Marketing Week
6 August 1998

Advertisers to sponsor Tube roundel

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

London Transport is to allow advertisers to sponsor its London Underground roundel - the famous red circle and blue bar station sign - for the first time.

Brief

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Sony UK will launch a 3m campaign on national television for its MiniDisc system next week. The ad, through BMP, is called 'the Finger' and is designed to demonstrate the recording and editing facilities of the MiniDisc. It was shot in New York and the opening scene features a young man putting a disc into his MiniDisc player and digitally rearranging tracks. The finger that he has been using to edit his MiniDisc then begins to manipulate and delete other things. The man removes a Harley ...

Brief

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Talk Radio will run a tongue-in-cheek poster campaign featuring presenters like Danny Baker, James Whale and Lorraine Kelly, who are also well-known television personalities. The 1.5m campaign, created by advertising agency Walsh Trott Chick Smith, will use startling images including a bare bottom, to promote individual shows. Talk currently has 2.3 million listeners, according to Radio Joint Audience Research (Rajar). Talk Radio managing director Paul Robinson says: 'We know that there ...

Buyers will set the pace in tomorrow's markets

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

It speaks volumes about the mindset of the modern marketer that when you say the phrase "one-to-one marketing". It's invariably assumed that the first "one" it refers to is the marketer and the second "one" is the consumer. It's taken for granted, in other words, that the marketer is the active one doing the marketing to the passive one: the consumer, the target.

Clothing outfit courts controversy with ads

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Clothing company World Design & Trade is courting controversy with an advertising campaign showing a naked woman tied to a chair with items of clothing from its Full Circle menswear range.

Costcutter in bid to move upmarket

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Costcutter Supermarkets is to test a new upmarket format in an effort to claw back market share from powerful brands such as Tesco and Sainsbury's, which are entering the convenience sector.

Dial Challenge

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Does TV advertising influence viewers? The question has been a vexed one, especially in the early Nineties, when brand advertising for packaged goods could not point to a direct uplift in sales, and often did not influence attitudes. Direct response TV (DRTV) entered this debate with its hard evidence of an effect - if the phones ring, it must be working.

Digests

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

DIGESTS

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Young & Rubicam is tipped to win the global advertising account for Schweppes, thought to be worth up to 25m. Saatchi & Saatchi was also shortlisted.

DMB&B wins Avon account

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

DMB&B has won the 2m UK Avon account as a result of a 39m worldwide consolidation of creative and media advertising into the MacManus Group network.

European Commission gives BIB green light

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

British Interactive Broadcasting (BIB) has been given the go-ahead to launch after spending a year convincing the European Commission (EC) that it does not represent a monopoly.

FCA! to take on single mums ad campaign

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

FCA! has won the 2.5m Department of Social Security account to launch a campaign encouraging unemployed lone parents into work.

Ford settles dispute over Focus brand

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Ford has settled a dispute over the Focus brand name in Germany with publisher Burda-Verlag out of court.

Heart charity opts for AMV after review

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

The British Heart Foundation has handed Abbott Mead Vickers.BBDO its 1.5m advertising account, following a review out of TBWA GGT Simons Palmer.

Hertz picks Harraway for top job

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

The Fashion Café's vice president of sales and marketing, Elizabeth Harraway, has left the company after just five months in the job to join car rental company Hertz Europe as director of retail sales and marketing for leisure services.

Levi's ditches 501 ads as denim market fails

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Levi Strauss is abandoning its advertising support for the 501 brand after 13 years and instead launching a TV and cinema branding campaign which does not feature any jeans.

Levi's knows how to drive us crazy

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Journalists need to be entertained - at least that's what most PR companies seem to believe. This philosophy was evident at the latest Levi's ad campaign launch.

Miller Freeman no cheapskate

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

I read with interest your article Showdown (MW July 23). It was less a showdown and more an ambush and I would like to redress the balance.

Moral power to your elbow

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Corporate branding is entering a new era. Changes in what organisations need mean the "logo boys" no longer have the ammunition to deliver. Companies are facing a new set of issues, ranging from corporate brand accountability and brand flexibility to the importance of the internal brand and corporate brand ethics.

New chief for Selfridges Manchester

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Selfridges has appointed a separate head of marketing for its new Manchester store, which opens on September 10.

New EMAP division appoints chief

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

EMAP Active, the magazine publishing giant's newly formed special interest division, has appointed Andrew Gillespie as group marketing director to oversee the group's 58 titles and 70 marketing staff.

Nokia store to open in London

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is to open a flagship retail store in London in a joint venture with Carphone Warehouse. The Regent Street store will be "a cross between the Levi's store and Nike Town", says Carphone Warehouse chief executive Charles Dunstone.

Northern Rock and Halifax bear brunt of press criticism

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Northern Rock and the Halifax are among the companies which have suffered the worst press coverage, according to a survey from PressWatch.

Recession is far from inevitable

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

It seems only a few months ago that we finally hauled ourselves out of the gloomy vale of the last recession and into the sunlit uplands of economic prosperity. Yet here we are once again contemplating the abyss.

Sunderland nets UDV man for branding goal

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Sunderland Football Club has raided United Distillers & Vinters' (UDV) marketing department to poach Jim Slater as its first marketing director.

Townsend nets BSkyB's role at new media outfit

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Chris Townsend, the former marketing director of BSkyB's digital services, has joined South African-based new media company Primedia.

Trouble in store

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Warnings of impending economic doom have reached fever pitch, and it appears that the UK economy is heading for, at best, a sharp turndown in growth and, at worst, a recession.

Unilever drops O&M in reshuffle

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Unilever has dropped Ogilvy & Mather from its international laundry detergent roster and will split the agency's accounts, worth an estimated 15m, between J Walter Thompson and Ammirati Puris Lintas.

Warner Lambert to extend Calpol offering

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Warner Lambert is tipped to launch its children's painkiller Calpol in individual doses - a move allowing the product to be sold in supermarkets and petrol forecourts.

Watchdog five years too late in fight with greedy superstores

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

So Director General of Fair Trading John Bridgeman reckons there might be a case for believing that the superstore chains abuse their buying power with suppliers to inflate their margins at the expense of their customers.

Which? not to blame for porn gaffe

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

I write with reference to Amanda Wilkinson's article entitled Which? pulls offer after porn blunder (MW July 29). This piece mentions a CD that we produce for people wishing to subscribe to our Internet service Which? Online. We have had a major business issue with our site this week as we discovered that Alta Vista had relinquished one of its domain names, Alta-Vista, to a pornographic Website in March of this year.

Work to rule

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

Some 200 years ago, the philosopher Jeremy Bentham composed a blueprint of the ideal prison, subsequently used by Foucault in 1977 to describe the workplace of the future: "Each individual is securely confined to a cell from which he is seen from the front by a supervisor; but the side walls prevent him from coming into contact with his companions...there are no disorders, no theft, no coalitions, none of those distractions that slow down the rate of work, make it less perfect...power ...

WRU court case puts sponsorship on trial

Thu, 6 Aug 1998

It was a hot, happy August day in 1995 when Scottish Life Assurance signed a four-year title sponsor contract with Welsh Rugby Union (WRU).