One year you have the nation's most successful product launch in a decade, then a couple of stories in the press about children turning orange and you're planning a relaunch.
That's the story with Procter & Gamble's Sunny Delight, which has lost 35% of its sales, after its hugely successful launch in 1998. Marketing magazine reported that the brand will be repositioned later this year, after criticism over its high-sugar content -- not to mention those orange children stories that have done the rounds. Saatchi & Saatchi has been briefed with the task.
From kids' treats to adults' -- pills'n'booze.
One of Russia's most famous brands has gone back to being controlled by the state after a flirtation with capitalist ways. Stolichnaya, the 70s' favourite vodka brand, has been renationalised, along with 42 other vodka brands. The brand was sold for a mere £200,000 in 1997, but the government has now reassessed its value to be at least £150m. It will now fall under the auspices of the country's agricultural ministry.
This week saw the mighty Valium brand take its final bow as Roche announced it would stop producing the branded version of diazepam as it is no longer protected by patent.
Valium has a chequered history, part rock'n'roll, part tragedy, with its associations with the Rolling Stones' hit Mother's Little Helper and Valium addict John Hinckley, who attempted to assassinate Ronald Reagan.
No such demise for Viagra, the maker of which, Pfizer, has drafted in footballing hero Pele as a spokesman. Sadly, however, we won't be hearing Pele rhapsodise over the "beautiful drug", as he will be involved in a "general health awareness campaign" for Pfizer, which reportedly will not be drug specific.
From drugs to pharmacies -- Boots' international expansion plans were put on hold, as it announced it was to cease opening new stores and was instead switching to operating concessions within other retailers. It will also close stores in Taiwan and Thailand, at a cost of about £3m.
Another top British brand had international expansion in its sights this week. Dyson is set to launch its famous bagless vacuum cleaner to that hygiene-obsessed nation, the US.
With a launch scheduled for the second half of the year, Dyson inventor James Dyson is counting on his machines' cyclonic feature to capture market share from Hoover and Maytag. A big task, but the colourful cleaners have managed to capture 50% of the UK market.
Market share was a sticking point between Orange and Vodafone this week, as the two largest mobile phone operators in the UK haggled over the definition of "active" users. Why? Because Vodafone includes 2.1m "inactive users", which when taken away would give it a smaller customer base than Orange, which does not count them.
And finally, a bear of little brain was causing headaches for some leading legal minds in the US. Winnie the Pooh's owner, the Walt Disney Company, is in court over royalties generated by AA Milne's popular children's character. In a dispute that has been rumbling on for 10 years, literary rights company the Stephen Slesinger Company claims Disney owes it £140m in earnings.
Slesinger says it is owned royalties from video, DVD and computer games sales, products that were not mentioned in the innocent times when the companies signed a licensing agreement for Winnie the Pooh.
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