A month before Thomas Cooks chief executive, Manny Fontenla-Novoa, left the company, the travel giant said it would undertake a “fundamental operational and strategic review of its business” following its third profit warning in a year.

Thomas Cook previously revealed 75 stores they were closing it is believed these are included in the 200 they are due to announce.

A spokesman for Thomas Cook said: “Thomas Cook announced earlier this year that its new UK management team would be announcing the results of the UK review on the 24 November. As part of the review the management said it would announce measures to refocus the product strategy in mainstream package holidays streamline the UK airline, improve yield management and operational excellence and measures to leverage the strong and trusted Thomas Cook brand. We will announce the outcome of all of these areas on Thursday.”

This review by Thomas Cook is intended to rejig its balance of online and offline bookings, as the tour operator recognises that the online market is playing “an increasingly important role” in its business, but claims high street bookings remain key.

At the moment Thomas Cook are merging with The Co-operative Group’s store estate this also includes rebranding of the 70 Going Places shops which is also owned by Thomas Cook. It’s thought that the merger of the two travel companies will see a network of 1,300 high street stores.

Thomas Cook Logo

Newcastle United St James's Park now to be known as the Sports Direct Arena

Known as St James’s Park for the 119 years, Newcastle United is set to see a change to that history by renaming the famous stadium. For the time being it will be known as the Sports Direct Arena making use of owner Mike Ashley’s high street brand. However the club will be looking to the global market to find to take up the name of the stadium.

Newcastle started the search for a stadium sponsor back in 2009,they renamed it “sportsdirect.com @ St James’ Park Stadium”, however that name never stuck with the Toon Army continuing to call it by its original name.

Newcastle are not the only club in the Premier League who have named their stadium after sponsors other clubs which have done this include: Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium and Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, however for these clubs their stadiums do not hold the history St James’s Park does because both of those stadiums were new when renamed. Chelsea are also currently exploring options to change the name of their stadium through sponsor ship which begs the question will this start to become a trend and will we start to see more name changes as sponsorship changes.

There are some clubs where it would seem a name change would probably be out of the option because of the history of the clubs such as Liverpool’s Anfield, Manchester United’s Old Trafford and Tottenham Hotspurs White Hart Lane. However if Tottenham in the future move to a new stadium then maybe then they may change and follow other clubs with a sponsored stadium.
Many clubs in the lower football leagues have their stadiums sponsored as a valuable way to raise money in leagues that are not as profitable as the Premier League.

Managing director Derek Llambias spoke about the name change he said:

“Our aim for Newcastle United is to continue to deliver success for the fans and everyone associated with the club. We must make this club financially self-sufficient in order to deliver that success. To grow sustainably and allow us to invest in our future, we will need to rely increasingly heavily on commercial income. These are very difficult economic times and the board have a responsibility to maximise all revenue streams for the benefit of the club. Stadium rebranding offers a lucrative way for clubs to secure significant additional income. When we initially launched our plans at the end of 2009, we invited sponsors to attach their brand to that of St James’ Park. However, it has become clear that in order to make the proposition as commercially attractive as possible, a potential sponsor must be given the opportunity to fully rebrand the stadium. Naming the stadium the Sports Direct Arena helps up to showcase the opportunity to interested parties. We are now actively seeking a long-term sponsor wishing to acquire full naming rights for the stadium. Our shirt sponsorship deal with Northern Rock will also expire at the end of this season, which presents would-be sponsors with the opportunity to acquire both the naming rights and shirt sponsorship deals.”

The new show launched in the US in May and it is the first cartoon show produced by Cartoon Network in the UK. For the partnership it will be the first time bespoke animation has been created for the Xbox, The Amazing World of Gumball will be found in Xbox Live homepage called Spotlight and will be accessible on Kinect, to create a branded environment.

The animated environment within the Xbox for The Amazing World of Gumball which is aimed at children aged 4 to 11 has been created by Turner Broadcasting’s UK marketing team, The Amazing World of Gumball production team and the Xbox senior design team in the UK and the US. Players will find themed player avatars and wallpapers that they can download as well as millions of Xbox credits to give away.

The partnership between both parties also includes cinema, TV and online activity. Director of consumer marketing at Turner Broadcasting Sally Bezant says: “This is a truly engaging partnership which takes our content out to where kids are, and allows them to experience and interact with it in a totally new way.”

Chris Breeze, solution sales executive for Xbox adds: “Xbox will help Cartoon Network reach the core audience of 4-11 year old kids, as well as the parents who are the ultimate decision makers. The experience for the users will be highly interactive and engaging encouraging dwell time and repeat visits.”

After research by Mediacom London found that that games consoles and in particular Xbox, are becoming a core media platform for younger kids in the UK, the Xbox partnership was then brokered by Mediacom because 4.1M of the 6.7M Xbox’s sold within UK in the last 12 months to households with children 3-15yrs.

The new campaign will be launched on October 1st and will feature a TV ad supported by print and digital activity. The campaign has been created by VCCP and uses the strapline “Where are you going?” It will run over Key European markets for EasyJet such as the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and Germany.

The new TV ads will use images showing special moments of holidays that have been uploaded by EasyJet staff to easyjet.com plus consumers will also be encouraged to upload their own pictures of their travels after the TV ad has been launched.

In the past EasyJet have competed with their rivals Ryanair, offering low cost no frill holidays and their previous marketing campaigns have reflected this, so they have been tactical and price-driven, created in-house.

