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New Profile

Fortune Brands was elevated into the ranks of the world's leading spirits and wine producers when it lent its support to Pernod-Ricard's acquisition of the previous global #2, Allied Domecq. As a result, Fortune's portfolio, until then represented mainly by Jim Beam bourbon whiskey, was swelled by the addition of such stellar brands as Courvoisier, Canadian Club and Sauza tequila. It marks another stage of the continuing evolution of a company which started out as America's leading tobacco manufacturer, before diversifying widely in the 1960s and 1970s. Some fruits of that diversification remain: Fortune still owns a wide variety of non-beverage products ranging from Titleist golfballs to Moen faucets. Click here to access the Adbrands profile (subscribers only); or subscribe to Adbrands.net here.

Critical Summary: see Profile

Advertising: Who handles advertising? Click here for Agency Account Assignments. 

Competitors: see Alcoholic Beverages for other companies

Recently Revised Profiles and Snapshots

In the news this fortnight: Advertisers

Amazon is reported to be developing a new music download service that will compete directly with Apple's iTunes. According to press reports, the company is considering a subscription plan model broadly similar to that offered by mobile phone operators. Users subscribe to a dedicated Amazon download service and receive a custom-made music player as part of the offer, which comes pre-loaded with a selection of promoted tracks which can then be swapped or updated online. 

Sony was forced to confirm that it was experiencing technical problems developing its hotly awaited Playstation 3 console. The company had planned for a Spring 2006 launch in Japan, but this could be pushed back as far as autumn. Because of its advanced multi-core chip and Blu-Ray DVD drive, the console will also be much more expensive to produce than had been anticipated, perhaps as much as $900 per unit, although Sony will absorb much of that sum and price the unit well below cost.

 Dial Corporation, now the US personal and household care division of German group Henkel, paid around $420m to acquire Right Guard and other deodorant/anti-perspirant products from Procter & Gamble, which was obliged to sell the brands as a condition of its takeover of Gillette. The deal will elevate Henkel/Dial to third place in the US deodorant sector. Heinz agreed to sell its European tinned seafood business, which includes the John West brand in the UK and Petit Navire in France, to Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking for E425m. DMGT, publisher of the Daily Mail and other titles, withdrew its Northcliffe regional newspaper division from sale after it failed to receive a high enough offer.

Simon Anholt's Nation Brands Index published its latest ranking of nations ranked by brand image, based on a worldwide poll of consumers in 35 countries, evaluated by market research firm GMI. In the latest ranking, for 4Q 2005, the UK retained its #1 ranking, but Germany slipped from #2 to #6, and the US showed the biggest slide, from #3 to #10. Other countries in the top 10 were, in descending order, Switzerland, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Japan, France and Australia. A full report can be downloaded from the Nation Brand Index website.

There was another clutch of full year financial results for 2005. Results from Axel Springer, aQuantive, Target, Scottish & Newcastle, Barclays, L'Oreal, Heineken, Nestle, Sprint Nextel and Cadbury Schweppes were all good or very good. Carlsberg was satisfactory. DaimlerChrysler was encouraging, especially compared to Ford and GM. Wal-Mart was disappointing. For any other retailer, an increase of 9.5% year-on-year to a worldwide corporate record of $315bn, would have been spectacular. But in Wal-Mart's case it was the first time in 14 years the company didn't deliver double digit growth.

In the news this week: Agencies

Despite the historic 2002 deal in which Dentsu traded up its stake in Bcom3 for a shareholding in Publicis Group, there has been comparatively little tangible evidence of the much-touted strategic alliance between the French and Japanese groups, other than the formation of a small sports marketing joint venture in Switzerland. This week however, Publicis announced plans to reassign two standalone agencies, Publicis Paname in Paris and BMZ in Germany, to collaborate with the Japanese group. It is unclear as yet precisely what that will entail, but Publicis has said there will be no transfer of equity. Instead there will be additional "close collaboration at management level" within Paname and BMZ to strengthen those agencies' ability to offer advertising services to Japanese clients in European markets.

It was a good week for American-Japanese relations: TBWA expanded its strategic alliance with Dentsu's rival Hakuhodo by agreeing to merge its existing TBWA\Japan office with the local arm of G1, the joint venture between the two groups which handles the Nissan account worldwide. The merged TBWA\Hakuhodo will will handle TBWA network clients such as Adidas, Masterfoods and Haagen Dazs, as well as Nissan. Hakuhodo will own 60% of the merged shop, to Omnicom's 40%.

Publicis also announced the launch of Denuo, a new digital consultancy operating under the Publicis Groupe Media banner. (Despite the similarity of its name, it has no connection with Dentsu. The name is derived from the Latin for "afresh" or "anew"). The group claims that this is a totally new sort of agency, which will function simultaneously as a strategic consultant, an inventor of solutions and as an investor in partnerships "to enrich marketing and communication options" for Publicis group clients. The Denuo team has been assembled from executives from the group's other units involved in gaming, wireless and other digital media services. The agency is also supporting the launch of two third-party internet broadcasting services Brightcove and Shadow TV.

In a rare example of public discord between an agency holding company and its subsidiaries, regional US agency Howard Merrell & Partners this week suggested it had been forced to resign a new account because of troubled parent Interpublic's financial position. The agency was awarded the $8m account for the North Carolina Education Lottery last week, but was then obliged to surrender the business because parent Interpublic declined to under-write a $1m bond required by the client to ensure that all media and production vendors on the account get paid. Merrell's angry press release claimed that IPG "had issues meeting the bond requirements". IPG quickly responded with its own release which referred to Merrell only as "one of our smaller agencies". It added: "To clarify, our decision had absolutely nothing to do with our ability to secure this $1 million bond, an inconsequential amount in the context of our company's financial capacity. Instead, our decision was based on strategic considerations." According to AdAge, what that probably means is that IPG was unwilling to make a $1m financial commitment to a non-core agency itself worth little more than twice that in annual revenues. Whatever the case, this sort of public spat doesn't send particularly comforting signals to other IPG agencies about the level of support they can expect from their parent.

London-based creative agency Campbell Doyle Dye announced plans to change its name to The Shop, and is also set to move out of its existing offices in North London and move to Soho. 

The week's biggest account move was the capture of Federated Stores' $200m media budget for Macy's by Starcom. Pfizer named Bravo Group as its new Hispanic agency.

Regards


Simon Tesler
Publisher, Adbrands

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