Image of the week: Dot London
Entrepreneur, Dragon s' Den investor and Strictly Come Dancing contestant Deborah Meaden is seen here posing against "an arrangement of flowers" – essentially, a hedge with a logo – during a visit to New Covent Garden Market in south west London.
She was there to “champion” the new Dot London internet domain, which businesses in the UK can apply for from April 29th as part of the impending proliferation of domain names.
“The new domain will enable you to demonstrate to your customers and visitors where you are based,” say the official promoters. They continue modestly: “With a Dot London domain name, you can directly associate yourself with the greatest city on earth.”
Your business doesn’t actually have to be located there – an “affiliation to or an interest in the city” will suffice. Photograph: Geoff Caddick/PA Wire
In numbers: Advertising gripes
1,302
Number of formal complaints about advertisements received by the self-regulatory body the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) in 2013.
65
Number of advertisements that were found to be in breach of the ASAI code, most often because they were considered to be misleading or offensive.
22%
Percentage rise in complaints about health and beauty products and services last year. The sector attracted 127 complaints, making it second to only the telecommunications for yielding the ire of consumers or industry rivals.
The lexicon: Sneakerheads
The New York Times has been our guide this week to the urban US subculture that is "sneakerheads", or teenage boys who buy, sell and exchange high volumes of limited edition designer basketball sneakers, "shouting and bartering" in hotel ballrooms and high school gyms "as though they belong on a trading room floor".
According to the newspaper, the adolescent traders know their market, “reciting resale values, the buzz of a hot trade and the debut dates for new pairs as easily as others can spit out baseball stats”.
And we're not talking pocket money – one young seller reportedly "turned away $98,000" for a pair of Nike Air shoes designed and signed by Kanye West because he was holding out for a "life-changing" sum. In the comments section, the words "market bubble" came up more than once.
Getting to know: Carlos Tavares
Carlos Tavares (55) is a race-car driver, but that's just his hobby. For his day job, he is now the chief executive of Europe's second largest carmaker Peugeot Citroën, which he joined from rival Renault, and this week the Portguese executive was declaring that his new company was "back in the race". He is going to put one thing before everything else. Safety? The environment? Leg-room? Er, no, "the profit culture".
But this isn’t going to be “a big bang story”, or even a what-is-that-chugging-noise story. “It’s going to be: do the right cars,” says Tavares.
After studying engineering in Paris, Tavares began racing cars at the age of 22 before joining Renault as a test-track driver. So he should know a good car when he drives one.
The list: Easter annoyance
When the moveable feast shifts from the first quarter to the second or vice-versa, it causes havoc for those year-on-year comparisons. This year, the phrase "timing of Easter" is almost as commonplace in trading statements as Holy Week press releases complaining about Good Friday sobriety. So which companies are affected?
1 Marks & Spencer: Jesus can't rise quickly enough for the bellwether British retailer, though it contends it is "well set up" for when he does.
2 Ryanair: The later timing of Easter contributed to a 4 per cent decline in the airline's passenger numbers in this year's Easter-free March compared to last year's egg-tastic March.
3 Aer Lingus: Its March passenger numbers fell 7 per cent, as Lent hit hard.
4 Tesco: All supermarkets have had what are known as "tough comparables" in the first quarter of 2014 due to the Easter distortion effect.
5 TUI Travel: Europe's largest tour operator expects to suffer before it eventually ascends into the heaven of a holiday-filled second calendar quarter.
