Month: September 2001

Every cloud in the Sky has a silver lining

Marketing Week

So who needs the BBC anyway? That’s the unbiased question the Sun’s been asking this week. The article followed Greg Dyke’s grovelling apology to the whole world after the American ambassador to the UK was berated by an aggressive audience on the BBC’s Question Time. The Sun says: “Now fed-up Brits are switching to TV […]

Thorntons abandons search for top marketer

Marketing Week

Thorntons chief executive Peter Burdon is officially assuming the top marketing role, after the confectionery company decided to abandon its search for a marketing director. Burdon has been in the dual role since the departure of Helen Wilcox in May (MW May 17). Unconfirmed reports at the time suggested that Wilcox and retail director Andrew […]

The Customer is often ignored

Marketing Week

One of the many parallels that can be drawn between business and modern warfare is the often naive belief that investment in sophisticated technological ‘solutions’ somehow obviates the need for well-trained troops on the ground. A good case in point is the customer relationship management (CRM) fad which has swept through many mature organisations that […]

800 face axe as Tempo folds

Marketing Week

The electrical goods retailer Tempo has gone into administration, placing more than 800 jobs, including its entire marketing department, at risk. PricewaterhouseCoopers, the appointed administrators, are searching for a buyer for the group in an effort to preserve the business and safeguard jobs. One unnamed company has already expressed an interest in buying the chain. […]

Henkel launches challenger to Fairy

Marketing Week

Henkel, the German detergent and personal care company, is launching a household-cleaning product in the UK next month. The product, understood to be a washing-up liquid, is expected to attack Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Fairy and Lever Fabergé’s Persil washing-up liquid ranges head on. The premium-priced product, which will be unveiled on October 4, will […]

Penguin pulls ‘insensitive’ wrapping

Marketing Week

Penguin, the McVitie’s children’s biscuit brand, has halted production of some of its bars, because the packaging design had chilling overtones of the World Trade Center disaster. The chocolate biscuit was carrying a picture of a penguin at the Empire State building with two planes in the distance, mimicking the film “King Kong”. The design […]

Unfocused attention

Marketing Week

This year’s Marketing Forum heard downbeat news from Camelot and the Customer Contact Company, among others. It seems that, despite the much-trumpeted spread of CRM, brands are failing to connect with their customers

Yellow boxes and white coats

Marketing Week

Internet search engine Lycos is losing its marbles. The company is convinced it has now got the edge on its competitors. Not because it is quicker or easier to use, but because it is yellow. The company has redesigned its site and added yellow shading to text boxes. “The new colour will mean Lycos is […]

The signs are there

Marketing Week

Increasingly, quantitative research is proving inadequate in predicting consumer trends. As a result market research companies are drawing on more theoretical approaches to improve the quality of results

Deepgroup crashes, 180 jobs at risk

Marketing Week

Deepgroup, the digital communications group, which includes the Deepend agency, is the latest victim of the dot-com crash, going into receivership with the loss of 180 jobs worldwide. About 92 jobs will go in London, with the other job losses spread across the company’s offices in New York, Prague, Rome, San Francisco, Sydney and Toronto. […]

Pepsico in major agency reshuffle

Marketing Week

Creative and media agencies handling Pepsico and Quaker brands face a shake-up as a result of Pepsico US’s decision to move all work from Foote Cone & Belding Worldwide (FCB) to Omnicom Group. Omnicom already handles the bulk of Pepsico’s advertising in the US, but in the UK a number of companies handle the brands. […]

Do not suffer the nay-sayers

Marketing Week

The Churches Advertising Network seems to miss one vital point – positivity. Their new campaign (MW September 13) once again seems to be all about not doing things: don’t take drugs, don’t sleep around, and so on. Perhaps it’s time they concentrated on the positive side to Christianity. Jesus didn’t come to give us a […]

Yorkshire Forward awards marketing and branding briefs

Marketing Week

Regional development agency Yorkshire Forward (YF) has appointed two agencies to develop its brand and create an advertising campaign. Senior King has been commissioned to work on a &£2m Yorkshire marketing campaign and Poulter Partners has been appointed to develop the YF brand. YF is a Government-appointed organisation, set up in April 1999 to promote […]