Super Thursday: Embattled retailers could learn from the Tesco turnaround plan January 10, 2019 It wasn’t only children who traditionally looked forward to Christmas: time was when Yuletide sales could be guaranteed to give a substantial boost to Britain’s retailers. No longer. A slew of dismal results published today showed Christmas figures sharply down for a number of household names including M&S and Debenhams, in what the British Retail [...]
Brexit, ad fraud and #MeToo – what does the future year hold for the marketing industry? January 7, 2019 We are out of the cold December of 2018, and have now entered the, well, even colder January of 2019. Last year was a momentous one for the marketing industry – there was the fall and rise again of adland stalwart Martin Sorrell; the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) finally came into force; [...]
Gousto cooks up £18m funding and signs up ‘The Body Coach’ Joe Wicks January 6, 2019 Meal kit company Gousto has cooked up a further £18m worth of funding and welcomed fitness writer Joe Wicks on board. New investors, including Wicks, Unilever Ventures, Hargreave Hale, MMC Ventures and Angel CoFund have backed the recipe box company, it said yesterday. Gousto, which deliver 1.5m meals a month to customers, has now raised [...]
Brands ‘waste’ millions as extent of Instagram influencer fraud revealed January 6, 2019 Brands are wasting millions of pounds on marketing as Instagram influencers buy fake followers to boost their reach. A report by US marketing specialist Captiv8 has revealed that $2.1bn was spent on influencer-sponsored Instagram posts in 2017 but more than 11 per cent of engagement on those posts was generated from fraudulent accounts. It said [...]
FTSE 100 ends its worst year since the financial crash in the red December 31, 2018 The UK's FTSE 100 blue-chip index ended its worst year since the 2008 financial crisis in the red, as a strong pound pulled down exporter shares. The FTSE 100 lost 0.1 per cent in trading on the last day of 2018, while the FTSE 250 added 0.2 per cent after a rally on Friday when they both closed [...]
Outgoing Unilever chief makes plea for unity in speech to shareholders December 6, 2018 Outgoing Unilever boss Paul Polman has asked shareholders to trust his successor as he prepares to step down next month. The Dutchman announced his resignation months after investors shot down plans to combine the company’s London headquarters with that in the Netherlands. Polman, 62, said investors will have to trust his successor Alan Jope, a [...]
Unilever invests in India with €3.3bn deal for Horlicks December 3, 2018 Unilever has agreed to buy GlaxoSmithKline’s nutritions arm, including Horlicks, a week after press reports the two were in exclusive talks. The €3.3bn (2.9bn) deal will give the British-Dutch consumer goods company a substantial presence on the growing Indian market. It will buy GSK’s health food drinks portfolio in India, Bangladesh and 20 other mainly [...]
Polman bows out of Unilever with a rich legacy, but a tarnished reputation November 29, 2018 When Paul Polman announced his plan to quit as boss of Unilever last autumn, he had plenty of reasons to think he would be leaving the consumer goods giant on a high: he had fought off a £115bn takeover attempt from Kraft Heinz earlier in the year and forged a reputation as a champion of [...]
Ashtead chief executive to step down next May, replaced by chief executive of US arm November 29, 2018 Industrial equipment rental company Ashtead’s shares were up 5.7 per cent this morning as it announced chief executive Geoff Drabble is to step down in May after nearly 12 years in charge. Chief operating officer Brendan Horgan, who is also chief executive of the group’s North American business Sunbelt Rentals, will succeed Drabble on 1 May. [...]
Unilever chief executive set to retire at the end of the year after shareholder revolt against plans to scrap dual-listed structure November 29, 2018 Unilever’s chief executive is set to step down at the end of the year, the company revealed today. Paul Polman will retire by the end of 2018, the maker of Dove soap and Marmite said, staying on to help with the transition as the company’s president of beauty and personal care, Alan Jope, takes up the [...]