All articles by Adam Leyland – Page 55
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News
Gramias bang the drum for Cadbury campaign
The Glass and a Half Productions ad campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk – better known as the drumming gorilla ad – was the not-so-surprising winner in the television/cinema category at The Gramias last night.
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News
Ariel unveils new cold-water gel
A cold-water washing detergent that is more effective than hot-water alternatives – that is the stunning claim being made by Procter & Gamble with the launch of its new Ariel Excel Gel.
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: Get ready for a trade credit crunch
What a boring week it’s been. So far, anyway. No banks have gone under. No mergers were rushed through on the QT. When I last looked, Wall Street was still standing. Just. Instead, we’ve been privy to our Prime Minister reassuming his mantle of...
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News
Editor's Comment: Do the big four really need to reinvent themselves as discounters?
With the collapse of Lehman Bros, a bumper worldwide wheat harvest, the return of tertiary brands at Tesco, and Asda’s launch of a 5,000-strong product price war, events threatened to supersede our special Green Issue this week. But saving the...
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Comment & Opinion
Editor's Comment: Multiples damn the products on their own shelves
The supermarket price war that’s been threatened since the start of the year amounted, until this week, to localized skirmishes. Yes, there’s a lot of promotions (up 7% year-on-year). Yes, there have been 50p deals. But loss leaders on booze are...
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News
Suppliers shocked as own-label blitz launched on brands
Branded suppliers were left reeling this week as Tesco and Sainsbury’s both launched concerted campaigns promoting their own-label ranges at the expense of brands. Sainsbury’s announced a massive Switch & Save campaign, across all media, that will...
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News
Can you build a brand without advertising... or PR?
For a century the grocery market has been built on the back of advertising and PR. But powerful new brands have emerged that used neither. Mark Choueke and Adam Leyland report
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News
Walker planning Woolies carve up
No more than 50 of Woolworths’ stores would be converted to the Iceland fascia if Malcolm Walker is successful in buying the ailing retailer, a senior retail source has predicted. Woolworths was forced to go public last weekend on its rejection of...
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News
“If the new owners manage to put the sparkle back into Oddbins, I for one will be raising a glass”
I’ve always had a soft spot for Oddbins. Ever since I worked there as a student in its Wimbledon store, I’ve remained strangely, perversely loyal to the maverick retailer, even as I’ve watched the heart and soul, great staff, and most of the decent...
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News
Lion gets its teeth into frozen with Foodvest
The Foodvest Group is now “a scale player with a scale private equity house behind it”, according to Young’s Seafood MD Jim Cane. Lion Capital, which acquired Foodvest, the owner of Young’s Seafood and Findus, for £1.1bn on Tuesday, would use the...
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News
Asda could be used as a pawn to get back at Tesco for daring to pitch up in Wal-Mart’s backyard
This week (20th July 2008) saw the first signs that crude oil and commodity prices – the conditions responsible for the rampant food price inflation we have – are abating. And not before time. As a number of expert commentators have observed, the balance between...
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News
The Flying Dutchman
Morrisons caught its rivals off guard with its recovery. CEO Marc Bolland tells Adam Leyland how it was done Marc Bolland doesn’t want to be known as ‘a marketer’. He’s a retailer now, CEO of Morrisons, entrusted with the keys by Sir Ken and doing well by all accounts. But ...
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Comment & Opinion
Opinion: FSA's Smith will need a deft touch
Tim Smith, the new FSA chief executive offers hope of a less polarised, more collaborative approach to food regulation. Delicately and obliquely acknowledging some of its mistakes, he is keen to build consensus. He also promised to stick...
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News
Macca champions Meatfree Monday
Sir Paul McCartney has called on Britons to embrace 'Meat-Free Monday' to cut carbon emissions. The concept of cutting out meat one day a week has taken off in Australia as shoppers have become conscious of the environmental impact of...
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News
beauty in simplicity
Distribution is simple. But that doesn't make it easy. It's a truism with which Sainsbury's has been dealing ever since the Sir Peter Davis era, when the launch of two new 'fulfilment factories', at Hams Hall and Waltham Point, appeared to usher...
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Rankings
The Power List 2008
Economic upheaval, along with opportunism, has brought big changess in this year’s list. Ross Butler, Mark Choueke and Adam Leyland report.
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News
The Big Eat: digesting the new plans to tackle obesity
Alan Johnson summed it up: "The problem is simple: we eat too much and we do too little exercise," said the secretary of state at the Department of Health. "The solution is more complex. From the nature of the food we eat, to the way our...
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News
Asda tests brand equity
Asda is putting the brand equity of Britain's food and drink brands to the test in an attempt to weed out needless duplication and offer customers greater choice. Earlier this summer the UK's second-largest supermarket delisted Princes tuna...
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News
Smoke or mirrors in retrospective inquiry?
As the Competition Commission prepares to wade through an estimated 11 million emails, and thousands of phone calls, from Asda and Tesco and its suppliers, the inquiry appeared this week to have reached a pivotal moment. Has it found the smoking gun...