COVER STORY : Marketing Trends : London Eye; New Zealand marketers often have a parochial view of change. To kick off 2008 NZ Marketing Magazine went to London correspondent Rachel Helyer Donaldson to gain a perspective of some of the emerging marketing trends that may hit our shores in the not-too-distant future.

As 2007 signed off, all eyes were on the global economy as it teetered towards a possible downturn, triggered by fears over the crisis-ridden US mortgage market and rising oil prices. In Britain, marketers watched anxiously as high-street retailers desperately tried to impress cautious consumers -

Coming on top of a dismal summer that meant rain kept pavements empty, things looked dire for retailers; the last six weeks of the year is usually last chance saloon - the period when they usually make up to 20 percent of their annual profit. But desperation pervaded the over-the-top Christmas campaigns - worth around half a billion pounds, according to UK Marketing.

December's ad breaks were brimming with high-end productions, packed with all-singing-and-dancing celebrities. Antonio Banderas smouldered, Bogart-style, for Marks & Spencer's Christmas campaign along with regulars Twiggy and Lizzie Jagger. The reunited Spice Girls gave Tesco a helping hand, while celebrity chef Jamie Oliver once again fronted Sainsbury's Christmas campaign, this time assisted by dozens of little elves in a fantasy food workshop. Boots the Chemist opted for unknowns but recruited thousands of them in a 'golden age of Hollywood' version of the office party.