The Advertising Standards Authority is warning car makers to stay within agreed guidelines on speed and environmental claims or face severe penalties. The warning, viewed by the ASA as a pre-emptive strike, follows one of the biggest car advertising spending months on record. The ASA added specific regulations governing car advertising to its code of […]

Molson Breweries is giving away a Harley-Davidson Fat Boy motorcycle worth 14,000 in a promotion which runs until the end of September. The “Hot Bike, Cold Beer” promotion is running in more than 2,000 on and off-trade outlets. Consumers must collect two bottle tops from either Molson Special Dry or Molson Ice Beer, answer a […]

A shopper is most likely to pick a product if it offers the chance of a trip to sunny climes, but not before casting a weather-eye over the marketing hype that goes with it. In the age of the sceptical consumer, marketers are taking exceptional care to reduce small print and increase instant gratification: the […]

Car makers are accused of distorting sales in a desperate attempt to boost August figures. Observers believe that the practice known as “back end loading” – whereby unsold card are pre-registered to dealers – led to an unprecedented 47,000 cars being registered last Monday, the penultimate day for registrations. It moved what was expected to […]

Directors Bitter, Scottish Courage’s flagship premium ale, is being launched as a bottled-conditioned beer called Directors Live Ale at the end of this month. Because it includes extra yeast, the beer will have a sediment and will have a limited shelf life. With bottle-conditioned beer, yeast is added so that the beer undergoes a second […]

I write with reference to the article “A reading of Sunday paper buyers” (MW August 18). The Mail on Sunday is justly proud of its female readership profile and coverage, but I was astonished to read that 74.7 per cent of Mail on Sunday readers are women, according to NDL’s National Consumer Study. One of […]

BYLN:

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

Hooch faces rival launch from Booker

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Mars is planning to launch a Maltesers bar to compete with Cadbury’s Crunchie, according to industry sources. The company has been dogged in recent years by its failure to produce new products and this would be a significant brand extension for the privately-owned confectionery giant, although Mars will not comment on its plans. Mars introduced […]

ITV is pinning its hopes for a ratings recovery on its long-running drama serials. It is also planning future programming to help it attract more 16 to 34-year-old viewers, the group that advertisers and agencies have been most concerned about. The new controller of network drama Nick Elliott, who joined ITV from the BBC in […]

It’s official: there’s too much sex in women’s magazines. Forty-six per cent of women agree sex coverage is excessive. Only 24 per cent disagreed and a further 20 per cent were indifferent, according to CIA MediaLab’s latest Sensor survey. Even among the traditionally more liberal 15 to 24-year-old age group, 33 per cent believed there […]