News

Welcome to our weekly round-up of news from the packaging industry's biggest clients.

Brands

Rather than 'Carla-ing', the brewer Carling has opted for "Carling 99" as the name of its beer for the female market, highlighting the number of calories in a bottle. Carling 99 will be advertised in womens' magazines.

The brand vs supermarket label war is snapping, crackling and popping as Kellogg's launches a £1.5m two-month marketing campaign, urging consumers to focus on the quality of ingredients in its cereals, in response to aggressive own-brand marketing from supermarkets. Rice Crispies is also celebrating its 80th birthday this week.

Santa will have to fit down a computer cable rather than a chimney after Ebay started to promote itself as the best best place for low-price Christmas gifts through a million-pound advertising campaign. It will focus on the 'buy it now' side of the business.

Brewer Carlsberg is looking to respond to the declining on-trade beer market by restructuring its marketing department. It hopes to end up with probably the best marketing department in the world.

Water of life? Evian is again targeting the post-Christmas detox market with a new campaign in January featuring the strapline "60% of you is made of water - every drop counts".

Retailers

German discount retailer Aldi announced it is set to embark on a €350m expansion drive in Ireland. The company will increase the number of stores in the country to 160, creating 650 jobs.

It must be Christmas as the cheesy soundtrack season gets into full swing. John Lewis this week unveiled its new £5.6m five-week Christmas adverting campaign, featuring a characters from a range of demographics interspersed with their perfect gifts set to the Beatles' "From Me To You".

Cheap as chipboard. Tesco has made its move into the fitted kitchen market, yes you did read that correctly, by revealing a ready to install an online-purchased kitchen for £949. The supermarket giant is also set to challenge Argos by installing catalogue self-service terminals at all its new non-food Homeplus stores.