The Media Centre (TMC) has won Courage’s 21m media buying and planning account following a final pitch against IDK. The win takes TMC’s new business billings to 60m this year, but there is uncertainty over the marketing plans of Scottish & Newcastle, Courage’s new parent. The Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry into S&N’s acquisition of […]

I entirely agree with Torsten Nilson’s view in “Microsoft story hard to swallow” (MW July 28) that brand valuations should be based on an analytical, marketing-oriented model. This has been Interbrand’s approach since 1988. Since then, we have conducted more than 1,200 brand valuations – with a combined value of 40bn – for use in […]

As the squeeze on ad budgets and retail space intensifies, manufacturers are seeking better ways to build their profiles. Enter the concept store, pioneered in the UK by Dr Martens and Levi. But have they the retail skills to succeed?

National Lottery organiser Camelot is aiming to reverse declining instant scratchcard sales with a live Wednesday night game show on BBC 1. The operator has confirmed that the programme – provisionally known as The Instant Tickets Game Show – is being developed with the BBC, and will be broadcast within three months. It will feature […]

Manufacturers, facing a squeeze on traditional markets, are expanding into the financial sector

Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells are venting their spleen on a brewer which plans to convert their opera house into one of the public variety. Still, at least the songs will improve

The conversion of Michael Eisner, Disney’s chief executive, from a no-network philosophy to the takeover of TV network ABC holds a lesson for UK business.

Cordiant has revealed half-year figures showing a 29.6m pre-tax loss amid US speculation that Bates Worldwide will lose another substantial piece of North American business – the estimated $70m Miller Brewing account. Miller has asked some of its other agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather, D’Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles and Young & Rubicam, to take […]

The apparent recovery of Radio 1 overshadowed the steady growth enjoyed by many commercial radio stations, according to the latest Rajar radio audience data. Commercial radio accounted for 50.1 per cent of all radio listening for the first time in its history, adding 25.9 million listen- ing hours per week compared with the second quarter […]

Having mingled with the best of them, the Diary is not easily impressed with displays of affluence by those in the marketing industry. But even the Diary takes its hat off to David Prais, former European marketing manager at PC maker Gateway 2000, who has a new job at the US headquarters. Apparently, Prais was […]

Two former Young & Rubicam employees awaiting trial for VAT fraud have been released on bail from a Brussels prison, where they have been held since their arrest last February (MW June 9).

Your piece about Damien Hirst, Tony Kaye and the potential of preserving a tramp as art, “Why Kaye is down and out on his luck” (MW July 21), is way behind the times. A few years ago, Plymouth artist Robert Liencowitz caused a sensation by claiming to have preserved his friend, the tramp Diogenes (who […]

I entirely agree with Torsten Nilson’s view in “Microsoft story hard to swallow” (MW July 28) that brand valuations should be based on an analytical, marketing-oriented model. This has been Interbrand’s approach since 1988. Since then, we have conducted more than 1,200 brand valuations – with a combined value of 40bn – for use in […]

EMAP Metro has registered strong circulation growth in the latest round of ABCs, while the IPC Weeklies Group of titles remained largely static. EMAP’s men’s glossy title FHM, purchased last year, has made the strongest turnaround, with a 50 per cent year-on-year increase in circulation during the January-June period taking it from 60,298 to 90,607. […]