By Stephen Foster on January 14, 2013
**Long-suffering music business HMV has finally toppled into administration as suppliers have refused more credit. It’s all about downloads of course, there aren’t enough old farts (like me) hunting around for CDs. The move follows hard on the heels of the Virgin music business in France going down the tubes (Sir Richard got out years [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, Media, News | Tagged Carolyn McCall, downloads, easyJet, hmv, margate, Rupert Howell, Simon Fox, sue Douglas, the ambrette, the people, vccp
By Stephen Foster on May 29, 2012
WPP is to buy a majority stake in French digital data and campaign technology marketing group Predictys. Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Grenoble, Predictys has a co-operative database which includes information from 140m opted-in consumers sourced from about 25 partners. Most of its clients are affiliation networks that use it as a third-party provider [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News, PR, Research | Tagged adam & eve, agm, chime communications, comparethemarket, coors, data, ddb london, easyJet, france, grenoble, grey, Hugh Baillie, JWT, kantar, kbm, Lord Bell, ogilvy, omnicom, pay package, Piers Pottinger, predictys, rkcr/y&r, Sir Martin Sorrell, vccp, WPP
By Stephen Foster on May 28, 2012
TBWA Manchester could be set to make one the biggest ad comebacks as, according to Campaign, it went down a storm with Tesco at the giant retailer’s round of chemistry’ meetings over the future of its £110m account, thereby propelling big brother in London onto the shortlist. This could just be someone at TBWA talking [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged dixons, easyJet, honda, JWT, nike, oystercatchers, pitch, shortlist, Sir Martin Sorrell, tbwa, tbwa manchester, Tesco, the red brick road, vccp, wieden+kennedy
By Stephen Foster on May 9, 2012
It has indeed been a busy old day at Chime Communications’ AGM as chairman Lord Bell says the board has agreed his plan to buy out the Bell Pottinger PR businesses (it’s not clear if the two WPP board directors voted for or against) at the same time as he issued a profit warning, citing [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News, PR | Tagged advertising, agency pitch, Bell Pottinger, chime communications, easygroup, easyJet, golden goal, Lord Bell, Piers Pottinger, pr agencies, profit warning, Richard Shackleton, Simon Gulliford, sports marketing, Stelios, vccp
By Stephen Foster on May 3, 2012
Lord Bell’s Chime Comunications marcoms company has endured a torrid few months with various shareholders, including 20 per cent holder WPP, opposing his lordship’s plan to buy out the Bell Pottinger PR business and rumblings of discontent over the company’s decision to buy Simon Gulliford’s marketing consultancy for the best part of £2m. These matters [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News, PR | Tagged agm, buyout plans, consultancy deal, easyJet, Lord Bell, mulller, Piers Pottinger, Simon Gulliford, tbwa, us department of defense, vccp, WPP, wunderful stuff
By Stephen Foster on October 14, 2011
Crispin Porter creative director Craig Miller, one of the people behind the celebrated Domino’s Pizza ‘turnaround’ in the US, is joining Chime Communications-owned VCCP in the UK. Five years ago Domino received a huge amount of flak after a viral video showed nasty things finding their way into its pizzas and this prompted much of [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged bartle bogle hegarty, chime communications, Craig Miller, crispin porter, Domino's Pizza, easyJet, international expansion, JWT, London, Lord Bell, maccann ericksob, mini networks, molson coors, mother, New York, saatchi & saatchi, ted bates, turnaround, vccp
By Stephen Foster on October 12, 2011
Lord Bell, chairman of Chime Communications, has written to me regarding our story about Chime’s acquisition of Gulliford Consulting for a maximum price of £4.75m. We noted that Simon Gulliford, former marketing head of Barclays and Standard Life, had been a consultant on the £50m easyJet pitch, working for new easyJet marketing director Peter Duffy. [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News | Tagged barclays, chime communications, easyJet, gulliford consulting, Lord Bell, Peter Duffy, Simon Gulliford, standard life, Tim Bell, vccp
By Paul Simons on October 4, 2011
After BA we now have the new easyJet TV work. What a feast of fresh work and a wonderful range of brand positioning between BA, Virgin Atlantic, easyJet and Ryanair. Actually I’m disappointed in the easyJet work; the pitch went on for some time, the need for a clear positioning for the brand is necessary [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged advertising, BA, british airways, business travel, easyJet, europe by easyjet, new campaigns, Paul Simons, ryanair, the times, to fly to serve, va, virgin atlantic
By Stephen Foster on October 3, 2011
Which is presumably one of the things new agency VCCP was aiming for. Although it wouldn’t have known what the new BA campaign from Bartle Bogle Hegarty was going to look like it was a safe bet it wouldn’t take the surprisingly cheap and cheerful approach shown here – a kind of Butlins for Europe [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News | Tagged audi, bartle bogle hegarty, british airways, carling, Carolyn McCall, chime, comparethemarket.com, coors light, easyJet, Elaine Constantine, europe by easyjet campaign, fastjet, first dividend, guardian media group, meerkats, molson coors, new campaign, Peter Duffy, photographs, ryanair, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, vccp, virgin atlantic
By Paul Simons on September 28, 2011
I have been quite surprised at the debate sparked by the new British Airways campaign and the reaction I’ve had already to my previous comments on the work. There is a clear division of quite strong opinion; one camp is very dismissive of the BA campaign and another camp very supportive. It also becomes more [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged ad agency, BA, Bill Bernbach, british airways, Carolyn McCall, club class, competition, easyJet, fastjet, guardian media group, Paul Simons, ryanair, simons palmer, Sir Stelios, va, vccp, virgin atlantic, virgin upper class
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