In-depth features, interviews and insights into marketing’s biggest issues.
Channel 4, which this week unveiled record profits, is set to introduce its long-awaited video-on-demand service this year as it looks to new media and multi-channel offerings to sustain growth. Speaking exclusively to Marketing Week, C4 chief executive Andy Duncan says he is committed to on-demand and multimedia services, and predicts that within a few […]
Having created one of the best ads of 2005 in Sony “Balls”, Fallon London is on a roll. The agency won &£75m-worth of new business last month with the combined Orange/Wanadoo account, following France Telecom’s pan-European advertising review. The win takes Fallon to a new level and, while the decision was labelled a “French stitch-up” […]
Hachette Filipacchi UK (HF-UK) seems to be making a habit of suspending magazines suffering from falling circulations. Following the decision to drop teen title Elle Girl last year, young women’s publication B now also faces the axe.
Weekly newspaper The Economist is bucking industry trends by achieving a worldwide circulation of nearly 1.1 million, at a time when readers are increasingly turning to daily sources for news and analysis. Rivals such as Time and Newsweek are struggling, but Economist outgoing editor Bill Emmott has been lauded for the success of the publication’s […]
When Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners entered a legal battle with rival Broadway (formerly part of Interpublic Group) over UK employment law two years ago, the row hardly made a noise in the creative industry. DLKW had snatched Vauxhall’s d
Supermarket price promotions are used in various ways to build brands, but, as Sainsbury’s has found to its cost, return on investment can take a long time For the past ten years, two philosophies of branding have been battling for supremacy in UK grocery retailing. One looked to a magical and elusive, but extremely powerful, […]
There was plenty of editorial cheer at this week’s British Press Awards but as circulation figures continue to fall, brands are getting better results from their websites than traditional press ads To the Dorchester on Monday night, the new venue for the revamped, cleaned-up British Press Awards. After last year’s ceremony, which was even rowdier […]
Advertiser-funded programming has been making headlines in recent weeks, with a wave of big name advertisers unveiling initiatives to be screened on television. Unilever is one of those, investing heavily in the launch of a Sure-branded football documentary that airs in the UK on ITV1 this week (MW last week). Other big names to announce […]
Churchill’s appointment of WCRS to handle its £20m advertising account is further evidence that the financial services sector is something of a “special case” when it comes to client conflict. Churchill is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, whic
Having the right name above an agency door can make or break a company, highlight its ethos and showcase the talent within – at least according to advertising folk. Interpublic Group plans to rebrand the beleaguered Lowe network in an attempt to sever its association with Sir Frank Lowe (MW last week). Up for consideration […]
The appointment of Publicis Groupe and Havas to handle France Telecom’s £200m pan-European advertising business brings to an end one of the most protracted and talked about reviews of recent years. However, the fall-out looks set to continue,
Free DVDs and CDs mounted on newspapers’ front pages have become a source of worry to the bosses of the nationals. They condemn the use of DVDs as an expensive way of boosting circulation, which fails to promote loyalty among consumers; yet marketing teams seem unable or unwilling to plan more inventive campaigns. Newspapers try […]
As “an industry run on gossip”, in the words of one senior agency figure, advertising can often appear to the outside world as frivolous and fragile. Clients and other observers witnessing the ongoing spat between WPP Group chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell and his former top Italian executive Marco Benatti, as well as the shockwaves […]
A bitter row is brewing between major food manufacturers and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) over how best to provide consumers with the information they crave. Consumer group Which? has accused the industry of undermining proposals by the FSA and written to the chief executives of food giants including Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft and PepsiCo […]
The news that the Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) and the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA) are to partially merge is seen as a positive but necessary step for a medium that has lost its sparkle with advertisers. The plans, which were first revealed in Marketing Week (February 2), aim to help the groups promote the […]