EasyJet reported a 94% rise in pre-tax losses to £153m in May for the first six months which they blamed higher passenger taxes as well as oil prices.

EasyJet and its founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, finally came to an agreement in October 2010 over the long-running “easy” brand name dispute, in the end EasyJet agreed to pay an annual royalty of 0.25% of its total revenue.

New guidelines have also been issued by the British Retail Consortium on age-appropriate clothing for children, which have seen nine highstreet brands sign up to already, including Asda, Marks & Spencer and Debenhams.  It is worth pointing out however that there won’t be a blanket ban, it will all depend on context of the advert and where it is placed and who it is aimed at.

Some of the key proposals include:

-Providing parents with a single complaints website
-Covering up sexualised images on front pages of magazines and news papers
-Banning the employment of children under 16 as brand ambassadors and in peer-to-peer marketing
-Restricting outdoor ads containing sexualised imagery near schools

Zoe Howorth, market activation director for Coca-Cola GB, says she has been encouraged by the response to recent fashion tie-ups such as Diet Coke’s sponsorship of London Fashion Week and a promo deal with Asos.com. She now wants Diet Coke to be seen as a fashion brand for “demanding fashionista’s”.

Designer Diet Coke fan Karl Lagerfeld who infamously attributed Diet Coke to his weight loss has produced three limited edition Diet Coke bottles and brand-inspired high-end merchandise including a clutch bag, scarf and top. These accessories will be available to win in a dedicated fashion-led digital game that launches in June. Also Karl Lagerfeld shot the Diet Coke outdoor poster fashion campaign, featuring supermodels Coco Rocha, Heidi Mount and Jeneil Williams, which also rolls out in June. Finally on April 11th a new Diet Coke TV ad, set in a fashion office and starring the puppets that featured in its last campaign, will launch and run for the entire year to summarize the different strands of the fashion strategy.

Although Diet Coke grew 8% in value with sales of £450.5m in 2010, , male-focused Pepsi Max was the best performer in the take-home cola category last year, growing 19% in value according to Nielsen.

Diet Coke bottles designed by Karl Lagerfeld

Old Eurostar logo and new logo

According to the travel operator the change is designed to represent the new commercial freedom provided by a change to European law last year that allowed train operators to run services anywhere in the European Union. They also plan to partner with other operators to offer products and propositions in countries such as Germany and Holland increasing their service range. They are also investing £700m in its fleet, including the purchase of 10 new trains. It has also taken steps to improve service by introducing the Avantage customer service training programme.

Eurostar also plan to add flexible ticketing which will allow business travellers to travel anytime on the day the ticket is bought to its Business Premier Service and making the most of the mobile market they will also be offering a mobile product that allows business customers to buy and enter a platform without a ticket. They will also be looking to expand the brands identity with aims to sign more celebrity advisers with a soon to be announced celebrity chef to advise travellers on dining out, currently Eurostar has musician Jarvis Cocker offering advice on culture.

Nick Mercer, commercial director at Eurostar, says that he wants to compete with train operators and short-haul airlines. “We want to make Europe’s most loved travel experience. Why can’t you make travel and the experience of travelling in Europe and enjoyable thing and differentiate it from airlines and train operators.”

Emma Harris, sales and marketing director adds the new logo also provides the Eurostar brand consistency across all markets. “From a brand perspective, we have previously developed very different identities in each of our core markets, however, as we compete in a deregulated market and expand our reach across Europe, it’s vital that we have a consistent brand in all markets.”

T shirt printing methods have change quite a lot and many improvements have been made to the quality and longevity of work, so it’s worth while taking this into consideration when looking at new uniforms. Also another thing to consider is the opinion of your staff; after all they are the ones who will be wearing the uniform. Find out what they do and don’t like about their work wear and try and make amendments, many online retailers such as Adlogo offer a huge selection of work wear so you do have the scope to cater to all your employees needs.

Finally it also could be a good time to give your company logo/ branding a changeup, if you think you need a bit of a refresh make sure you order uniforms after this has taken place otherwise you will have a lot of wasted out of date clothing!

The first case in point is NBC Universal, when NBC and Universal joined forces they had a soft harmonised logo that still feature NBC’s rainbow peacock that many people have known to love, however in January they decided to opt for the stark purple and white plain font logo. This is a major contrast to the previous logo and the noticeable absence of the peacock, although it’s been said that, the peacock will remain on the NBC Network logo. Only time will tell if this corporate looking logo will be a success.

New NBC Universal Logo

Another brand given a logo update this year is the ever popular Starbucks who have somewhat streamlined their logo, with the hope that everyone will recognise them without Starbucks coffee featuring on the Logo. Now the famous siren is just their logo, so only time will tell if people still need telling what they sell. Although the main reasoning behind it is because Starbuck don’t just sell coffee, they sell tea, water iced drinks, food and soon ice cream so this might explain the change.

New Starbucks logo

Quite a lot of companies have recently opted for new logo’s which are non-threatening, reassuring, playful, and even child-like in the hope of attracting new customers by making them look welcoming. They are using more lowercase lettering, to seem more welcoming, softer curvier fonts to seem less formal and lighter colours to seem less aggressive to the customer, such as canary yellow, electric blue, red, purple, orange and green which are colours which also tend to make people happier and lighten the mood.

Motifs which accompany the logo’s have also been altered to look visually happier, with gentle swoosh’s and leaf emblems from many top retailers been added to their new logo’s. The leaf emblem has been taken by many companies looking to make themselves look environmentally greener.