BA seeks theatre designer to revamp first class cabins

Marketing Week

British Airways is understood to be redesigning its first class cabins and, in keeping with its big production advertising style, is looking for a theatrical set designer to develop the new look. The main change will include ripping out the fixed seats and allowing passengers to make their own seating arrangements with movable seats. First […]

McCormick’s md Sykes to join Spillers

Marketing Week

Dalgety has hired the managing director of McCormick Foods, Alastair Sykes, to take on the role of managing director of Spillers Foods UK, which includes the newly-acquired Quaker petfood business. Sykes, who will oversee brands including Felix, Chunky and Winalot, steps into the role held temporarily by former Spillers marketing director Simon Esberger, understood to […]

NHS Lotto squares up to Camelot

Marketing Week

NHS Lotto, a little-known charitable lottery which raises money for hospitals, will relaunch next month as the first serious rival to the National Lottery. It hopes to cash in on bad publicity surrounding the National Lottery, which has been criticised for not giving enough to “good causes” and prizes being too large. It promise to […]

Private Patients Plan picks Allied man as brands chief

Marketing Week

Private Patients Plan, the UK’s third largest health insurance group, has recruited a top marketer from Allied Bakeries to the newly created post of head of brand management. PPP is building its brands in an aggressive assault on market leader BUPA. Chris Webster left Allied Bakeries last week to take holiday before starting at PPP. […]

Private Patients Plan picks Allied man as brands chief

Marketing Week

Private Patients Plan, the UK’s third largest health insurance group, has recruited a top marketer from Allied Bakeries to the newly created post of head of brand management. PPP is building its brands in an aggressive assault on market leader BUPA. Chris Webster left Allied Bakeries last week to take holiday before starting at PPP. […]

ASA rejects Mercury ‘free call’ moans

Marketing Week

Mercury One2One’s “Ring the World Free on Christmas Day” promotion has been cleared by the Advertising Standards Authority in its latest monthly report. The promotion, which offered new One2One subscribers un-limited free calls anywhere in the world on Christmas Day 1994, generated over 1,000 complaints to Mercury from consum-ers who claimed they were un-able to […]

Liptonice backers forced to rethink product range

Marketing Week

One year after launch, iced tea brand Liptonice is going back to the drawing board as its backers, PepsiCo, Brooke Bond and Britvic Soft Drinks, admit they got the formula wrong. Industry sources say the sparkling soft drink has been reformulated and the packaging redesigned for a relaunch on May 17. The brand will be […]

Can NHS Lotto hit the jackpot?

Marketing Week

Tabloid exposés of supposedly anonymous winners; churchmen denouncing the work of the Devil; retailers grumbling about lengthening queues (while raking in the money); scratchcard-game frauds; and a national furore over the purchase of the Chur

Top Burger King post for Smith

Marketing Week

Fastfood giant Burger King has appointed Samantha Smith as head of marketing UK, giving her the same role that she held at rival McDonald’s until last October (MW October 21 1994). Smith replaces Pat Griffin, who left the company to join a management consultancy earlier this year (MW April 7). It is understood Griffin disagreed […]

WCRS hit by new loss as Tilby departs

Marketing Week

Beleaguered agency WCRS is suffering from its third senior departure in as many months. Deputy chairman and executive creative director Alan Tilby has left the agency to set up his own business, which he says will act “as an adjunct to a conventional agency”. He will reveal further details later this month. WCRS managing director […]

Fortunes of war

Marketing Week

In a mere 50 years the UK economy has swung from one extreme to another. During World War Two, prices were rigid and big-name companies found themselves forced to co-operate rather than compete. Then came peace and the single most important fa

Send in the voice squad

Marketing Week

The middle classes need defending again, and this time the assault is on their ears. People ain’t talking proper no more, and who’s to blame? The BBC, of course

Spirits companies join rush to get TV ad scripts passed

Marketing Week

Spirits manufacturers have rushed to submit scripts for television advertisements after the Broadcast Advertising Clearance Centre confirmed it will consider “any proposals for television advertising of spirits”. The BACC last week circulated a memo to agencies, saying it was considering a TV ad script – widely believed to be for Bell’s whisky. Since then, the […]

Sears plans offensive for catalogues

Marketing Week

Sears is planning to take on Next Directory with the launch of specialised catalogues for its high-street fashion chains, with women’s fashion retailer Wallis launching the first “specialogue” this summer. The company says it will include clothes from Wallis in its Freemans catalogue for autumn/ winter. It will then use Sears’ MarketPulse database system to […]