Month: March 1998

Cup winners and losers

Marketing Week

BSkyB has pumped almost 1bn into English football in the past six years. It has the exclusive live rights to all Premiership games and a contract to show all home England international matches live until 2001. But for the four weeks of the biggest football tournament the world has ever seen its screens will be […]

Merloni centralises 6m media buying account at TMD Carat

Marketing Week

Merloni, one of Europe’s largest white goods manufacturers whose brands include Indesit and Ariston, has centralised its 6m European media buying account at TMD Carat. MediaVest loses the 3m media buying account in the UK. Simon Bennett, UK marketing manager for Merloni free standing appliances, says there are no plans to change the company’s creative […]

Advertisers berate ITV over expensive airtime

Marketing Week

Advertisers forcibly expressed their exasperation with the expense of ITV airtime at the TV Barcelona conference last week and called on ITV to join Channel 5 in lobbying for more minutage. Mike Moran, marketing director of Toyota GB, said: “It’s getting ridiculously expensive. I believe media inflation is out of control.” However, Richard Eyre, ITV […]

Railtrack tries to make ground

Marketing Week

The Railtrack advertising campaign is an attempt to inform people of the progress being made in respect of investment in this country’s rail system. We will provide numerous specific examples of what is being done to regenerate the rail network and its 2,500 stations by the year 2001. BR under-invested for many years. Railtrack has […]

You overstate the impact of digital TV

Marketing Week

While reading John Carter and Andrew Napier’s article on digital TV (MW March 12), I couldn’t help wondering if I was reading a copy of Advertising Age during the first era of interactive TV around 1992-1993. Their conception of Digital TV is commonplace, but based on the simple misunderstanding that all Digital TV will be […]

Three bid for England team sponsorship

Marketing Week

Three companies are locked in a bidding war to sponsor the England team at the end of the World Cup. Car manufacturers Ford and Vauxhall and mobile phone operator One- 2-One are battling it out for what is arguably the most high profile sponsorship deal in the UK – which will cost about 15m over […]

Financial services watchdogs plan ads to highlight pension mis-sales

Marketing Week

Financial services regulators are considering a consumer advertising campaign to raise awareness about the mis-sale of pensions. The campaign is one of a number of proposals being mooted by regulatory bodies the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and Personal Investment Authority as a result of a pensions review. The ads would form a part of a […]

A Question of loyalty

Marketing Week

In the UK customer loyalty programmes are everywhere. Consumers are well versed in such programmes, and almost expect to be offered some form of incentive to buy from a particular company. But how do consumers in other markets around the world respond to this approach? One thing that consumers have in common – whether they […]

The life of O’Brien – a huge talent

Marketing Week

The Diary was amused to learn that Comet’s new strategy supremo and marketing director Stephen O’Brien shares the same name as the head of corporate affairs at arch-rival Dixons. But further research suggests Comet has, in fact, taken on Superman. A Stephen O’Brien is chief executive of business campaign group London First and a Stephen […]

Leo Burnett to use tropical theme to refresh Five Alive

Marketing Week

Coca-Cola is planning a return to TV with its Five Alive brand after a two-year absence. It is understood the campaign, which is set on a tropical island, will feature a fruit which has flourished undetected for years. The fruit is the basis of the Five Alive five-fruit flavour – orange, grapefruit, tangerine, lime and […]

Corporate egos reject logic to hasten mergers made in hell

Marketing Week

Some ugly scenes in British boardrooms have led me to review my recent self-congratulation at having got some market trends right. The ugliest scene is at SmithKline Beecham, which spurned American Home Products in favour of having Glaxo Wellcome as a mega-partner, only to decide that it couldn’t be done after all. And there are […]

Motor sector studies the ‘small print’

Marketing Week

The motor industry breathed a sigh of relief and then began looking at the implications of the “small print”. The unexpected 30 per cent cut in road tax on small vehicles with “clean” engines and low emissions will lead to marketing efforts to stimulate the small car sector. Although several sources were still seeking a […]

Marcantonio quits AMV to head IPG’s GM team

Marketing Week

The Interpublic Group has hired Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO vice-chairman Alfredo Marcantonio to spearhead a new unit to handle General Motors business across Europe. The move comes just four months after IPG missed out on the 35m pan-European launch of the new Astra. General Motors chose Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe rather than either of the IPG […]

RAC banks on ads to rescue its image

Marketing Week

It is less than 12 months since the RAC dropped the crown from its logo, resprayed its vans orange and repositioned itself as a “mobility” company. For the RAC it was the most radical change since the creation of the motor car. A no-claims bonus on the breakdown service and the sale of RAC bicycles […]

Rail operator is aware of image

Marketing Week

The criticism in your news analysis piece “Railtrack PR push misses the points” (MW March 12) is based on a shallow understanding of Railtrack’s position. However, Lucy Killgren is right to say that advertising alone is not going to change perceptions of Railtrack or the railways themselves. Despite the implications of the article, I believe […]