Brewer Scottish & Newcastle is to hike its UK adspend after admitting it has traditionally underinvested in marketing.
The beer giant -- which brews Foster's, Kronenbourg and John Smith's in Britain -- will raise its advertising and promotional budget by around 15% in 2004 as it battles to keep up with Coors, owner of Carling lager.
And there may be further increases to come. Chief executive Tony Froggatt, who joined the company this year, believes S&N's UK business "is probably spending about half of what it should be spending" on marketing. However, he added: "We can't change it overnight."
The vow to raise adspend came as S&N posted a 14% fall in pre-tax profits to £187.2 million ($323.6m; €267.4m) for the six months to October 26. Turnover jumped 17% to £3.03 billion.
Data sourced from: Financial Times; additional content by WARC staff
