DIARY OF MARKETING EVENTS: February 1 to May 31, 1967

It has been difficult to find actual events for this diary. In the period under review there has been controversy in good measure—over the future of the prices and incomes policy, over advertising, over resale price maintenance in the confectionery industry, over decimal currency—but while marketers have debated, marketing itself has tended to be over‐shadowed by major events elsewhere. The dominant outside influences were the continuation of the ‘freeze’ in prices and incomes and the Government's decision to apply for full membership of the European Economic Community. Interest was, however, provided by the outbreak of a price war in petrol associated with the introduction of a new system of ‘star’ grading, by the Co‐ops embarking upon a period of what promises to be painful re‐organisation, by the follow‐through from the R.T.P. Court's detergent prices decision, and the continuation of the tobacco marketing war. The car industry began to attract attention following the Leyland‐Rover and Rootes‐Chrysler mergers in terms which suggest that major distribution changes are to be expected.