By Stephen Foster on October 1, 2012
Ad spending forecasts are revised up or down (usually down, which tells you something) nearly as often as the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) discloses that its output figures are wrong. Now ZenithOptimedia is having another go at 2012, revising its growth forecast down from 6.1 per cent to 5.2 per cent with a [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, Media, News, Research | Tagged adspend forecasts, bartle bogle hegarty, eurozone, Greece, Jonathan Barnard, nielsen, publicis groupe, Sir Martin Sorrell, spain, WPP, zenithoptimedia
By Staff on June 19, 2012
Which is hardly surprising but also all the more reason to hope that US president Barack Obama and his allies (just about everyone outside Europe) can knock some sense into austerity junkies Germany’s Angela Merkel and even the UK’s David Cameron at the current G20 summit in Mexico. Media agency ZenithOptimedia has cut its closely-watched [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Finance, News, Politics, Research | Tagged ad spending forecast, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, cuts, David Cameron, eurozone, g20, Greece, spain, zenithoptimedia
By Stephen Foster on May 15, 2012
Kraft Athenos and Droga5 have returned with their ghastly Greek grannie in two more 30-second epics. Here’s Yiayia’s view of a pool party (she says it’s pornography): And video chatting: “Have you married a machine?” And I think she tells Kristin “You’re a shit woman.” Sounds like it anyway. Brilliant stuff though. Apparently the ads [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, News | Tagged Alison Maclean, athenos, droga5, eurozone, ghastly greek grannie, Greece, greek crews, January Vernon, Kraft, pool party, Scott Ginsberg, video chatting, yiayia
By Stephen Foster on December 12, 2011
One minute UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg is supporting (reluctantly-ish) his boss PM David Cameron in the latter’s decision to wield his veto to keep Britain out of something or other at the EU (nobody seems sure exactly what), tbe next minute he’s telling his mates in the media like the Observer’s Will Hutton [...]
Posted in Finance, Media, News, Politics, PR | Tagged Andrew Marr, Angela Merkel, Chris Huhne, David Cameron, eu treaties, eurozone, great communicator, Nick Clegg, nicolas sarkozy, uk coalition government, uk financial sector, Vince Cable, Will Hutton
By Stephen Foster on December 6, 2011
Back in November US ratings agency Standard & Poor’s sent a note to online subscribers saying it planned to lower the credit rating of France from its much-prized AAA – only it didn’t. A not very chastened S&P described it as a “technical error.” Now the agency has announced that it is considering downgrading all [...]
Posted in Finance, Media, News, Politics, PR, Research | Tagged big bazooka, credit rating agency, David Cameron, downgrade, eurozone, fitch, france, mcgraw-hill, moody's, s&p, standard & poor's, summit
By Stephen Foster on November 10, 2011
Shares in embattled Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset media empire (which spans pay and terrestrial TV, newspapers and magazines) were suspended for a period yesterday as investors headed for the exit. The shares have lost 20 per cent of their value in the last five days and fell 12 per cent on Wednesday. Even [...]
Posted in Finance, Media, News, Politics | Tagged eurozone, fininvest, italy, magazines, mediaset, mondadori, newspapers, pay-tv, prime minister, Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi, Sky Italia
By Stephen Foster on September 22, 2011
They do say that when you when you get a gaggle of economists together they won’t agree about anything: who they are, what they are, where they are and what they just ate with their coffee. The Western world has never been more afflicted by economists and, just a year ago, they were all recommending [...]
Posted in Finance, News, Politics | Tagged bloomsbury, Christine Lagarde, cuts, Danny Alexander, Ed Balls, eurozone, global economy, Gordon Brown, Greece, Harvard Business School, IMF, John Maynard Keynes, labour government, Nick Clegg, spending, uk economy
By Stephen Foster on August 9, 2011
The two Old Etonians in charge of the UK’s capital city – prime minister David Cameron and London mayor Boris Johnson – have come scurrying back from holiday (Cameron from Tuscany, Boris from goodness knows where but there was probably an echo chamber to amplify his own voice) hoping desperately that their world becomes a [...]
Posted in Media, News, Politics, PR | Tagged Boris Johnson, coalition prime minister, David Cameron, economic meltdown, eurozone, London, london mayor, london olympics 2012, looting, Mark Duggan, metropolitan police, old etonians, oxford university, pc world, riots, shooting, standard & poor's, stock markets, tottenham
By Stephen Foster on August 1, 2011
It’s no surprise that UK-based WARC (World Advertising Research Centre) has cuts it forecast for 2011 ad growth to 3.2 per cent from 4.6 per cent. WARC also reminds us that, at 2005 prices adjusted for inflation, this means a contraction of 0.1 per cent. In 2011 just about everything that could go wrong with [...]
Posted in Finance, Media, News, Politics | Tagged adspend forecast, Barack Obama, China, doom, eurozone, goerge Osborne, tea party, US deficit, warc, world advertising research centre
By Stephen Foster on June 20, 2011
Back in March it looked as though advertising was due for a sustained boom period, bouncing back from the depths of 2009 when (along with most of the world’s other industries) it was mired in the worst recession for 30 years. All the big marcoms companies (WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe et al) were reporting organic [...]
Posted in Agencies, Clients, Creative, Finance, News | Tagged awards, brazil, bric countries, cannes lions festival of creativity, China, commodity prices, dreamworks, eurozone, film and tv, Greece, heavy hitters, India, inflation, James Murdoch, Jeffrey Katzenberg, lehman brothers, marcoms companies, media and pr, news coprporation, omnicom, publicis groupe, russia, Sir Martin Sorrell, us default, white house, WPP
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