Payne Stracey is understood to be completing its merger with sister Omnicom agency Tequila London this week, to create a top direct marketing and sales promotion agency with a billings equivalent of 96m. It is thought that Payne Stracey managing director Ben Stephens will take the top job in the merged agency, though he refused […]
CIA Medianetwork has emerged as the secret ally of Bozell Worldwide as it squares up against Omnicom-owned PentaCom and GMFO for the media business of newly merged DaimlerChrysler. It is understood that no formal pitch has so far taken place, but presentations from all sides were made last week in New York. It is increasingly […]
Marketing is like an exceptionally well cultivated organic carrot – seven eighths of it lie below the surface, allowing the gum-booted onlooker to gaze only upon the frivolous fronds above. How, though, to be sure what the eye perceives atop the manure-larded turf is indeed the foliaceous manifestation of subterranean tuberous life and not, say, […]
Thomas Cook has appointed a marketing director to its new emergency service for holidaymakers, called Global Services, and is preparing to advertise the venture for the first time. Former Scoot marketing director Richard Thackray becomes strategic marketing director for global networks and services and joins on December 1 after only six months with Scoot. Global […]
Bass Beers Worldwide is launching Bass Ale on television in the US for the first time, with an estimated $5m (3m) campaign. The move, which comes two months after the launch of Caffrey’s Irish Ale in the US, represents the growing importance of international markets for Bass. The new campaign – organised through the Guinness […]
Allied Domecq is preparing to roll out its Sauza tequila brand throughout the UK on the back of a retail concept called Bar Sauza. One outlet of Bar Sauza has already opened in Glasgow as a trial and Allied Domecq Inns is now converting existing sites in Leeds, Nottingham, Leicester and Birmingham. If these prove […]
The sudden collapse of the planned $12bn (7.5bn) media merger between Leo Burnett and the MacManus Group underlines the conflicting interests of the UK and US media industries. After almost a year of negotiations, and with an official announcement of the UK merger expected in less than a fortnight, last week’s unexpected derailment of the […]
Novartis Consumer Health company has appointed a new chief executive and centralised its pan-European media buying at CIA Medianetwork. It is also to create a top marketing position and to merge two of its business units. Godfrey Axten, former managing director Novartis Consumer Health UK, has been made chief executive of the consumer health company. […]
In June, a man walked into an Internet café in London and asked to speak to the manager. Although he had never used a computer before, he had read in The Times that he could save 200 on the cost of flights to Barcelona for his family if he boo
Andy Neal, the former consumer marketing director of spirits business United Distillers UK, is to head a new Scottish division of poster company the More Group. Neal lost out in the creation of Diageo, the merger of United Distillers’ parent company Guinness and IDV’s parent Grand Metropolitan, when his counterpart at IDV was put in […]
The Diary always likes to bring you the bare facts, and this week they are barer than ever. Rumour has it that the more people drink, the more inclined they are to get their kit off. But a new promotion from First Drinks Brands for Taboo is perhaps the most blatant attempt the Diary has […]
I wonder whether any of your readers have noticed the similarity between “the best sales promotion agency around… Claydon Heeley” to which Jonathan Clark kindly refers in his letter (MW November 19) and “direct marketing agency Claydon Heeley” – the only direct marketing agency quoted in your Cover Story on smart cards two pages earlier, […]
Bass Brewers launches a more masculine and adult Hooper’s Hooch on television next week with an ad featuring a urinal. The 6m campaign by EURO RSCG Wnek Gosper aims to reposition the Hooch brand after a year in which the bottom has dropped out of alcopop sales. Two TV executions are to run nationally, supported […]
John Stoker, director general of the National Lottery, is to quit regulator Oflot after its reorganisation at the beginning of next year. Stoker, who took charge of regulating the Lottery after the resignation of the controversial director general Peter Davis last February, will leave Oflot next spring. He returns to the Department of Transport, Environment […]
BBC Worldwide Music has lost its global brand manager for Top of the Pops. Leslie Golding was only appointed to the new role only last March (MW March 12). It is understood that Golding decided not to renew his contract with the corporation to take time off to travel. The corporation is interviewing candidates to […]