The Central Office of Information has appointed a roster of 25 sponsorship and promotion agencies as part of its move into programme production and sponsorship. MediaVest, Sponsorvision, Broadcast Innovation, Inside Broadcast, BBJ Media Services, Drum PHD, Carat, CIA-owned Mediavision Integrated (MVI) and MindShare have all been appointed to the roster on sponsorship and production. The […]
Patrick Winterbottom and his family are ONdigital customers – not such a select group as some pessimists had predicted. The announcement that the terrestrial digital company had signed up 110,000 paying subscribers in its first four months took many industry observers by surprise. The pessimism was based on several factors. It was not just that […]
Magazine publisher IPC is courting controversy with new print and poster ads for its grown-up lads’ title, Later, which launches at the end of the month. The ads, through Fallon McElligot, will break next week and feature two designs which play on drug terminology. One includes the headline “Get some coke for Jamie’s party” with […]
The closer a product comes to being perceived as a commodity, it seems the more difficult it is to market it in an exciting way. Consumers become less aware of brands, tending to think more in terms of product type. So if there is no brand loyalty to reinforce, why invest at all? It is […]
Kwik-Fit has delivered a crushing blow to The Morgan Partnership and CIA Medianetwork Scotland by handing Edinburgh agency Faulds Advertising its 10m full service advertising account. Both agencies face possible closure. Managing director of CIA Medianetwork Scotland Graham Milne says: “The options could range from maintaining the status quo to shutting down.” The account, one […]
An unusual brief, for Doomsday: the Ad, landed on agency desks recently. To promote the publication of his new book, Doomsday: The Survivor’s Guide, author David John Lee asked four agencies to put a positive spin on the end of the world. Ever eager to indulge, nay wallow, in black humour, adland produced some catchy […]
BOC Group, one of the UK’s biggest industrial companies, is looking for an agency to handle a 2m corporate branding campaign. BOC is best known for its industrial gases business. It last ran a corporate campaign in 1990 through Lowe Howard-Spink, which featured a TV ad starring flamingos and the voice of Sir Anthony Hopkins. […]
Mars UK’s newly created division, Seeds of Change, which is to specialise in organic food, is understood to have appointed DMB&B to handle its advertising. The company is launching a range of organic pasta sauces and dried pasta, which is in the process of being rolled out to multiples and specialist organic outlets. Founded in […]
Marks & Spencer’s first marketing director, James Benfield, has overhauled the company’s retail operations and has appointed four new managers to help turn round the fortunes of the high street chain.
Bates Dorland’s hold on the 20m Safeway account may be in jeopardy following the proposed merger of rival supermarket Asda with Kingfisher, one of the agency’s biggest clients. The merger would create the largest retail group in the UK, combining Asda’s 7.6bn supermarket business with Kingfisher’s 7.4bn sales, through its chains B&Q, Superdrug, Comet and […]
Marrying the glamorous, upmarket reputation of Hilton hotels with the downbeat image of a chain of bookies is not an easy task for a giant corporation. It is a challenge that betting, gaming and hotels giant Ladbroke Group has been wrestling with since it bought into the Hilton chain 12 years ago. Increasing activity in […]
Paul Simons will look to acquire advertising agencies and other communications companies when he takes the helm at Ogilvy & Mather at the beginning of May. Simons has already confirmed that the company’s new media arm Ogilvy Interactive, which employs 300 staff at its New York office, is to establish offices in the UK. Mike […]
Magazine publisher IPC has introduced autonomous boards for its five publishing divisions in preparation for flotation within the next two to three years. The five divisions have also become limited companies and two division names have been changed; the Women’s Weeklies Group is renamed IPC Connect and the TV Weeklies Group becomes IPC tx. The […]
You have to be very bright to study physics, much brighter than you have to be to study economics or politics. Which explains how Averil Macdonald, a physicist with admirably long legs, is able to brush aside considerations of either money or practicality in advancing the cause of her science. She is concerned, as indeed […]
Financial statements over the past week from two of the world’s leading Internet hub companies suggest that, although online revenues are growing, the path ahead for major sites seeking to develop online ad spend and transactional revenues remains blurred. Last Thursday, leading Web destination Yahoo! unveiled profits of $25m (15.2m) on sales of $86m (52m), […]