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,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update  No comments

In 2006, Colette Pelissier was selling houses in Southern California, and her boyfriend, Brigham Field, was working as a photographer of nude models.

Colette Pelissier wanted to leave the real-estate business, so she convinced her boyfriend to start making adult films. “I had this idea, when the real-estate market was cooling—you know, maybe we could make beautiful erotic movies,” she said.

By 2009 they had launched X-art.com and had started shooting adult films in places like Madrid and Prague as Malibu Media. The website promised its customers erotica featuring “gorgeous fashion models from the USA, Europe, South America and Beyond...

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 17, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle, Public Relations practice  No comments

This may appear to be an obvious, even a trite question. But in fact it turns out to be incredibly important for all of us that claim to work in the business of public relations today.

When I was speaking at the World Communication Forum in Davos earlier this year, I got to know Paul Holmes and I felt that he was one person in our industry that wasn’t afraid to express his opinion or even ask difficult questions of agency heads that appear to have answers to any question about the industry at their fingertips.

My view, for what it’s worth, is that we are in the reputation business...

May 15, 2014,  Consumer behaviour, Guru in a Bottle, Sales practice, The Art of Influencing and Selling  No comments

Yesterday I had a wonderful lunch at my club Bafta in Piccadilly with a great friend of mine, Lena Robinson.

Lena is one of the most gifted business development professionals I’ve ever worked with when we were together at WPP and she now runs an incredible business development powerhouse for agency entrepreneurs called KiwiGirl.

Check it out!  Lena is an inspiration of ideas and new ways of thinking. And yesterday she shared something very special that I wanted to share with you too.

But before I share this with you, let me take you briefly into the conversation we started with over sausages, crab bites, burger and chips and a very nice bottle of wine!

We talked about Guru...

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...

May 13, 2014,  Brand marketing, Thought Leadership  No comments

Strange, but true…

Unilever will continue to use the peace logo in promotions for its new Lynx fragrance but is making an undisclosed donation to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) after the protest group slammed its “callous” use of the iconic symbol.

The FMCG company said the “universally recognised symbol of peace” is a key part of its bid to raise awareness of peace globally, which forms part of the marketing campaign for its new “Peace” sub brand.

The campaign, which has seen 70ft peace signs tagged on various landmarks across the capital, was slammed by CND as being a “disingenuous”...

May 12, 2014,  Guru in a Bottle  One comment

England fans won’t be disappointed after pubs have been granted extended licensing to stay open when England is playing in the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 tournament that kicks off on 12 June.

Earlier this year, the British Beer and Pub Association that represents pub landlords in England had unsuccessfully tried to get the Home Office to extend licensing hours on a national basis in the same way pubs stayed open later for the Royal Wedding and Diamond Jubilee. The Government have the power to relax licensing hours for occasions of “exceptional international, national or local significance.”

But Home Office minister Norman Baker was unmoved as he didn’t consider the...

May 3, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update  One comment

Every organisation needs to address data protection, confidentiality, data security, data breaches and freedom of information as part of their compliance and risk management policies and procedures. UK-based companies face a major shake-up in how they conduct consumer sales and marketing activities over the next 12-months in the wake of a raft of new laws and regulations emanating from the UK and the European Union (EU).

With a close focus being taken by UK and European legislators on the individual’s right to privacy, marketers face one of the toughest marketing regulatory regimes in the world.

Keeping up-to-date with a torrent of guidance from the Information Commissione...