I am positively sick of reading, week in, week out, of Camelot moaning and groaning about its falling takings on the Lotto – the company blames the World Cup, the weather, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, the air traffic controllers strikes, leaves on the lottery terminal, etc etc. No doubt next week, it will be Wimbledon’s fault, […]
Securicor Group has promoted ex-Centrica marketer Peter Neden to director of business development with responsibility for marketing strategy and customer relations. Neden joined the company last year as head of product development. Following a reshuffle he was handed the newly created role, which entails overseeing marketing strategy for 44 countries. Neden was Centrica’s head of […]
Scottish Widows has appointed Nathan Moss as managing director of marketing and distribution. Moss will succeed Newton Scott, who retires at the end of this month after nearly 40 years at the insurance and pensions company. Moss was previously chief executive of the Merrill Lynch HSBC online investment and banking joint venture, now being integrated […]
Hyundai is looking for a marketing director following the sudden resignation of Jonathan Spence. It is not known whether Spence, who has worked at the car company for three years, has a job to go to. At present there is no replacement for him, and the company is understood to be talking to external candidates. […]
Apparently, sex and violence on TV impair our ability to remember ads. If the big advertisers pull out, at least we can rely on the BBC for depravity, says Iain Murray
London Underground has been given the go-ahead to have licensed buskers in its stations and is considering creating sponsorship opportunities for advertisers. Subject to agreement on safety and related issues, London Underground is planning a trial of licensed busking pitches at central London tube stations, including Charing Cross, Leicester Square, Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. […]
HHCL & Partners has created a television campaign for the Captain Birds Eye frozen fish range as part of a £7.7m marketing drive for the Birds Eye Walls brand.
Kyndal, the whisky company formed by the management buy-out of the Scotch whisky interests of Jim Beam Brands (MW October 25, 2001), is linking up with Indian drinks company Shaw Wallace to launch the latter’s Royal Challenge whisky in Europe. Shaw Wallace already sells the brand elsewhere in the world, but it cannot legally call […]
As marketing campaigns go, you won’t see much better than Lucasfilm’s milking of the Star Wars licence. But, as the Diary has discovered recently, George Lucas isn’t the only person to be cashing in on this golden egg. Compassion In World Farming (CIWF) – which uses the slogan “campaigning for farm animals”, summing up precisely […]
It’s a bit of an understatement to say recessions don’t bring out the best in companies. They blight hope, blunt career aspirations and stifle creativity. But there is at least one exception to this pageant of gloom: what might be called the Churchill moment. Sometimes, things get so bad that conventional means of coping with […]
The UK meat market has been ravaged by ailments from mad cow disease to, most recently, foot and mouth. It is nice to see that some areas are staging a swift recovery. Yes, the Diary is talking about wild boar, that old favourite of mediaeval knights – until they were hunted to extinction in the […]
The BBC-BSkyB bid for the DTT licences may be flawed, but it represents the best chance of success, both in itself and for the Government. By Torin Douglas
Following your article on The Samaritans’ creative agency review (MW June 13) I felt it was important to provide some clarification regarding the campaign budget for the account. The creative agency account is worth about &£300,000 a year, not &£1.6m as stated. The figure cited is the ratecard equivalent value of free space secured on […]
Kellogg marketing director Guy Longworth has left the cereal giant by “mutual consent” to pursue other interests. He will be replaced by Michael Allen, vice-president of ready-to-eat-cereals marketing in the US. Longworth is best known for restoring Choco Krispies to their original name, Coco Pops, four years ago, after running a television ad asking consumers […]
Chivas Brothers (CB), the global Scotch whisky business formed after last year’s purchase of Seagram’s wine and spirits business by Pernod Ricard, has completed its new marketing structure. As predicted in Marketing Week (June 13), Sophie Gallois, ex-marketing director for wines at CB’s sister company Pernod Ricard UK, joins as a brands director, with responsibility […]