Month: April 1999

Decaux makes a global power play

Marketing Week

Revenge must taste particularly sweet for French outdoor company JC Decaux this week. Almost exactly a year since it was beaten by arch-rival Clear Channel to the trophy of British poster company, the More Group, Decaux has triumphed over this group and three other US rivals in the 625m auction to buy Vivendi’s poster and […]

Great Expectations

Marketing Week

It is now almost a decade since management consultancy Bain & Co carried out its ground-breaking research into the key differences between customer acquisition and customer retention. By considering the real costs and long-term returns, it fou

ITV nets Colgate for broadcast sponsorship

Marketing Week

ITV has secured broadcast sponsorship deals for two new TV series launching from April 30. One of the deals involves toothpaste brand Colgate, and represents the first time the brand has entered the sponsorship field. Colgate’s new gel brand, Colgate Sensation Deepclean, will sponsor Desperately Seeking Stardom, a new “docu-soap” which follows the trials and […]

ONdigital replies to Ivan Clark’s questions

Marketing Week

I read Ivan Clark’s media comment on ONdigital with some incredulity (MW April 15). Incredulity that he should want to raise in print questions he could get the answers to with one phone call. Anyway, here are the answers. He asks why only 30,000 customers are signing up each month. Well, he is almost alone […]

How to measure sponsorship

Marketing Week

As author of the FT Management Report, Measuring Successful Sponsorships, I was very surprised by Julian Bray’s letter (MW April 15). First, it has been accepted for many years by all experienced practitioners, that a company has to spend at least the same sum again as the fee on leveraging a sponsorship. Secondly, you can […]

A question of time

Marketing Week

The Working Time Directive, introduced in the UK last October, caught the market research industry unawares. Although the directive was passed by the European Union in 1993, it was only after many years of prevarication by the previous government and acceptance by the present one that it was finally introduced in Britain, and for many […]

Decaux purchase puts Maiden in spotlight

Marketing Week

JC Decaux’s 600m purchase of Vivendi’s outdoor advertising division, which includes Mills & Allen and Sky Sites in the UK, has fuelled speculation about a future bid for the quoted Maiden Group. The billboard contractor, which has an estimated 15 per cent of the UK outdoor market, saw its share price jump nearly 10 per […]

BBC Online top of UK Websites

Marketing Week

BBC Online has established a clear lead as the UK’s busiest Web destination, according to data released by ABC//electronic last Friday. But a spokesman for BBC Online (www.bbc.co.uk) concedes that its total of 80 page impressions registered during March may well be leapfrogged by Yahoo.co.uk at the next official ABC//electronic audit. BBC Online’s previous audit, […]

Value focused strategy is key to brand growth

Marketing Week

Sometimes the most basic marketing questions, turn out to be the most difficult to answer. For example, if you were asked how your day-to-day marketing activities benefit consumers, would you be able to answer in a detailed and confident way? In what way, for instance, did the latest ad campaign improve consumers’ lives? How valuable […]

Internet care proves food for thought

Marketing Week

A recent ad across the entire centre spread of The Daily Telegraph was both deeply puzzling and strangely reassuring. Measuring some two and a half feet across and about two feet in depth, it pictured a plate, a fork, and two knives. That much was clear. But what was on the plate was a mystery. […]

Sommers poised to hire Prudential brand chief

Marketing Week

Mike Sommers, the consultant brought in to shake up marketing at the Prudential, is to recruit a head of brands to oversee advertising, design, sponsorship and events for the group. The new appointment will come as part of a radical restructure at the financial services group, in which three of the marketing department’s four divisions […]

AT&T global telecoms bid will put market in American hands

Marketing Week

So this is what we were meant to tell Sid when British Telecom was privatised in 1986. Tell Sid that the telecoms market will go bonkers within little more than a decade. Tell Sid that this will largely be a result of tracker funds pushing telecoms shares up – and then pushing them up further […]

Sky Sites boss to lead IPM division

Marketing Week

IPG-owned poster specialist IPM is setting up an international division to be led by former Sky Sites sales director Chris Marjoram. The new division, called IPM Airspace, will deal primarily with planning and buying global airport advertising, but has the long-term aim of extending clients’ campaigns into major urban sites. Marjoram takes the role of […]

UK marketers still provincial

Marketing Week

I had thought the old maxim of “the marketing world stops at Dover” had been long buried, or at least I hoped it had. Running a series of seminars in the Baltic States, I have approached no fewer than 12 companies in the UK to see if they would like to supply brochures or samples […]

35-hour week tests marketers

Marketing Week

Legislation currently being shaped in France to regulate the working week will have important implications for the marketing and communications industry. Commonly referred to as the Loi Aubry, after France’s employment minister Martine Aubry, the law will limit the working week to 35 hours from January 1 2000. The law, the first version of which […]