HOT LINE

Bates and Saatchi & Saatchi look set for their first head-to-head

confrontation since the former Cordiant sister networks were formally

separated last year. The pair emerged this week as front runners in

Allied Domecq’s global pitch for Ballantine’s whisky. The original

line-up had also included BBDO and Publicis. A decision is not expected

until early August.

Marks & Spencer’s foods group is understood to have abandoned plans for

a branding campaign and withdrawn from agency pitches for the task

(Campaign, 15 May). Instead, M&S Foods will continue working with

McCann-Erickson on a project basis.

Virgin Direct is understood to have shortlisted three agencies for

presentations on its pounds 10 million account. These are said to be

Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe, HHCL & Partners and CDP.

Ben Langdon, McCann-Erickson’s managing director, has taken a more

direct role in the agency’s new-business drive following a move by Hugh

Cameron, the business development director, into a planning post. A

new-business unit, which includes the former account directors, Nicky

Carey and Jay Haines, together with Chris Collins, an account executive,

will report to Langdon.

Pete Russell, a managing partner at Optimedia, is leaving the company to

join the sport marketing firm, International Sports Management. Russell

will take on the business development role at ISM, helping to expand the

company’s commercial base.

Four agencies have made it through to the next round of pitches for the

European launch of Toyota’s Yaris. Ideas from Saatchi & Saatchi bureaux

in London, Paris and Brussels will be competing with a presentation from

the German roster agency, BMZ, during meetings scheduled for the end of

the month.

The Department of Trade and Industry has cleared Capital Radio’s

takeover of the London alternative music station, Xfm, deciding that it

is not anti-competitive. The Radio Authority approved the proposed

takeover last week.

Alistair Delves, one of the founders of Barrett Cernis Delves &

Partners, is quitting as the agency’s joint managing partner. The former

Young & Rubicam deputy managing director is to explore other

non-advertising interests, but will remain involved with some of the

agency’s accounts.

Nike has denied that it pulled a press ad featuring the England player,

David Beckham, following objections from the player’s lawyers. In an

official statement, the sportswear giant expressed disappointment that

the Times, which carried a front-page story on the ad, broke Nike’s

embargo and revealed the proposed text with alleged distorted facts.

Nike claims the ad was one of many World Cup executions that it simply

decided not to run.

Laser, the ITV sales house, has poached Michael Carter-Smith from RTE to

head its airtime sales team on the new Irish commercial TV station, TV3.

Carter-Smith has worked at RTE for 15 years.

The British Plastics Federation is calling on the Advertising Standards

Authority to ban a national press campaign by the Timber Trade

Federation which claims that using plastic as a building material

threatens the environment. The BPF has condemned the advertising, by

Travis Sennett Sully Ross, as ’spurious’ and claimed it would not stand

up to scientific scrutiny.

CKMP - formerly Integrator - has been awarded pounds 2 million worth of

extra business by its US consumer products client, Arm & Hammer, with an

assignment to handle the UK launch of its Extra-Whitening toothpaste

brand.

More than 80 per cent of submissions to this year’s IPA Effectiveness

Awards, recently revamped to make them more relevant to clients, deal

for the first time with the advertising’s effect on employee

relationships and company share prices. French Connection, Orange,

Wallis, Olympus, Inland Revenue self-assessment and Renault Clio are

among entrants vying for a place on the shortlist to be announced in

September.

This article was first published on Campaign