LETTERS NEWS

Marketing merger

Mobil link Upwith Argosfor new collection scheme

vision series.The competition offers

over £1.5m in prizes alongwith family holidays in Cali-fornia and the chance toappear with the Star Trekcast at Universal Studios.A separate promotion,

aimed at HGV drivers is torun alongside offering freeaudio tapes for every 100litres of diesel purchased.The company also plan torelaunch its Air Milesscheme.

usually handles many of itspromotions in-house. Thecompany's sales promotionmanager Brian Mitchellcommented: "The pressureof promotional projects hasforced us to look outsidefor help". Mitchell addedthat Moore and Walterswere chosen as they hadworked together on thelaunch of Kleenex Velvet inthe early 1980's.

••Events watch.AprilISP Seminar, Sales Promotion Law, April 23, ChurchHouse Conference Centre, Westminster, LondonSWI. Tel: 071 837 5350How to make powerful presentations, April 22,

Bournemouth, April 23, Cardiff, April 25, London,April 26, Dublin, April 29, Birmingham. One dayseminars on how to master presentation skills. £95.Tel: 0494 8l71I1.

MayMay 14-16, Incentive '91, Olympia, London. Over 500exhibitors representing companies from themotivation, incentives and sales promotion industry.'£5 from anywhere' return rail fare for buyers.Langfords Exhibitions, Brighton, 0273 2066722.Advertising Through Sponsorship, May 21, A one-daycourse on promoting corporate and brandawareness. Covers the practical and legal concernsof dealing with the use and marketing of charactersand personalities. European Study Conferences, IbisEuston Hotel, London NWI 2LWContact 0536203224.

JuneNorthern Conference & Hospitality Show, June 5-6,G-Mex, Manchester. Sterling Events, 051-709 8979.Data Protection Guidance for Advertising andMarketing, Four One-Day Seminars, June 1I-20. JunelI, City Conference Centre, London, June 13, HotelPiccadilly, Manchester, June 18, Crest Hotel, Bristol,June 20, Cafe Royal, London. IBC Legal Studies, 0712364080.Stress Management for the 90's. ROSPAInternationalSafety & Health Congress, June 18.20, NECBirmingham, £50. For further details, contact JennyBloor on 021 200 2461.

The newly-formed BlueChip agency has won itsfirst piece of business fromKimberly-Clark. The agency,created by former ClarkHooper employees IanMoore and David Walters,will be working on two pro-jects with promotionsappearing in late Spring.The move to appoint BlueChip marks a departure forKimberly-Clark which

Blue Chip pick upKimberly-Clark

In searchof theright cardI hope your readers may beable to help me.For over 30 years I have

collected packs of playingcards used by British com-panies as an advertisingand sales promotionmedium. The bulk of mycollection was stolenrecently.I am now trying to

replace my collection and,short of wading throughevery copy of Yellow Pagesand then phoning likelycompanies one at a time, Iwas at a loss about how tostart. It struck me that yourreaders may be able topoint me in the right direc-tion.Many of the packs which

