Haymarket lands knockout blow on Marketing Week after 47 year rivalry

It’s taken a while – 47 years actually – but Haymarket has finally won the battle of the UK trade titles with the Campaign owner buying Marketing Week from Centaur Media along with Creative Review and Festival of Media.

For some of those once employed by both (Campaign news editor, MW editor in my case) it’s an outcome that, once, didn’t seem very likely as MW enjoyed the fruits of a classified ad boom while Campaign, with a cover price and hence a smaller circulation than free MW, didn’t.

But Centaur, founded by Anthony Nares and first MW editor Michael Chamberlain with eventual owner Graham Sherren behind an arras somewhere, lost its way recently diversifying into so-called research and headhunter Oystercatchers. It has also sold its other flagship mag The Lawyer.

Such publishers have become primarily events businesses these days, including The Drum, which is still with us after beginning life as a regional title. I joined MW as news editor and remember at the time wondering what on earth a marketing story was. The last issue before me led on a story about Ford trucks being sourced from Ireland. It may have been a story but had precious little to do with whatever marketing was.

We got there in the end with the help of some outstanding journalists and clever sales people. Shame to see the rivalry brought to an end in many ways but 47 years is a pretty good innings.