Stay tuned for a big budget Christmas cracker from Wieden+Kennedy for Tesco
My spies tell me that the snippets of ads we’ve had so far from Wieden+Kennedy London for Tesco are the tip of the iceberg; a big proper ad is on its way. Five weeks in production apparently. So far...
View ArticleW+K takes the rapid fire route for Tesco Xmas
The new Wieden+Kennedy London campaign for Tesco is a bit like London buses used to be: you wait ages for one (the first ad) to come along and then three (or a dozen) turn up at once. So here are some...
View ArticleW+K’s Neil Christie lifts the lid on ad agency fees
My friend Neil Christie at Wieden+Kennedy London has been shedding some light on the question of agency finances in his excellent (grrr!) Welcome To Optimism blog. Neil’s musing were prompted by the...
View ArticleHats on to Christmas ‘reality’ from W+K for Tesco
UK Advertisers and adland seem to have (mostly) held their hands up this year and admitted that Christmas is a bit of an ordeal. But best to get on with it, see it through and, of course, buy their...
View ArticleTesco to dump failed US venture Fresh & Easy
All companies make mistakes at some point and Fresh & Easy was a massive one for Tesco. So now Tesco is to close or offload (if it’s lucky) its West Coast convenience store venture: not just...
View ArticleTesco’s US marketing scapegoat Tim Mason was actually needed to solve...
Chief executive Philip Clarke’s ruthless dispatch of his number two, Tim Mason (left), is a final reminder – if any were needed – that the past is another country, so far as Tesco is concerned. They...
View ArticleMy pick of 2012: Audi’s ‘Ahab’, Wieden+Kennedy London and Ajaz Ahmed
These are my choices for ad/campaign of the year, agency of the year and person of the year. Tomorrow (or maybe the next day) we’ll try to reach a consensus about the ultimate top dogs of 2012. So to...
View ArticleThe big winners of 2012: Wieden+Kennedy London, Samsung/72andSunny and the...
OK, here we go: after a not very scientific analysis of the ruminations of Paul Simons, Giles Keeble, Jerry Judge, George Parker, Stuart Smith and myself we come to: Agency of the Year Wieden+Kennedy...
View ArticleAviva offers consumers a sticky embrace in new cradle-to-grave campaign by...
2012 may go down as the year when advertising tried to wrap consumers in an all-encompassing sticky embrace; not trying to sell them stuff (overtly anyway) but presenting themselves as a kind of life...
View ArticleMixed messages from UK retailers about the power of Christmas ads
So do Christmas ads help sales? There are mixed messages from the John Lewis Partnership which also owns upscale grocer Waitrose. Sales at department store business John Lewis rose nearly 15 per cent...
View ArticleTesco bounces back at Christmas but there’s still lots of work to do for CEO...
There’ll be extra muffins at Tesco Towers in Cheshunt this morning as the UK’s biggest retailer posted a 1.8 per cent sales gain in the six weeks to January 5, including the key Christmas period. The...
View ArticleUK retail – how do you sort the winners (John Lewis) from the losers (Jessops)?
The news was predictable albeit the detail about UK retail trading was not so easy. Would Tesco pull back share, would M&S turn the corner, would HMV survive? Then camera chain Jessop goes bump in...
View ArticleWieden+Kennedy takes ‘mature’ approach to Wales
In these days of lengthy, some might say bloated, commercials can you sell a whole country (Principality actually but we’ll stay out of that one) in just thirty seconds? Wieden+Kennedy London has a...
View ArticleWhy the rush to ‘value’ products led to the great Tesco horse meat scandal
Until a couple of days ago, few outside the food retail and logistics business would ever have heard of Silvercrest. Now it has achieved household notoriety as the weak-link in the food chain that has...
View ArticleWhat’s in a move? Brian Cooper moves from Apple to Ogilvy and Paul Hammersley...
Sometimes people move from one agency to another just because they do; in other cases it might mean a bit more. Two such surfaced in Campaign this week; Brian Cooper (left) is joining Ogilvy in London...
View ArticleW+K London debuts new character Borg for Tesco
Finding a character to front for any big advertiser is a hazardous business – get it right as Lowe Howard-Spink did for Tesco first with Dudley Moore and then with Prunella Scales as ‘Dotty’ and you...
View ArticleUK PM David Cameron goes in for some Borg-style brand-bashing at Davos
If it weren’t for the fact David Cameron (left) watches so little television, I would be forced to conclude he has been modelling his recent behaviour on Borg, the Viking Himbo now fronting Tesco’s...
View ArticleWhat attitudes to banks tell us about the all-important issue of trust in brands
Trust seems to be a growing issue for brand owners. The latest scandal has been the horsemeat saga in burgers. Tesco (left) acted instantly with full page ads in the national press apologising followed...
View ArticleBrands caught in the horse meat scandal should remember what happened to Perrier
During the early part of 1990, health officials in North Carolina, USA, made an alarming discovery. Some Perrier bottled mineral water, whose purity was so legendary they had used it to benchmark other...
View ArticleW+K’s big new idea for 3: (its own) little pony
I was beginning to think that Wieden+Kennedy London had forgotten about phone company 3, its big win of last year before Tesco rumbled through the door. Where were the ads? Well here’s the big new...
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