I had in my collection willbe virtually impossible toreplace because they wereproduced for companiesthat no longer exist. Wad-dingtons have wished meluck but, for understand-able policy readers, theyare unable to let me have alist of companies for whichthey have produced cardsover the years.Ideally I collect packs of

~~~~s ~~dth~th°r~~als~~~ Shell launches Star Trekunbroken. t h reiAny help will be very _scra c ca aame

gratefuf an~personaUy- - --acknowleged. In the wake 'of Collect &

Select, Shell has launched anew scratch card promotionunder the banner 'Star Trek- The Game'. The companyclaims that its research hasshown the popularity ofthis medium with its instantbenefits over long termcatalogue promotions.The Star Trek theme was

chosen for its broad appealand the promotion will alsocoincide with the 25thanniversary of the tele-

Dennis D'Vigne22 Park RoadHigher CrumpsallManchesterM86HU

PepsisponsorsschoolsroadshowPepsi-Cola and Britvic SoftDrinks have launched aschools radio roadshowvisiting 80 schools over a12 week period.The roadshow is run

jointly with independentlocal radio stations andaims to provide informationon the radio industry aswell as distributing revisionhint cards for the majorGCSE subjects.Pepsi hopes the venture

will increase penetrationamong teenagers and drawattention to the product atexam time.

can look forward to theprospect of more work, bet-ter budgets and sustainedgrowth. I have no objectionto awards as symbols ofachievement, but I wish theindustry would remembersales promotion is a busi-ness first and an art formsecond.Paul R FarrerDirectorMurray Luckett Sales Pro-motion

PromotionalamnesiaI read Stephen Callender'sarticle on joint promotionswith great interest. Hispremise is sound, since alot of real synergy can becreated with appropriatepartners. What irks meslightly is that he has atouch of amnesia.The only mention of Kel-

logg's (who through theyears have been the trueinnovators in the joint pro-motion area) is in connec-tion with our promotionwith Solo paint. This wasnot Crunchy Nut CornFlakes, as he suggests, butKellogg's Bran Flakes. Thelatter product makes a lotof sense as a partner to aDIY product, but CrunchyNut Corn Flakes is as differ-ent as KLP is to Source!

It was Kellogg's whoinitiated the British Rail con-nection, not Persil. It was Kel-logg who did the firSt majorBank, MMB, NationalExpress, Royal Mail andMcDonaids promotions.J J Sandys-WinschSales Promotion ManagerKellogg Company of GreatBritain

hase of petrol with no mini-mum threshold.Given the relative com-

plexity of this scheme fore-court staff will have toundergo a degree of train-ing before installation. Theprogramme has alreadybeen launched in northernEngland and should be inplace in all Mobil garagesby the end of May.

group. The merger is aimedat developing merchandis-ing contracts using bothdisciplines telemarketingand field marketing.

Business comesbefore art

convened to introduce/encourage agencies toenter and show them howbest to do so.One last comment -

your article refers to thefirst stage of judging and atthis stage, agencies werenot known by the judges -how then does Anne Freerof M 0 Foods feel able tocomment."There are a number of

agencies that I've nowmade mental note of interms of marketing ability".Beverley PritchardManaging DirectorTactical Marketing

Your lead article in SalesPromotion (March) sug-gests creativity gave way tocommercialism in therecent ISP awards entries.What else do you expect?In a year of soaring interestrates, a marked fall in con-sumer spending and wide-spread recession, it is onlynatural that the sales pro-motion industry respondswith sound commercialpropositions. If there's onething that sets sales promo-tion companies apart fromtheir advertising agencystablemates it is theirability to deliver measur-able cost effectiveness.It is very rewarding (no

pun intended) to judge ourindustry's work on its crea-tive merits, but spare athought for our clients.They are looking for areturn from their spend.The sales promotion com-panies who achieve this

Mobil has launched its latestcollection scheme, PremierPoints, jointly with Argos.Customers are to be

issued with credit cards onwhich points can be col-lected electronically. Thesepoints can then beredeemed against anygoods in the Argos cata-logue or stores. Points willbe awarded on any pur-

CPM Field Marketing hasmerged with the telemar-keting agency NewburyMarketing. Both companiesare part of the Omnicom

Joint chief executives of theIMP Group, John Farrell andLance Smith, have beenappointed to the world boardof parent company DMB&B.These are the first represen-tatives from the IMP Groupto reach this level inDMB&B. This followsDMB&B's decision inFebruary to have all IMP'sEuropean offices reportdirectly to Farrell and Smith.

CorrectionIn the additional notes pro-vided with last month'sleague table of 100 agen-cies, filed figures for Crea-tive Minds were up toNovember 1988 and notNovember 1989 as stated.

IMP directorsjoin DMB&B board

Performanceis the key"ISP Awards - Entries UpOverall Quality Down".What an absolutely nega-

tive and uninformed head-line. The ISP Awards havestruggled and worked hardfor years to obtain credibility- they have also workedhard to be taken seriously,as has the sales promotionindustry - and now afteryears of hard work - thewhole quality of promotionshas once again been throwninto question based on oneor two comments from someof the judges.Surely, the quality of pro-

motions is not about howthey look - but how theyactually perform.We are in a serious reces-

sion and have been forsome time, clients - cer-tainly my clients, are look-ing for activity that reallydigs down to the grassroots - grabs the tradeand pushes sales in. Theicing on the cake is thepull-through, although Ithought that was the job ofadvertising.Has no-one yet under-

stood trade marketing!With regard to agencies

entering into more thanone category with the samepromotion "in the hope ofwinning at least something"- why not take a goodlook at some of those pro-motions - which categoryshould they be placed in?As yet, there simply isn't acategory for an "IntegratedMarketing Campaign", andby the way, this was dis-cussed at the ISP meeting

Business Software hasintroduced a computerbased package designed toassess applicants' suita-bility for sales positions.SELECT uses test questionsto produce graphs andreports on applicants help-ing recruiters to comparecandidates on specificqualities. A general person-ality test is also included inthe pack.

The hotel consortium, Con-sort Hotels, is offering freeweekends in exchange forconference tH>okingsthrough their VenueFmderplacement service.The scheme, Consort

Breakaway, is based on apoint system. A three-nightreservation for 50 delegatesearns 60 points and 200points are required for aweekend break.

Ronseal has used Leedsbased Murray Luckett todevise a promotional pack-age for its range of DIYpro-ducts.The scheme, known as

the Business Builder, isaimed at independent DIYretailers. In exchange for adegree of commitment theretailers receive advertis-ing, marketing and salespromotion support.

Suitable for promotionsaimed at children is arange of fun scissors fromH Cubitt Bexfield. Thescissors come in fourcharacter designs - aclown, a witch, a chef andSanta - and are madefrom moulded plastic,incorporating inset steelblades, rounded for safety.The Fun Time is the

latest addition to the range.

Trusthouse Forte's RetailServices division is under-going an extensive redesignbased on a Dickensiantheme. The 'Glorious Bri-tain' scheme will featurestreet barrows, bow win-dows and carry productsfrom English Heritage, TheNational Trust and Wedg-wood. The first store willopen at Gatwick South Ter-minal this month.

Mia Dickson Associateshas formed an associationwith French agencyTequila following theiracquisition by the Frenchcommunications networkBDDP.Tequila is France's sec-

ond largest sales promo-tion agency and sharesmany of MDA's existingclients such as RowntreeMackintosh and Levers.

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