Borthwick: Saints should expect a Sarries backlash May 29, 2014 SARACENS captain Steve Borthwick is convinced his team-mates possess the strength of character to bounce back from their Heineken Cup heartbreak when they face Northampton Saints in tomorrow’s Aviva Premiership Rugby final. The Twickenham clash will bring the curtain down on Borthwick’s 16-year playing career. And as the 34-year-old bids to go out on an [...]
Shoe Zone putting its best foot forward with a £50m stock float April 28, 2014 DISCOUNT footwear chain Shoe Zone has become the latest retailer queuing up to float on the London Stock Exchange this year. The family-run chain, which runs 554 stores in the UK and Ireland, is looking to raise up to £50m in an initial public offering (IPO) on London’s Alternative Investment Market next month that is [...]
Brand Index: Birds Eye fights to thaw shoppers’ hearts after horsemeat May 13, 2014 THE PAST 18 months have not been easy for the frozen foods sector as its tries to rebuild its reputation in the wake of the horsemeat scandal. Some brands wrote open letters to consumers to try to restore trust and improve perception, but today I want to look at Birds Eye, a company that overhauled [...]
France and Bosnia look World Cup bankers over the weekend June 19, 2014 BEN CLEMINSON PREVIEWS FRANCE V BOSNIA IF YOU like lumping on short-priced favourites then there’s plenty to get stuck into over the weekend. Italy at 4/7, Ecuador at 8/11, Argentina at 1/7 and Germany at 1/4 aren’t really my idea of great value punting, though, and I’m happy to just watch those jollies in their [...]
2014 World Cup: We’ll go nuts for Brazil June 10, 2014 Call it a heady fusion of optimism and romanticism, or a toxic brew of wilful amnesia and false hope, but so many things about the prospect of this World Cup in Brazil make me impossibly excited. The sun-kissed setting is certainly high on the list. England aside, it’s the fantasy World Cup host. It may [...]
Beyond billboards: Kinetic’s UK CEO Stuart Taylor on the new out-of-home advertising June 23, 2014 Liam Ward-Proud talks to Kinetic’s UK chief executive Stuart Taylor Once a relative backwater of the marketing landscape (compared to high-budget TV ads at least) the digital revolution is giving out-of-home (OOH) advertising a new lease of life. Static billboards and posters are being replaced with digital screens and moving images, increasingly able to interact [...]
Bird seeds, flavoured milk and Netflix added to inflation basket March 13, 2014 NETFLIX and flavoured milk have been added to the basket of goods used to calculate consumer price inflation, shedding light on the way that the UK’s spending patterns and habits have evolved. With technological developments, online video streaming has become increasingly popular with the provision of services like Netflix. This has been added to the [...]
World Cup: Super Mario puts Germany top of world July 13, 2014 GERMANY 1 ARGENTINA 0 AET, 0-0 after 90 minutes SUBSTITUTE Mario Gotze climbed off the bench to score a breathtaking extra-time winner as Germany beat Argentina to win their fourth World Cup last night at the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro. Gotze settled a gripping final in the 113th minute with a supremely composed chest-and-volley [...]
Suarez axed by Adidas as star gets four month ban June 26, 2014 ADIDAS last night dropped Liverpool striker Luis Suarez from its World Cup marketing campaign after he was handed a four-month ban from all football activity for biting Italian Giorgio Chiellini. The sportswear giant also condemned Suarez’s actions and warned it would be holding talks with the Uruguay player regarding his obligations under a boot deal [...]
Spider-Man entertains but fails to amaze April 21, 2014 FILM AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 Cert 12A Three Stars MARC Webb’s second installment of the re-booted Spider-Man franchise feels like a throwback to the super-hero movies of a decade ago – the first Hulk, Bryan Singer’s X-Men movies, Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil. It’s all spectacle, explosions and a dash of romance. It’s melodramatic rather than dark, [...]