The squeeze on adspend could be relieved by the Budget, according to
Nick Phillips, the director general of the Institute of Practitioners in
Advertising. Phillips expects the budget to kick-start ad- spend after a
slump in the fourth quarter of this year. ‘If the result of the Budget
is to strengthen the pound and reduce interest rates, then this could be
enough to encourage advertisers with overseas headquarters to up their
spend in the UK again,’ he said.
The LG Group, Korea’s third-largest conglomerate best known for its
Goldstar brown goods range, is understood to have chosen McCann-Erickson
and M&C Saatchi to fight it out for its dollars 200 million worldwide
corporate account. BBDO and D’Arcy Masius Benton and Bowles have been
eliminated from the running.
TBWA has secured a place on the Johnson and Johnson roster for the first
time by scooping two major brands from Centra Healthcare. The brands - a
dandruff shampoo, Nizoral, and the throat lozenge, Tyrozets - are
expected to test-launch on TV early next year. Advertising spend on both
brands could reach pounds 4 million by the end of the year.
The Prudential has at last confirmed that it is reviewing its pounds 14
million advertising account (Campaign, 20 October). The incumbent,
Mustoe Merriman Herring Levy, will repitch against an, as yet, undecided
shortlist of agencies. In the meantime, Mustoe Merriman will run the
Prudential’s advertising for the first quarter of 1996. Pattison
Horswell Durden’s grip on the media business is unaffected.
John Bowis, the junior Health Minister, was expected to block a plan to
curb tobacco advertising at a meeting of European Union health ministers
in Brussels this Thursday. Spain, which holds the EU’s rotating
presidency, is proposing that magazines produced in countries where
tobacco ads are allowed, such as Britain, would not be able to carry
them in copies sold in countries where ads are banned. Britain was
likely to win the backing of Germany and the Netherlands, giving it
enough votes to veto the plan.
Dorothy Cumpsty, the advertisement director of the Times from 1987 to
1990, is working with Tom Rubython, the former owner/editor of Business
Age, on what is understood to be a new national Sunday newspaper aimed
at the business community. Rubython confirmed that Cumpsty was ‘sitting
at a desk’ in his offices in Cavendish Square, but declined to comment
further on the proposed launch.
The Mirror Group has signalled its intention to raise its advertising
rates by around five per cent across all titles. The move will be the
first time rates have gone up in several years. However, buyers were
sceptical of Mirror Group’s ability to make the price rises stick.
‘Their only justification would seem to be that others are doing it,’
one buyer said. Separately, the Independent is to launch a 24-page
tabloid sports section on Mondays from 4 December.
OK! magazine is poised to go weekly from next March, in a head-to-head
with Hello!. The monthly, which sells around 200,000, compared with
Hello!’s 452,103, will contain the usual mix of celebrity pictures and
gossip, as well as TV listings.
A design company director charged with taking part in a pounds 2.5
million fraud on Jaguar along with Renny Platt, the former Saatchi and
Saatchi joint head of facilities, told Snaresbrook Crown Court this week
that he was ‘extremely frightened’ about giving evidence in the case.
Roger Kennedy - no relation to Saatchis’ current head of typography -
denies laundering money for Platt, but said of his co-defendant: ‘It was
obvious he walked in different circles than me.’ The case continues.
Michaelides and Bednash, the media strategy specialist part-owned by
Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury, has hired two extra media strategists.
Andrew Brown joins to take charge of the pounds 7 million Tango account
and Diane Maxwell will run the bulk of the agency’s Automobile
Association business.
