I suspect Bayer will be surprised to read in George Pitcher’s piece, “True cost of drug dependency” (MW August 25), that it is the German company that has purchased “Marion Merrell Dow in the US for 4.4bn”. Actually, the purchaser is Germany’s largest chemical and pharmaceutical group – our own parent company Hoechst AG. Tony […]
With companies seeking synergy across all their marketing, POP is no longer an afterthought, reports Martin Croft, it is at the leading edge of many campaigns
Supermarket chain Somerfield is launching an 8m campaign aimed to attract a younger, more upmarket family shopper. The push features Birds of a Feather star Lesley Joseph in two TV ads. From today (Wednesday 13) Somerfield is offering a series of discounts and multi-buy deals through its Price Check scheme. Discounts include nine products at […]
Journalists are obsessive about their notebooks, but even the Diary wouldn’t claim that its notebook is a work of art (in the past, some have wrongly accused it of being a work of fiction) or, indeed, that it is worth $14m (9m). But the irrepressible advertising director Tony Kaye would. Advertisements in the New York […]
Customer magazines hold out the promise of a relationship with the consumer – invaluable to fmcg brands. So will they become part of big below-the-line budgets? Meg Carter reports
Virgin Atlantic has moved its below-the-line account out of MDBW and into KLP and increased its budget by 20 per cent. Virgin Atlantic marketing manager Alison Copus says it moved out of the agency it has been with for two years because “We are facing an increasingly competitive environment and we thought we needed some […]
UK cinema admissions were up 15 per cent year-on-year in July despite the heatwave and poor attendance in the first four months of the year, according to the latest Cinema Advertising Association figures. Summer blockbusters including Batman Forever, Judge Dredd and Casper boosted cinema attendance to 10.7 million in July. Further releases, including Die Hard […]
Cleaning product giant SC Johnson Wax has imported an American marketing specialist to oversee its UK advertising and marketing activities. Steve Lieberman, who joined the company this month, will become business and marketing director. Lieberman replaces Iwan Williams, SC Johnson’s commercial director, who left the UK office to work in Spain last month. He will […]
Hooch faces rival launch from Booker
Vardon Attractions has picked D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles to handle its 2m advertising account. The business includes Vardon’s London and York Dungeons and 15 Sea Life Centres, which Vardon claims is the UK’s biggest leisure brand, with more
As clients demand an integrated approach, they want to quantify the effectiveness of
Bristol & West is slashing its financial products range as part of a major relaunch of the building society. The UK’s ninth-largest building society is planning an 8m TV advertising campaign which will break in the first week of October.
Selfridges managing director Timothy Daniels announced his early retirement this week, after eight years as head of the company. Selfridges advertising, press and promotions senior manager Paddy Shanahan says Daniels, aged 57, is retiring early for personal reasons and will leave the company next April. A replacement has not yet been appointed. She says Selfridges […]
The God-fearing folk at Premier Radio had to seek divine inspiration recently whilst shooting their new poster ads. Having ordered a cuddly Friar Tuck lookalike from a modelling agency, they were a little taken aback when he arrived weighing 22 stone. The original plan was to ask him to bounce on a trampoline and catch […]
Britvic is dropping its usual high-profile marketing tactics with this week’s relaunch of Still Tango. Instead its entire campaign will centre on a single newsagent shop in Dorking, Surrey. The Dorking branch of Forbouys the Newsagent has been given exclusive UK rights to sell the Still Tango drink for the next month. In return, husband […]