In a day filled with talk about the budget, you may be forgiven for forgetting that there was actually other news. Here it is, Emergency Budget-free...
Good PR
Leisure group Whitbread has hailed the success of its marketing strategy after a surge in demand for weekend breaks boosted its Premier Inn hotels chain.
Whitbread, which also owns Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants, coffee chain Costa and more claimed a significant increase in Premier Inn's market share. It said the chain's growth and performance was predominantly driven by increased marketing, including an advertising campaign fronted by Lenny Henry.
According to the Guardian, for the 13 weeks to 3 June, comparable sales at Premier Inn increased by 10.5% while at 1,100 UK Costa Coffee stores like-for-like sales growth was ahead by 8.5% - definitely reason to cheer as a marketer on this day of deficit!
Bad PR
Google has been issued with a 'cease and decist' order by The British Recorded Music Institute (BPI), demanding that links to sites that allow surfers to download music illegally be removed as soon a possible, as they "directly link to sound recordings owned by BPI members".
What a load of balls.
It's unfortunately got coverage, but the fact remains, this is a spit in the ocean. A mere sweep of the proverbial dustpan and brush at the site of a volvano eruption.
Blaming a search engine for the sites it automatically indexes is like blaming somebody for contracting an airborne disease - it serves a function as an aggregator primarily - no more, no less, and getting heavy handed smacks of arrogance and lack of diplomacy. This news could very easily read 'BPI working with Google against internet piracy', but it doesn't. No wonder nobody wants to stop illegal piracy, the people working against it are so quick to get Nazi on companies' asses.
