Procter & Gamble is understood to be planning a bid for over-the-counter (otc) pharmaceuticals company Warner Lambert, whose brands include Benylin, Calpol, Sudafed and Actifed.

Loyalty schemes have now become an essential ‘me-too’ marketing tool, with everyone from Tesco and Sainsbury’s to British Gas viewing them as the best way to keep customers faithful. But most companies fail to recognise that the costs involved

The gloom merchants are out and about again, this time trying to ruin the rare pleasure we get from sunshine

Airtours marketing director Richard Carrick has fired the first shot in a price war for next year’s holidays. The move comes as Airtours, which owns the Going Places chain of travel agents, breaks ranks with other operators to launch its brochures for summer 1997 holidays tomorrow (Thursday), two months early. Holidays for this summer are […]

Our Web site address on the Internet is: http://www.marketing-week.co.uk/mw000Letter of the month prize. Every month the editor will award this de luxe fountain pen to the writer of the best letter. The chrome and 22ct gold pen, made by AT Cro

Food Brands Group is to launch a music-based, off-trade promotion for 33 Export Lager to roll out through major retail outlets, including Sainsbury’s, Safeway, Tesco and Thresher later this month. The campaign, intended to increase existing customer loyalty while encouraging brand switching and trial, includes an on-pack instant win offer of a compilation CD. The […]

A new survey of children’s TV viewing reveals that multichannel choice has great appeal – a real warning to terrestrial stations. By Torin Douglas. Torin Douglas is BBC Radio’s media correspondent

It is almost impossible to gauge the audience for an Internet site but counting methods are emerging to address advertisers’ need for accountability. Frank Harrison is media information systems director at Zenith Worldwide

The gloom merchants are out and about again, this time trying to ruin the rare pleasure we get from sunshine

Birds Eye’s announcement last week that it was to drop individual brand names highlights the current trend towards corporate branding. However, this drift is not universally favoured as it involves risky guess-work as to how consumers identify

Travel agent Going Places is pre-empting expected criticism of the travel industry from the Office of Fair Trading by revealing its connections to tour operator parent Airtours. The UK’s second biggest travel agency chain will for the first time put up posters in all its branches telling consumers that they will first be recommended an […]

After the success of Fantasy Park last year, Allied Domecq asked multimedia company CHBi to take the Pubnet initiative a stage further by adding a video facility. Paul McCann looks at what Xchange can offer the uninhibited pub-goer

Teenage girls’ magazines will have to point out the legality of different sex acts under guidelines agreed with the Home Office and Conservative MP Peter Luff. As well as reminding readers about the age of consent, magazines will also emphasise safe sex in all of their advice and articles, write only about the sexual activity […]

Companies approach travel incentives with heightened caution following Hoover’s disastrous promotion. But, as David Reed reports, holiday incentives have popular appeal and with careful planning, can reap impressive returns

Virgin Atlantic Airways is launching an advertising campaign through Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe to promote its London-Johannesburg route, opening on October 2. The campaign is scheduled to run on ITV and Channel 4 in the London area from July 7 to July 21, as well as in other ITV regions including Central and Meridian. It […]