Bluebird Toys’ 8m ad account is under review in the wake of its takeover by US toy giant Mattel, which was given the green light by the DTI in June. Bluebird last year used creative agency BDH on its Polly Pocket and Rhino Rush brands, while Media-Vest Manchester was responsible for media buying across the […]
Cellnet commercial director and former marketing director Simon Esberger has resigned after only one year with the company. Esberger was hired as Cellnet marketing director in September 1997 but was moved to the commercial director’s role in June this year. He was replaced by Canadian Kent Thexton. The commercial director role was Esberger’s fourth job […]
Take A Break, the UK’s best-selling women’s weekly, is to be advertised for the first time on television since its launch in March 1990. The 2m two-week campaign, created by Mustoe Merriman Herring Levy, is due to break tonight. It will appear on ITV, Channel 5 and sat-ellite with buying through Motive. The aim of […]
Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO is poised to gain 4.5m worth of advertising business for Dell Computer after the company fired J Walter Thompson from its 60m global account and reassigned the business to the BBDO network. Sources speculate that Dell vice-president corporate branding Scott Helbing, who used to work at Tricon-owned Pizza Hut and who joined […]
US-based online music store CDnow has signed up as “the premier music retailer” on the Yahoo! UK and Ireland site, just weeks after UK-based IMVS signed a similar deal with the leading navigation site. But Christopher Codrington, marketing director at IMVS (www. imvs.com), says he is unconcerned that CDnow is the preferred music vendor alongside […]
Ranks Hovis McDougall subsidiary, Bisto Foods, has appointed Advertising Brasserie to develop a new 1.5m Christmas campaign for the Paxo stuffing brand. Bisto Foods is understood to have spoken to several agencies about the Paxo business before the Advertising Brasserie was appointed. The appointment is part of a broader review that began in March. Advertising […]
The Institute of Sales Promotion is campaigning against Government proposals, which it claims could destroy the 3bn incentives industry and cost more than 3,000 jobs. The Government is proposing to make non-cash incentive schemes for employees, like Luncheon Vouchers and Air Miles, liable to national insurance for the first time. But the ISP says the […]
Some people think that the future of ambient media was best expressed by the opening scenes of the Ridley Scott-classic Bladerunner. Harrison Ford’s burnt-out cop Decker moves through a nightmare future Los Angeles, where the moral bankruptcy of society is underlined by omnipresent advertising, which even dominates the skyline, and is projected onto huge TV […]
I would like to correct a few misconceptions in Alan Mitchell’s “Grocery retailers cannot rely on barcodes alone” (MW September 3), for the sake of accuracy in future reports. He refers to The European Article Numbering Association. This should have read “EAN International, the International Article Numbering Association”. The European article Number Association changed its […]
Coca-Cola Great Britain has poached a top Procter & Gamble marketer to replace Jan Hall in its biggest UK brands marketing job, following an eight-month search.
How do you suppose Professor Michael Howe became a psychologist? Was it because social science was a soft option compared to, say, physics? Or was it a subconscious decision determined by a long-forgotten childhood experience, such as being dropped on his head in infancy? Of one thing we may be certain: it had nothing to […]
Cable and satellite station Bravo is to sponsor Leyton Orient football club. The duo are teaming up with The Sun to hunt for a much-needed striker for the third division team, nicknamed the Os, and the search is to be broadcast on Bravo’s magazine show, called The Basement. The Diary thinks this is a great […]
Most advertisers now recognise media as a separate business sector within the communications industry. Separation is here to stay and the pitch is inevitably more complicated as a result. However, that complexity has been exaggerated by the fragmentation of media services into specialist companies. The issue is whether this complexity is necessary or whether media […]
Merloni, the Italian white goods manufacturer which owns the Indesit and Ariston brands, is looking for a senior marketer who will capitalise on growth in the sector. The new position could be either a marketing director or head of marketing, reporting to UK managing director John McDarren. A Merloni spokesman says: “We’re doing this to […]
Building society Bradford & Bingley is talking to Walker Media, Manning Gottlieb Media and MSc, New PHD’s joint venture with Partners BDDH, about its 15m media account.