Client Newswrap: ethical food and dancing eyebrows

The Sunday papers:

Observer Food Monthly
Every week we put out our green recycling box and every week it is taken away, but where does it all go to? This month The Observer Food Monthly’s Andrew Purvis followed the well-travelled road of the waste in his recycling box to discover where his baked bean tins and plastic drinks bottles end up.

The Observer
Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer will this week tell parents that children under the age of 15 must not be allowed to drink. The announcement, revealed in the Observer on Sunday, is expected to reopen the debate on whether children should be allowed to drink a watered down glass of wine with a meal, as is the norm on the Continent.

City figures, revealed in the Observer, show that every taxpayer has lost almost £40,000 since the onset of the credit crunch. “We’re only halfway through; there’s more destruction to come before we stabilise,” said Dharval Joshi, the analyst at City bank RAB Capital that carried out the research.

The Sunday Telegraph
Jamie Oliver has spoken out about his new challenge to tackle the British pig industry with his new programme “Jamie saves our bacon”. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph he even spoke out against his employer Sainsbury’s. “They get a bit of bashing in this new programme,” he said, “because I think even the good supermarkets are guilty of some misleading labelling”.

Retailers
Sainsbury’s is looking to tap into the ethical food market to support the idea that while consumer spending could fall, attitudes to animal health and welfare remained.

Perhaps most prescient, with Jamie Oliver about to embark on a pig crusade, is the news that Sainsbury’s is teaming up with industry to launch a research project into pig welfare.

The retailer has also restructured its head office in a move that could lead up to 300 jobs being axed.
 
Somerfield, which operates about 900 stores across the UK, said like-for-like sales excluding fuel were up 4% in the three weeks to 3 January.

Meanwhile, Spar has purchased 11 former Somerfield stores from the Co-operative Group under the conditions of the Somerfield acquisition.

B&Q, Britain’s largest DIY retailer, is offering discounts in its January sale which are little different to the prices it charged its customers in October. An investigation by The Independent shows that B&Q, which is offering many of its products at half price or cheaper, significantly increased the prices of the goods in December ahead of the sale.

Brands
Software giant Microsoft is cutting 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months after net income dropped 11% year on year to $4.2bn (£3.1bn) during the second quarter ending December 31.

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk has unveiled the follow-up ad campaign to the ‘Gorilla’ and ‘Airport Trucks’ spots with a commercial starring children dancing with their eyebrows.  The 60-second Fallon-created spot, set to an 1980s electro track called “Don’t stop the rock” by Freestyle, opens with two siblings sitting in a traditional photographer’s studio waiting to have their portrait taken

Carlsberg UK has launched a new initiative aimed at helping the ailing pub sector market itself better to consumers. The programme, We Deliver More, will provide landlords with design templates for point-of-sale material, the ability to create and send personalised direct mail to a targeted consumer list from a database of 26 million consumers and feedback from consumers through a mystery shopping programme.

Macleans has put a glamorous spin on oral hygiene with its new TV ad featuring a cinematic romantic encounter.

Anchor has continued its Fuzzy Felt-themed campaign with a new TV spot featuring a pastiche of the final scene from The Great Escape

Bourbon brand Jim Beam is hosting a user-generated social media contest, asking the public to create their own Jim Beam commercial for a chance to win $25,000 (£18,000). Participants must create their own original commercial by spoofing one of three latest Jim Beam television ads, ‘The Girlfriend’, ‘The Party’, or ‘The Tragedy’.

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