Vodafone agrees new Carphone deal

BBC News reports on Vodafone allowing Carphone Warehouse to start selling Vodafone Pay Monthly contracts again.

Carphone Warehouse is to restart selling Vodafone mobile phone contracts, three years after Vodafone pulled the products from the retailer.

Vodafone stopped allowing Carphone Warehouse to sell its range of pay monthly deals in 2006 after a dispute over how much commission it had to pay.

Woolworths returns online

BBC reports on the return of the Woolworths brand, this time though not as a high street retailer, but as an online shop.

The Woolworths brand has begun trading as an online business, more than six months after the ex-High Street giant went into administration.

And despite my earlier comments, there will be pick and mix available online!

Read more.

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Europe bank chief warns on debt

BBC News reports:

Governments that have borrowed heavily to fight the economic crisis should not accumulate any more debt, the president of the European Central Bank has said.

So why has he said this?

“There is a moment where you cannot spend more and accumulate more debts. We are at that moment,” he said.

The problem will be that interest payments on the debt will make it impossible to maintain government spending and cause further economic decline as well as having implications for future generations.

Credit Crunch Literally…

Britain eats its way through recessions. When the going gets tough, the tough, it seems, tuck into pudding, says Michael Blastland in his regular BBC column.

Read more via Timetoeat.

Why don’t surveys tell the truth? Because you don’t!

From BBC Magazine, a really interesting article about how rubbish statistics and surveys are.

The old complaint that there are lies, damned lies and statistics blames the bean counter, the supposed stubby-pencilled bureaucrat who gathers the data, or the slick vote-grabber who mangles the results for a shifty cause.

But who started it? The answer – sorry folks – is you. Want to know who introduces half the junk into junk stats? Look in the mirror.

So any business who just relies on survey data, shouldn’t be surprised if sometimes the survey is rubbish because the respondents lie.

United looking for plane bargain

The US’s third largest airline, United, is asking rival plane makers Boeing and Airbus to prepare bids for an order that could total 150 jets.The carrier is hoping to take advantage of the recession to get a better price for the deal that could be worth $10bn dollars.

Sharp fall in eurozone economy

BBC reports on fall in the eurozone economy.

The economies of the 16 countries that make up the eurozone declined by 2.5% in the first three months of 2009, the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat said.

This 2.5% decline will impact on consumer spending as people perceive that their jobs may be at risk. This could cause further falls in the economy over the next year.

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Fred-sizing the economy

Nice item from the BBC on explaining the economy by making it “fred-size”.

The size of Britain’s economy can be hard to get your head around – but what if you were to shrink it to human scale? Michael Blastland introduces Fred – a one man British economy.

More on the business environment and the economy.

Let is shine

Honda have a very clever advert to market their new hybrid car, the Honda Insight.

Wieden + Kennedy’s Amsterdam office created Let It Shine – a Honda commercial in which a bank of cars (Honda’s, naturally) arranged in a grid, use their headlights as pixels to create an animated sequence…

You can see how the advert was made.

Honda have made quite a few clever adverts which reminds me of the Sony adverts in many ways.

Good marketing means getting people to know (and importantly) buy your products. Adverts like these can be the answer, but they don’t work for everyone.

Surveyors report market momentum

BBC reports on improvements in interest in the UK housing market.

Interest from home-buyers is starting to gain “real momentum”, although sales remain low, UK surveyors say.

The housing market is a traditional indicator of the strength of the UK economy. Once people start buying houses, this can kick start the economy, as people start to buy new things for their new homes.

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