Month: July 1998

Tesco is stocking colour printers for computers for the first time.

Compaq Computer has handed its top UK marketing role to enterprise business director Vesey Crichton. Crichton, who is a former advisor to Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, has worked at Compaq for the past ten years. He moves from being responsible for operating systems, servers, storage and workstations, to lead marketing at the company formed […]

Have you ever thought how dreadful it would be to live in a meritocracy? To know that everyone in positions of power and authority, and all those at the head of their professions, were there because of undisputed and demonstrable excellence? It would be insufferable on three counts. First, we would be denied one of […]

US grocery giant the Campbell Soup Company has appointed Zenith Media to handle its $30m (18.8m) planning and buying account across Europe. Zenith, which handles the bulk of Campbell’s media business in the UK, wins business previously handled by three other roster agencies as a result of the review, first revealed in Marketing Week (April […]

Being just one rung in a long ladder of names linking branding, advertising, publishing, direct marketing and communications may not be every design consultancy’s idea of bliss, but that is exactly where Interbrand and Newell & Sorrell find themselves. Since the merger last year, they are jointly under B for Branding in the four pages […]

Selfridges will test a service offering tailor-made themed dinner parties from a team of personal food shoppers when it opens in Manchester on September 10. Customers will phone with details of the theme of their party, the number of guests and any dietary requirements 48 hours before the event. Personal shoppers will choose and pack […]

Whitbread is relaunching Heineken lager with new packaging and a generic advertising campaign for the brand through Lowe Howard-Spink. The new pack designs will apply to the whole Heineken range – the standard lager Heineken Cold Filtered, the Heineken Export can and the Export bottle. A supporting advertising campaign is expected to break next week. […]

Airtours Holidays is testing a range of branded products, to be sold through its resort representatives. Holidaymakers will be able to buy Airtours branded T-shirts, towels, baseball caps and rucksacks for adults and children, ranging in price from 4 to 10. The trial takes place in the Algarve for four months from August and hopes […]

Which? Online has had to spend 40,000 replacing CD-Roms offering Internet access because they directed users to a hardcore porn site instead of the Alta Vista search engine. The porn site offers “real hard-core sex” and “live sex chat, shower shows… and much, much more”. The charity also had to e-mail customers who had already […]

Ammirati Puris Lintas is to lose Anna Gorman, managing partner and group account director for its BBC and Burger King accounts. Gorman, who is working out a three-month resignation period, leaves the agency next week. She says: “I have been with APL for five and a half years, and now is an appropriate time to […]

Tesco and Asda et al believe their consumers have the right to buy premium branded clothing at seriously discounted prices, and brand owners naturally disagree. Much of the recent comment in the business press champions the consumer’s cause and therefore that of the multiples. Perhaps I’m missing something here but isn’t it the very fact […]

Public opinion has hardened against advertisements containing swearing, rude gestures and homosexuality. According to research from the Advertising Standards Authority, 81 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed agreed that “the use of bad language or rude gestures should never be allowed” in press ads, compared with 71 per cent in a similar ASA study […]

Joint chief executives at Saatchi & Saatchi’s London office Adam Crozier and Tamara Ingram are to remain in their posts, despite the turmoil surrounding chairman Alan Bishop’s move to an international business development role.

MBNA International Bank, the US credit card company, is taking legal action against Barnsley Football Club in a row over the launch of a credit card. The bank has issued a High Court writ against the South Yorkshire club to force it to pay damages for an alleged breach of contract originating in October 1996. […]

Chanel, the French fashion, fragrance and cosmetics house, is developing plans to take its prestigious pedigree into the mass market. The company will launch two initiatives in 1999 which will attempt to establish it as an accessible brand for consumers under 25 – a target market that Chanel has largely ignored to date. Its range […]