Client Newswrap

Retailers

Photo chain Jessops has teamed up with camera manufacturer Nikon to sponsor a new adventure travel social network. Big Earth has been launched by the producers of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s motorcycling travelogues Long Way Round and Long Way Down.

The Body Shop and music channel MTV are working together to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS. The retailer and the music channel have launched a dedicated website to help promote a fundraising campaign that aims to encourage young people around the world to “say yes to safe sex”.

The credit crunch isn’t dampening luxury lingerie firm Agent Provocateur‘s sales. The retailer today said its sales for the year to mid- March were up 8% at £22.4m. The firm also said its sales for the previous year to 31 March 2008 had risen 26% to £20.7m.

Tesco has acquired six former Somerfield stores from the Co-operative Group after the Office of Fair Trading approved the deal last week. The OFT said it would not refer the purchase, which arose following the Co-op’s £1.57bn takeover of Somerfield last year, to the Competition Commission.

Brands

Drinks brand Schweppes has launched an ad campaign based on a series of satirical cartoons. The campaign, created by ad agency Mother, is themed around cartoons that reference current affairs and the news agenda in the style of 18^th-century English painter and satirist William Hogarth.

Chinese competition authorities have blocked Coca-Cola‘s proposed $2.4bn takeover of the country’s leading juice company, China Huiyan Juice. Regulators last week blocked the deal, saying it would have “a negative effect on competition”.

Fast food giant McDonald‘s has attracted criticism in Australia for sponsoring an online maths tutoring programme to which all 1.4 million secondary school pupils in Australia will have access. According to reports, pupils logging on to the site will see the company’s golden arches logo and the words ‘proudly provided by your local McDonald’s restaurant’.

Food producer Premier Foods has raised £379m through a share offer. Premier, which makes Mr Kipling cakes and Branston pickle, said existing shareholders had bought about 66% of the open stock offered to them. The remaining 34% of the shares have been allocated to investors who had conditionally agreed to buy them.

Triple Velvet, the SCA-owned toilet tissue brand, has tweaked its Baby MD theme with a new campaign encouraging children to become detectives. The brand has launched an educational ‘Tree Detective’ experience for children, handled by Chemistry, which will tour 14 UK shopping centres up until mid-June.

Halewood International is to launch a spiced version of its Lamb’s Navy Rum in a bid to attract younger consumers to the brand. Lamb’s Spiced Rum is the first brand extension of the original product and comes on the back of more than 18 months research by Halewood.

This Water, the Fresh Trading-owned soft drinks brand, is rolling out a new variant enriched with antioxidants. The new This Water Natural Antioxidants product is flavoured with passion fruit and peach, with natural antioxidants from green tea. The drink comes in a 420ml bottle and retails at around £1.29.