Barter economy on rise - Jaguar; CREDIT CRUNCH: Firms looking for value-added relationships, says MD.

Byline: Jenny Waddington

THE credit crunch has forced a barter economy between major companies, the UK managing director of Jaguar Cars has revealed.

Geoff Cousins told 20 leading figures from music, sport and exhibition industries at the Ricoh Arena's private dinner at the House of Commons that multinational companies were looking to gain as much added value for their budgets as possible.

Jaguar Cars were among the companies invited to attend the dinner due to its sponsorship of the Jaguar Exhibition Hall and the Jaguar Lounge and Bar at the multi-use Ricoh Arena.

"One of the big differences I think within the difficult times in the last 18 months is that it has changed people's mind-set in what they can get," Geoff said.

"We are doing a lot of work with other brands such as Barclays Wealth, Harvey Nichols and British Airways etc. For instance, Barclays Wealth will bring their clients to a Jaguar track day, it's cost effective corporate hospitality for Barclays, new potential customers for Jaguar.

"This type of relationship extends to product placement as well. The Berkeley Hotel has created a Jaguar Brand boutique, Jaguar in return are supplying chauffeur cars for the hotel and introducing people to the Berkeley through events and Jaguar room rates - value added for both companies.

"Overall we are changing the emphasis of our marketing spend at Jaguar, less emphasis on traditional media with more money going into online campaigns and brand partnerships."

Phil Riley, new chief executive of Orion Media, said the first question he was asked was how much money he had to spend on marketing.

"We're not going to spend any money on above line marketing because for us it is about building relationships with brands and finding partners to work with," he said. "That is what we have to do."