NEWS Vauxhall Motors is preparing to create “strategic partnerships” with other brand owners to make its promotional spend more efficient.

Etam, the womenswear retailer, has frozen plans to refurbish its stores and take the chain upmarket. The troubled chain, which has 224 shops, is two-thirds of the way through an 8m refurbishment programme. But it is holding back on refitting the remaining shops until deciding how best to reposition the chain. One City analyst says […]

Cellular operator Cellnet has axed John Cleese and Ronnie Corbett from its ad campaign and sent its agency back to the drawing board in a branding and marketing strategy rethink. Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO had already completed new work for the mobile phone service but this has been dropped. Cellnet now wants to create a stronger […]

Northern Foods, owner of Express Dairies, is calling for Milk Marque to be reformed as the decline in doorstep deliveries continues. The company has confirmed it is going ahead with the 2,200 job cuts it announced in March. This follows on from the 1,500 job losses rival Unigate announced this week. Unigate blames the losses […]

Cellular operator Cellnet has axed John Cleese and Ronnie Corbett from its ad campaign and sent its agency back to the drawing board in a branding and marketing strategy rethink. Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO had already completed new work for the mobile phone service but this has been dropped. Cellnet now wants to create a stronger […]

IPC Weeklies Group has increased the ratecard on four of its mass-market magazines because of improved circulations, but has met agency opposition. The ratecards for Woman and Woman’s Own have been hiked by seven per cent each, rising to 19,050 and 23,650, respectively, for a standard page. Chat and What’s On TV’s rates have risen […]

NEWS Campbell’s has picked Colman’s of Norwich marketing director Alison Levett to take on the same role at the world’s largest soup company.

After a year of constant staff upheavals, direct marketing agency PPHN is relaunching in July as Touch. Only one of the original founders of PPHN, creative partner Ian Haworth, is still at the agency. Stewart Pearson, who co-founded the agency in 1989, was forced out in August last year and last month PPHN managing director […]

Tussauds Group head of corporate marketing Nick Varney has resigned to become managing director of leisure company competitor Vardon Attractions. Varney will be replaced by Jill Britton, divisional director of marketing at Tussaud’s-owned Alton Towers. Britton will remain in her role at the theme park until next January to see through the first stages of […]

Keeping pace with global developments involves more than addressing short-term, specific needs. John Shannon finds that advertisers must strive for a broader understanding

Sainsbury’s is to run a high-risk TV advertising campaign featuring footballer Bruce Grobbelaar, who was arrested for match-fixing earlier this year, to front its new advertisements. Grobbelaar was arrested along with John Fashanu and Hans Segers after allegations, first aired in The Sun newspaper, that he had taken more than 40,000 from a Far Eastern […]

Will nostalgia, new targets and formulation changes revive the flagging scent market?

BRANDS BOUGHT % buying Walkers Crisps66 Golden Wonder Crisps20 Hula Hoops14 Quavers11 McCoys/Sainsbury9 Monster Munch/Doritos8 Skips7 Tesco6 Nik-Naks/Smiths/Twiglets4 REASON FOR PURCHASE % agreeing The ones I always buy83 Caught my eye in the

Virgin Cola’s volume share of cola sales in UK stores fell from 4.6 to 3.3 per cent from March to May, according to AC Nielsen’s retail tracking system Insight.

Van den Bergh Foods has offered to waive its claim to 310,000, which was lost when a charity event it sponsored collapsed with debts of 1.4m. But it will do this only if other creditors, who held the company partly responsible for the collapse of the Flora Aerobathon, agree not to pursue the food giant […]