The grape escape for Oxford Circus: Tube station nearly renamed in winemaker's sponsor deal

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12 April 2012

The battle by winemaker Oxford Landing to have Oxford Circus Tube station renamed in an eight-figure sponsorship deal can be revealed today.

The Australian firm who own Oxford Landing Estates spent months negotiating with London Underground about a radical commercial re-branding in the West End.

But the talks broke down over intellectual property law governing ownership of the LU logo.

The plan was to change all Oxford Circus signs to read Oxford Landing, fit floor and wall posters depicting soil and vineyards, and play adverts on animated screens alongside the station's escalators for a minimum of three months.

Oxford Landing's general manager Brenton Fry said the brand believed Transport for London would agree to the plans after learning about the Government's assets sales to reduce its deficit.

He said: "It's a fun play on words, the footfall in the area is staggering and it just seemed crazy not to try to grab the opportunity."

Another spokesman for the brand added: "We first began talking to TfL's agent in April. They were very interested, referred back to Tfl and suggested a figure to us.

"We agreed and began to talk about time scale. Then three weeks later, TfL came back with a new offer, claiming that due to intellectual property law the roundels [the Tube logo of a red circle and horizontal blue bar] could only be changed for a minimum of 10 years.

"Their final offer was eight figures and negotiations ended." TfL said informal talks took place, but denied it would have allowed the wine maker to re-brand the station.

"We regularly enter into promotional and advertising arrangements at stations via our contractor, CBS Outdoor, and will continue to do so.

"This brings in valuable revenue which is used to deliver transport services for London. However, this does not extend to selling the names of our stations."

Mr Fry said Oxford Landing will now contact Oxford City Council about a sponsorship deal there. The firm was said to be "keen on working on something in London for the Olympics", said the brand spokesman, who added: "They're not going to give up."

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