Separated at birth: Adrian Birchall, chairman of the highly profitable Media Centre, and Brian Mawhinney, chairman of the less profitable, frankly, heavily in debt, Conservative Party. When not acting as the scourge of “loony left” Labour councils, Mawhinney spends his time trying to employ Maurice Saatchi. Birchall confines himself to attacking loony ITV media owners […]
With 18 channels in the offing, it seems there’s little left to screen. So why not show an actress asleep in a glass case? It’s cheap and, says the Serpentine Gallery, it’s art
This month BrandTrack examines the face cream and lotion sector. In a crowded and fragmented market, with a vast span of products and price points, product innovation forms an essential part of brand strategy
Kevin Morley has emerged as the largest shareholder and future non-executive chairman of the publicly quoted Birkdale Group. He previously held a 2.9 per cent stake in the group, which includes Leedex PR, Marketing Solutions and regional agency Brunning Advertising. Morley’s stake has been increased to 9.9 per cent – valued at 600,000 – and […]
Harrods is understood to have appointed a new group marketing director to replace Trevor Bell who left in May to become marketing director of retail group Facia (MW May 26). The group has recruited Nancy Spall, an American who previously developed the marketing strategy for the World League of American Football in the UK, and […]
What do rain and ITV commercial impacts have in common? We haven’t seen much of either recently. Unfair? Well, in ITV’s case there have been lots of impacts about but, crucially, not as many as in 1993 or 1994. The result of showing 14 year-on-year minuses out of the past 20 weeks (with another four […]
The Butter Council is to wind up by the end of the year, citing the withdrawal of funding by UK milk producers. The Council, which was first set up in 1954, took the decision to fold after the UK’s Milk Development Council withdrew its support. Parcelforce has appointed Peter Wigglesworth as general manager marketing (UK). […]
Simon Esberger is believed to have accepted a holding position within the Spillers group. The former Spillers UK marketing director is understood to have shifted to another position in the petfood company’s own label/ business-to-business division when it seemed in-evitable he would leave Dalgety. Esberger became acting managing director at Spillers in February (MW February […]
The imminent release of a cinema ad for Radio 1 heralds a change in its fortunes and points a lesson about reviving markets supposedly in decline.
Pan-European channels, including CNN, Eurosport, MTV and NBC Super Channel, are considering joint marketing initiatives to improve selling pan-European television to advertisers. Sales directors from the main channels meet at the offices of MTV Europe later today (Wed-nesday) to consider a number of options which could include a joint media conference, or even a joint […]
Bartle Bogle Hegarty has come up with its own version of an equal opportunities policy by creating ads that are equally good, indeed remarkably similar, to those of rival ad agencies. Alon Hochdorf, the Saatchi & Saatchi account director for Castlemaine XXXX, was straight on the blower to the Diary after seeing the new BBH […]
TV industry insiders believe the pace of terrestrial digital TV will be dictated by BSkyB when it launches its own digital satellite broadcasting next year… …Terrestrial broadcasters are understood to be in talks about developing digital receiver equipment so as not to rely on pay-TV technology controlled by Rupert Murdoch (Torin Douglas, page 17)… BSkyB’s […]
Telecoms giant BT will introduce voicemail for the home to encourage consumers to use the phone more often. BT has just finished filming a new ad featuring Bob Hoskins, which will air in the autumn. The ad introduces call minder – a telephone-answering service based at the local telephone exchange. The service, which costs 7 […]
To stem the present rush of speculative customers, building societies are hiking their minimum investment levels. But freezing out small account holders now could spell trouble for the future. Sean Brierley investigates
The mobile phone market has an image problem. While handsets can be cheap, users are often shocked by the running costs and the length of contracts they are tied into