Politicians are lining up to crow that Rupert Murdoch and his poodles are bending to the will of Parliament, when in fact it was public disgust and revulsion at the targets for phone hacking that sent a very clear message to MPs, and Murdoch’s advertisers, that any support would be a Very Bad Career Move.

As our press, politicians and police get a long-overdue ethical check and clean-up it is reassuring to note that people-power can still be an agent for much-needed change.

Keep up the good work, everyone.

The disposable income of families continues to fall as costs of energy and fuel continue to rise, something that consumers are powerless to stop.

According to finance officers at Asda and Sainsburys consumer confidence is at a low ebb and not expected to recover in the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile the Spanish chairman of Scottish Power, Ignacio Galan, had his pay package doubled to £10.5 million just before his company raised gas bills for 2.4 million British households by £175 a year.

Marketeers using celebrities such as Esther Rantzen, June Whitfield, Cilla Black and Gloria Hunniford have come under fire recently.

Rantzen fronts ads for the Accident Advice Helpline, which benefits from unsolicited and illegal spam texts to mobile phones, according to an investigation of ambulance chasing by the Sunday Telegraph.

And Whitfield, Black and Hunniford have backed insurance policies that have turned out to be very bad buys for some.

Consumers need to ask themselves whether the use of a trusted name is to hide an untrustworthy company, or bad product.

More than one third of Britons will be shunning overseas travel and will holiday in the UK this year, a figure up by 10% on 2010.

This is one of the findings of a survey of 5,000 adults by hotel operator Travelodge, which also found that while expenditure on holidays, and travel and accommodation, would be down, expenditure on visiting attractions would be up.

Financial difficulties are thought to be the main reason for the growth of the “staycation”, and for the very late bookings of it.

Meanwhile research by ING Direct indicates that 17 million people in the UK are opting for a “nocation” and not taking a summer holiday at all.

Marketeers at Japanese confectionery firm Ezaki Glico have been forced to admit that the new 16-year-old member of very young girl band AKB 48 they depicted to sell their chocolate was a computer-generated fake, with features and singing voice cobbled together from six live band members.

Teenaged girl fans of the band became suspicious of the fake female, named Aimi Eguchi, when they noticed her striking similarity to other band members.

A campaign to name British dry sparkling wines “Merret” has launched to recognise the claim that what drinkers of champagne (French), Cava (Spanish) and Prosecco (Italian) enjoy was first brought to the world by an English doctor, Christopher Merret.

Reportedly Merret gave details of a “second fermentation process” – very similar to the “methode champenoise” – in 1662, 22 years before a French monk, Dom Pierre Perignon claimed to have invented what the French call “champagne”. Continue reading →

The eCommerce Expo event takes place on October 11-12 at Olympia, London.

www.ecommerceexpo.co.uk/