Sales of men’s toiletries in the UK are expected to reach 557m this year, according to a new report by market research company Mintel. The study, called “Men’s Grooming Habits”, shows aftershaves and cologne account for 48 per cent of total turnover. But recent sales expansion has come from newer categories, such as bodysprays, haircare […]
Tight margins and plunging prices would put many retailers off selling a new product. And that is what lies in store for the computer market. Yet retailers are queuing up to sell PCs. The latest recruit is furniture retailer Ikea, which is in exploratory talks with a computer manufacturer over devoting space in stores to […]
The Department of Trade and Industry’s attempt to push down prices on electrical goods by forcing manufacturers to supply discount retailers will leave the market largely unaffected, according to independent experts. Specialist retail analyst Verdict Research argues that retail margins on electrical consumer goods, typically between three and seven per cent, are too tight to […]
Delaney Fletcher Bozell has won the 3m account for IPC’s TV weeklies group – including TV Times. It is the first time an agency has been appointed to the group since the deregulation of television listings in 1991. The agency is understood to have pitched against Mellors Reay & Partners, Partners BDDH and Mortimer Whittaker […]
The launch of Eurosport’s World Cup coverage came down to what must be the PR equivalent of a penalty shoot-out last week. The station planned to fly former England captain Bryan Robson, the World Cup trophy, and most of the tabloid press to the Eiffel Tower for a photo opportunity. The idea was: Eurosport fixes […]
Q Magazine launches its first television advertising campaign on June 1, with creative work by Bean Andrews Norways Cramphorn. The campaign, which features a 30-second ad to run on Channel 4 and 5 and satellite channels, promotes Q’s July issue and focuses on its guide to summer music festivals. It offers a free CD which […]
UDV, the merged spirits business of IDV and United Distillers, has started an external search for senior marketing staff only six weeks before it officially opens for business on July 1. The positions are the last outstanding marketing posts at UDV, which this week has confirmed a further round of new appointments to its marketing […]
Electrical retailer Comet is planning to sell the products stocked in its stores directly over its existing Internet site for the first time. At the moment, customers can find out price and specification on the Net, but have to visit a store to make their purchase. The site shows Comet’s entire range of goods including […]
Guardian Royal Exchange is axing the post of marketing director, held for the past two years by Larry Cattle, in a reshuffle sparked by its acquisition of PPP Healthcare. Cattle leaves shortly to join financial actuaries Bacon & Woodrow, where he will develop new marketing plans. His position at GRE is being scrapped, but will […]
Kraft Jacobs Suchard is testing advertising in one-third of the UK which if successful, could ultimately replace its 11-year-old “Philly” girls campaign. The new humorous ads feature a young woman enjoying the fantasy of being by a swimming pool in a tropical location while she is served Philadelphia cream cheese. It is being screened in […]
It was only at the beginning of this year that Tony Blair made business presentation history by taking part in what was billed as the first non-political satellite broadcast from No 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister’s home played host to a three-way link with Ford Motor Company’s world headquarters in Michigan and its Halewood […]
T here are two problems with political advertising. The first is that some political parties are richer than others, and so can afford more of it. While Party A buys up all the hoardings on one side of an unlevel playing field, Party B can only afford the sites behind the goals, and Party C […]
It’s an indication of the sort of paranoia that Bill Gates and Microsoft engender that even a recent Institute of Grocery Distribution conference on Efficient Consumer Response ended with the keynote speaker warning: “Beware of Bill”. What the current anti-trust action shows is just how powerful some key trends in modern marketing are in the […]
The Evening Standard is to launch a new home, style and interiors magazine called ES Interiors. The newspaper colour supplement will be published for the first time with the Friday edition of the Evening Standard on September 11. It will be review size with a minimum of 32 pages and appear alongside the Evening Standard […]
BT is to relaunch a service which allows users to dial from any phone and charge the call to their own personal bill, with the introduction of the Platinum Chargecard. The new Chargecard will appear at the beginning of July, six months after BT narrowly avoided action by the regulator Oftel over its subsidised low […]