Category News

June 5, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, News, Public Relations practice  One comment

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Luxembourg has affirmed the legal position that internet users have the right to browse news sites without the threat of infringing copyright law.

The argument, put forward by the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) that represents the interests of media owners, was that even temporary electronic copies made on an individual’s computer required a licence and a licence fee to be paid and this could have cost the PR industry many millions in licensing fees had the ruling of CJEU clarified the legal position today.

The CJEU accepted all of the legal arguments of the PRCA, the largest professional body representing the interests...

May 23, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, News, Public Relations practice  No comments

Members of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) have watched in horror as high profile showbiz publicist Max Clifford was charged and is now serving a lengthy custodial sentence for a string of highly serious sexual offences against vulnerable young people.

Clifford never applied for membership of the CIPR in his entire career and if he had when I was the CIPR Chairman of Membership, I would’ve rejected his application.

The full extent of Clifford’s deception wasn’t known to many of us who in fact had previous dealings with him but I was aware of how he conducted his business and the way he manipulated clients and the media in order to make himself extraordina...

May 22, 2014,  Events, Guru in a Bottle, News, Thought Leadership  3 comments

Indian voters are pinning their hopes on their new Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Hindu nationalist BJP, to make good on his promises – a factor that eventually forced the Congress Party to lose its grip on power and suffer crushing defeat at the hands of its rival.

Former India PM Manmohan Singh claims that the legacy of his presidency is a far stronger Indian economy compared to that when he took office a decade earlier.

But the octogenarian became susceptible to a string of corruption scandals within his own party as well as political paralysis where he was seen as being too aloof to stop.

Modi will be sensitive and mindful of the short-comings of his predec...

May 21, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

In a landmark ruling, a German court has ruled Jesus Christ doesn’t hold copyright for works published in his name.

Frankfurt’s higher regional court held that the late American psychologist Helen Schucman, and not Jesus Christ, should be regarded the legal author of a book that Schucman claimed had been dictated to her by Jesus in a series of “waking dreams”.

Germany’s New Christian Endeavour Academy, a registered association, last year published extracts from A Course in Miracles, originally published in 1975, on its website...

May 21, 2014,  News  No comments

Apple and Google have just announced they are calling a cease fire on all patent litigation. According to Bloomberg, the two companies have filed an incredible 20 lawsuits against each other in the US and Europe.

In a joint statement, Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies and “…have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform. The agreement does not include a cross licence.”

The latter part of the statement means that both sides are holding onto their intellectual property (IP) rights and not cross-licensing these to the other side...

May 20, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update, News, Sponsorship News  No comments

May 13, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, News  No comments

Google and other search engine providers like AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft Internet Explorer have been dealt a major blow after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that Google must delete links to personal information about individuals from search results on request.

The ECJ ruling is likely to open the floodgates to a wave of similar requests from users wanting to remove potentially embarrassing or harmful information about them from Google search results after it enshrined the “right of erasure” (previously known as the ‘right to be forgotten’) in European law.

The ruling doesn’t mean that information will be removed from the internet but removing it from search result...

April 24, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, Innovation, Marketing practice, News  No comments

Over the last decade, marketers of branded fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) on both sides of the Atlantic have struggled to withstand the onslaught on their market share from challenger and own-label brands.

The result of increased competition – largely fuelled by globalisation – is that some marketers have been forced to radically re-think their retail and marketing strategies in order to stay ahead of the game. So it may surprise you to learn that packaging innovation has become the ‘go-to’ marketing strategy for these FMCG marketers in order to preserve and boost profitability.

US-based MeadWestvaco Corporation (MWV), a global leader in packaging and packaging solut...

April 16, 2014,  News  One comment

It is with great sadness and sorrow in my heart that I have to announce to the Guru in a Bottle community that my friend and mentor Wally Olins CBE has died after a short illness at the age of 83. 

He was an inspiration to me in my career and mentored me when I was tasked with re-branding the Royal Military College of Science.

I will always remember Wally as being incredibly charismatic, a brilliantly creative thinker and he had a rare and special gift – the capacity to take a keen interest in others around him in a very generous and warm-hearted way.

I had the pleasure of having lunch with Wally several times (he always insisted on paying!) and I always left cherishing th...

March 28, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, News, Public Relations practice  No comments

The war of words continues as Russia is finding itself increasingly isolated by the NATO Alliance and is already seeking stronger ties with leaders of the BRIC nations where it may feel it gets fairer hearing over its annexation of Crimea.

Certainly monitoring the news reports here in the UK you’re left with a distinct impression that the Cold War and the imminent isolation of Russia is just around the corner. Russia may have got what it wanted but it’s losing the PR war.

A good example of what I mean is illustrated by the attack Russia faced at the UN Security Council on Wednesday 19 March when US Ambassador Samantha Powers called the Great Bear a “thief”...