In-depth features, interviews and insights into marketing’s biggest issues.
Television is in the middle of an identity crisis. It does not know how to define itself, is grappling with archaic measurement systems and risks alienating an entire generation of viewers by reacting too slowly to change in a fast-paced digital world. Yet television – or more broadly audio/visual services, as the industry moves increasingly […]
Brand owners, it seems, will do anything to revive interest in a flagging category. Gillette’s five-bladed Fusion razor will be in the UK this autumn, promising a better shave than rival Wilkinson Sword’s recently launched four-bladed Titanium, while it emerged last week that BT was developing a line of handsets that resemble jelly baby sweets […]
Who is the new minister for broadcasting, the press and other media and creative issues? I only ask because I keep bumping into people who know him but haven’t yet heard about his new job.
This summer should be a big one for UTV Radio-owned TalkSport. It is the only commercial UK station with official broadcasting rights for the World Cup and is planning blanket coverage of the tournament. TalkSport will broadcast every game live on digital radio and will run post-game analysis and phone-ins. This week it is launching […]
Following hot on the heels of Alfred Dunhill’s announcement that it is reviewing its digital marketing and hiring a new ecommerce manager (MW last week), Jimmy Choo is expected to start selling shoes online in the coming weeks. It is a sign that luxury brands are finally taking the internet seriously as a marketing and […]
Advertisers and agencies are bemoaning a peculiar period in the industry’s economy. Clients are cutting budgets, traditional media are stymied and the burgeoning digital market is distorting the picture. The marketing services sector is still growing, but slowly, according to experts. Meanwhile, consumer and client confidence is low, despite a strong stock market and steady […]
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
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
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 […]