Essential Law for Marketers tagged posts

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

February 26, 2014,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update, Marketing practice, Public Relations practice, Sales practice  No comments

Sales and marketing practices of online retailers selling similar products and services of well-known brands will need to change after the High Court ruled that online giant Amazon can’t use a Google Ad Word of soap and beauty brand Lush to lure customers to its own retail site for alternative products as this amounts to a breach of the Lush trademark.

Lush has built a brand platform based on its own code of ethics – something which it jealously defends and contends that Amazon doesn’t subscribe to.

As a result, Lush decided it won’t sell its products on the retail giant’s website and probably never will...

December 26, 2013,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Marketing practice, News, Public Relations practice  No comments

Given the tendency for over-indulgence during the Festive Season it’s not surprising that some brand owners of diet plans, slimming and low fat products will think their Christmases have all come at once in the New Year as millions of us try to shake off the excesses of eating and drinking by trying to lose some weight!

Marketers may be tempted to do what Flora pro. activ (owned by Unilever) did a few years’ ago in the UK by inviting a national journalist to ‘fight the flab’ and exercise alongside a calorie controlled diet and keep a daily record of her progress.

This may sound like a great way to connect with consumers who may feel they need some encouragement to do ...

November 7, 2013,  News  No comments

Social media redefined the rules of advertising in a way that many in the industry hadn’t predicted until Facebook came on the scene in 2004.

The old interruption model of brand communication – commonly known as ‘advertising’ – was no longer as effective. We were now in a world where consumers shared opinions on social networks irrespective of what a brand wanted to say about its product or service in a carefully crafted ad placed in a highly controlled media environment.

This article sponsored by Furby appeared on BuzzFeed just before Halloween.

The days of the display ad looked like they were numbered.

Or were they?

In an attempt to appeal to savvier consumers an...

September 26, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  No comments

In the past, marketing managers used social media as just another channel for publishing content and listening to their community. However, to maximize the success of social marketing, you need to become adept at integrating social media into your existing marketing programs and strategies. In fact, you have to do more than social media. You have to do social marketing!

Increasingly, marketing managers are exploring new ways to use a variety of channels in order to reach audiences with compelling content...

September 18, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle, News  One comment

No matter whether you work agency or client-side, each day or week brings new challenges in how you engage with customers, clients, supporters, members and volunteers.

In the past, social media was used as just another channel for publishing content that would engage with each of these audiences. But today, doing that alone just isn’t enough. To maximise the success of social marketing you need to become adept at integrating social media into your existing marketing programmes and strategies. In fact, you have to do more than social media. You have to do social marketing!

This FREE Vocus White Paper explores how to add social to every marketing activity in order to amplify ...

August 31, 2013,  News  No comments

This article by marketing journalist Maeve Hosea first appeared in Marketing Week on 22 August 2013

Fancy a free electric toothbrush? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Colgate’s giveaway promotion at London’s Waterloo station last month, where people could swap their old electric toothbrush for a free ProClinical model worth £169.99, ended in chaos. Hundreds of people swamped the stand, which lead to Network Rail forcing the company to shut down the promotion.

July 7, 2013,  Essential Law for Marketers, Guru in a Bottle, Legal update  No comments

INTRODUCTION

Ever since the furore over the UK phone hacking scandal in 2011 engulfed the owners of News International as well as politicians of all political parties, the Government and law enforcement officers, the issue of privacy and electronic communications has become a national obsession.

The public revulsion that followed the disclosure of the hacking of private phone messages of murder and terrorist victims and war widows didn’t just rip apart the UK’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper the News of the World but also raised serious questions about the legal safeguards in place to protect an individual’s right to privacy whilst at the same time protecting freedom of...

June 30, 2013,  Guru in a Bottle  2 comments

Keir Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions has just published (20 June 2013) the finalised guidelines on circumstances under which prosecutors may pursue a legal action against those who post comments on social media.

What’s clear is that the CPS guidelines don’t create some form of ‘litigants’ charter’ where the police and the CPS are automatically involved in every instance of social media comment considered as rude, distasteful or even painful to those on the receiving end.

The guidelines indicate that there may be mitigating circumstances under which those making unguarded and grossly offensive comments on Twitter or Facebook but repent by taking them ...