LAURA SLATTERYrounds up the week in business
$10 billion
– the movie industry now expects that 2009 will be Hollywood’s first $10 billion year for the box office.
1.3 billion
– the number of cinema tickets sold in the US this year, with hits such as New Moon and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, meaning attendance in 2009 has well outstripped 2008.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
"It is very sad that they are seeking to use the Christmas holiday plans and family reunions of hundreds of thousands of people to try to pursue their case."
– British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh goes for the emotional jugular in his PR war against cabin crew union Unite.
"Let's have a pause for peace and we will call the strike off."
– Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, plays the reasonable card, asking Walsh to suspend changes to cabin crew’s terms and conditions.
GOOD WEEK:
English Steve
And the winner is . . . Steve Raynor, aka English Steve, who has been hired as Bill Cullen’s apprentice after 13 weeks of watching rival contenders for the €100,000 salary flail about in the boardroom. And if that wasn’t harrowing enough by itself, he was grilled about past alcohol and gambling addictions by entrepreneur Gavin Duffy in the penultimate round. Raynor made his name on the show as the consummate salesman – if anyone can turn around the car industry, it’s him.
Ben Bernanke
Having safely sheltered himself from the retrospective ire hurled at predecessor Alan Greenspan, the current chairman of the US Federal Reserve has managed to end one of the worst years for the US economy with the title Time Magazine Person of the Year. Without Mr Bernanke, who is an academic expert on the Great Depression (the first one), this year’s recession would have been a lot worse, according to Time: “Bernanke didn’t just learn from history; he wrote it himself and was damned if he was going to repeat it.”
BAD WEEK:
Tiger Woods
Accenture has become the latest brand to claim Woods is “no longer the right representative for its advertising” – who knew he ever was? – after Gillette and ATT also distanced themselves from the golfing star. Meanwhile, PepsiCo-owned soft drink brand Gatorade said it was discontinuing Gatorade Tiger Focus, “to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010”. This leaves Nike still nominally offering “full support” for Woods.
Olay
L’oréal seems to be getting away with using Cheryl “hair extensions” Cole to advertise its Elvive shampoo, but the UK Advertising Standards Authority has stepped up to the plate to tell Olay to get real after it airbrushed Twiggy for a beauty product. The ad for Olay’s eye illuminator claimed it “reduces the look of wrinkles and dark circles for brighter, younger-looking eyes”, although of course even on a former model, there’s nothing as reliable as a spot of digital retouching to make you look like you did back in the days when Olay was plain old Oil of Ulay.
