coulthard was interested more in winning than money. “Maybe I could have earned more money in my career […]
It is one US craze that has not, thankfully, been copied on this side of the pond. The rebirth of cigar smoking, which has swept the US over the past two years, has been rejected by the British. The only long, thick, brown thing we are prepared to stick in our mouths is a Curly-Wurly. […]
Why? Oh why? have the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph been at each other’s throats recently over a story about Prince Charles?
Allied Domecq Spirits & Wine has appointed Richard Gowar as head of its European International Brand Group. Gowar will assume responsibility for the marketing of key brands – including Beefeater Gin, Courvoiser cognac and Teacher’s whisky – ac
Hasbro brand Action Man is seeking a European marketing director, who, despite the title, will have global marketing responsibility. The global marketing role has been created by a worldwide realignment of marketing responsibilities by games and toys giant Hasbro, which will give UK staff the lead role in driving key brands into non-European markets. The […]
Channel 5’s viewing figures topped ITV’s for the first time in peaktime, thanks to the attractions of Monday night’s action thriller Speed. Movie stars Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock lured a maximum of 3.8 million viewers, equivalent to a 27 per cent share of the total viewing public, to tune in to the UK’s newest […]