By Stephen Foster on May 21, 2013
WPP has just produced its latest BrandZ survey of the world’s top brands and, as usual with these things, it’s cobblers. Top is Apple at £185bn (American figures) and then the usual suspects. But Apple is facing arguably the biggest crisis in its 30 year-old history as it’s pilloried by all and sundry, including American [...]
Posted in Analysis, Clients, Finance, News, PR, Research | Tagged apple, brandz survey, tax dodging, WPP
By Stephen Foster on May 17, 2013
***A happy man tonight will be Sir Martin Sorrell, boss of WPP. He’s seen Omnicom slashing jobs at BBDO, after Interpublic’s McCann the world’s biggest agency network, following the loss of $300m Gillette to WPP’s Grey. More than that, he’ll see Omnicom boss John Wren’s reliance on his three big creative agency networks – BBDO, [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, Media, News | Tagged bbh, chevrolet, Gillette, goodby silverstein, mccann, neogama, New York, omnicom, Patrick Lafferty, presenters, radio4, Sarah Montague, Sir Martin Sorrell, today programme, WPP
By Stephen Foster on May 17, 2013
Omnicom agencies BBDO and Goodby Silverstein have been wielding the axe according to Ad Age, with around ten per cent of BBDO’s staff – hundreds of people – being laid off in the wake of the loss of $300m Gillette to Grey. Goodby Silverstein is much smaller but recently opened in New York and Detroit; [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News | Tagged bbdo, chevrolet, general motors, Gillette, goodby silverstein, job losses, mccann, omnicom
By Stuart Smith on May 15, 2013
It’s a dry, spare document. But beneath the dense, printed undergrowth of Centaur Media’s Interim Management Statement 7464E – out on City desks first thing this morning – lies a rich speculative mulch. Take this, for example: Geoff Wilmot is stepping down as CEO but has agreed to remain with the business until the end [...]
Posted in Finance, Media, News | Tagged centaur media, econsultancy, Geoff Wilmot, print revenues, share price, Tim Potter, £50m bet
By Stephen Foster on May 15, 2013
When I was at Marketing Week – decades ago – it made a fortune: display advertising flourished on the free circulation title and classified was a positive goldmine delivering an annual profit of at least £2m. Times have changed alas; and investors in the City will wonder if Centaur Media has changed accordingly. Today the [...]
Posted in Finance, Media, News | Tagged centaur media, creative review, Geoff Wilmot, Marketing Week, money marketing, Patrick Taylor, print revenues, the lawyer, Tim Potter
By Angie Dean on May 14, 2013
Digital agency LBi has won the assignment to revamp number one footcare company Scholl’s website. LBi, which won the business after a pitch, will start its website work in Italy. This will be supported by by social media activity and online PR to boost traffic to the website. Scholl global digital manager Ankita Sayal says: [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News | Tagged digital account, digitas, lbi, publicis groupe, scholl, website win, WPP
By Stephen Foster on May 14, 2013
Actually there is one exception, Havas’s Mercedes Erra (left), a founder of BETC, in Business Insider’s list at 17 of the top-paid people in adverts. But what does that tell you about the nature of the advertising business? If you look through the whole list (link above) you’ll see that it’s all holding company types [...]
Posted in Agencies, Analysis, Finance, News | Tagged adland, business insider, cfos, fat cats, havas, men, Mercedes Erra, money, women
By Stephen Foster on May 10, 2013
***There’s been much ado this week about the announcement by Coca-Cola boss Muhtar Kent (left) that it’s going to put calorie counts on its fizzy drinks and stop advertising to children under 12 (a virtual impossibility in the online age unless you stop advertising altogether). And stop sponsoring music, which Coke clearly isn’t going to [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, Media, News | Tagged Alex Bogusky, Billington Cartmell, british telecom, bskyb, campaign palace, coca-cola, decisive, desperados, france, Paul Fishlock, relaunch, sports rights war, Tony Granger, tv, virgin media, wrigleys 5 gum
By Stephen Foster on May 10, 2013
WPP has a pricey apartment in a Gramercy Park, New York development, which has provided a few laughs for my colleague George Parker of Adscam fame over the years. Evidently George isn’t the only one with a sense of humour as it’s also the name (Gramercy Park Studios actually) of its new London-based ‘post-conceptualisation and [...]
Posted in Agencies, Analysis, Creative, Finance, Media, News | Tagged Ben Raven, blue hive, craft, deliver, gramercy park studios, hogarth, in-house commercials and online production, new york apartment, plush films, Sir Martin Sorrell, tag, WPP
By Stephen Foster on May 10, 2013
We put brand in inverted commas because brands and their valuation in football are even more difficult to compute than in other areas of business – and, indeed, sport. Manchester United turns over about £350m and makes an operating profit of about £90m; nice work (and a nice margin) if you can get it but [...]
Posted in Clients, Finance, Media, News | Tagged Champions League, David Moyes, everton, glazers, John Magnier, Jose Mourinho, manchester united, new manager, Pep Guardiola, rock of gibraltar, Sir Alex Ferguson
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