By Henrik Bernitz, MSL Brussels

A competitive internal energy market in the EU is paramount to give European consumers a choice between different gas and electricity suppliers and make the market accessible for all suppliers.

According to the European Commission, a competitive internal energy market in the EU is paramount to give European consumers a choice between different gas and electricity suppliers and make the market accessible for all suppliers, especially the smallest and those investing in renewable forms of energy.

The first liberalisation Directives were adopted in 1996 (electricity) and 1998 (gas), with the objective of opening up the electricity and gas markets by gradually introducing competition.

The second liberalisation Directives were adopted in 2003 and included ‘unbundling’, whereby energy transmission networks have to be run independently from the production and supply side. These directives have allowed businesses and private customers to choose their power and gas suppliers freely in a competitive marketplace.

However, a competition enquiry in the electricity sector, published in January 2007, revealed some “serious malfunctions” in the market for industrial consumers. After long negotiations, a new Directive on market liberalisation was adopted in 2009. This was to be transposed in Member States by March 2011, but Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia and Estonia are yet to do so.

Let’s take a look at the key dossiers in the pipeline:

The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED)

In June 2011 the European Commission proposed a new set of measures as a new Directive on increased Energy Efficiency. This brought forward ways of stepping up Member States’ efforts to use energy more efficiently at all stages of the energy chain – from the transformation of energy and its distribution to Read the rest of this entry »

In March 2012, Heineken launched Ideas Brewery , its first open innovation platform. Through it, innovators were invited to share ideas on challenges posed by the beer major. The first was on the future of sustainable beer packaging. Heineken was looking for ideas on sustainable materials, sustainable transportation and recycling.

This challenge runs till Read the rest of this entry »

By Renee Wilson, Chief Client Officer, MSLGROUP

Happy Mother’s Day to our readers and their wonderful mothers. Bringing you a special blog post for the day is our very own Renee Wilson. Renee is a global citizen, proud mother and an inspiration to all her colleagues at MSLGROUP.

It’s been a while since I blogged here as I have been in the process of transitioning into my new role. However, this week, I was inspired to pull the iPad out again and get typing. I had the pleasure of recently attending the Women Corporate Directors’ dinner that honored Maurice Levy, the CEO of Publicis Groupe Holding Company, for his leadership and vision. I always knew that I worked for a top firm, but I was glad to hear more about all that Maurice personally had done for women at our Groupe, and what Publicis Groupe has done to support women overall.

This event was followed by a meeting of the female leaders from numerous Publicis Groupe subsidiaries at a VivaWomen! breakfast gathering in NY, to celebrate the fact that Maurice was in town. As you may or may not know, VivaWomen! is a voluntary interest group that women across the US who work at subsidiaries within the Publicis Holding Company Groupe may choose to belong to.

VivaWomen! looks at ways to support women of all backgrounds and levels in their careers and their career progression. The group is in its infancy, but I’d say we are a feisty bunch with lots of great ideas for the future. In the US, I am joined by another founding member from MSLGROUP Americas - Rita Masini, our Chief Talent Officer. Every individual in this group is a force to be reckoned with in her own right, as she is paving the way for her agency in new areas.

At the WCD dinner held on Tuesday evening, Maurice reminded the pre-dominantly female audience that Publicis Groupe’s most senior role – chairperson of the supervisory board – is held by a woman –  the renowned French philosopher and feminist Elizabeth Badinter, who Read the rest of this entry »

By Kelly Kolhagen, Senior Vice President, MSLGROUP Americas

Eleven years ago, I quit a 21-year career in the newspaper business and joined a former colleague at his upstart PR firm in suburban Detroit. After years of loathing the PR people who called on deadline to pitch ‘Bladder Control Awareness Month’ or ‘Cling Peach Week’, I left journalism because the Internet was about to reinvent how news was gathered and delivered – and financed. None of it was good news for parents like me, looking down the double barrel of orthodontia and college.

PR professionals must be evangelists for crisis preparedness in any organization. Recently, Jack Yeo, senior vice president of crisis and issues management at MSLGROUP in Chicago, spoke at a panel discussion held by PRSA.

Watch the video that captures highlights from his panel discussion:

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Also read his article on Engaging Third Party Influencers in Crisis Planning

Per Ola Bosson

By Per Ola Bosson, JKL Group, MSLGROUP EMEA

The political grip on the energy market is tightening. Following deregulation, you may have expected the involvement of fewer political and democratic decisions in the market. Instead, we now see detailed RES demands from Brussels and a decision to phase out nuclear power in Germany.

The energy market is regulated through a series of EU directives adopted during the past few years. The 2006 Energy Efficiency Directive was followed by the 2009 Eco-Design Directive, the 2010 Energy Efficiency Labelling directive and the 2010 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. A new Energy Efficiency Directive is expected in June. On the national level as well, more political decisions and regulations are affecting the energy markets.

Thresholds for entering the energy market remain high. In many places, it is virtually impossible to obtain a political decision for a new power plant, including wind power, or a permit to extract oil or gas. This is not a coincidence, and may actually look like a pattern when you put them next to each other: a clear and consistent trend towards regulation, subsidies and political deadlock in European and national level energy politics. The desire to regulate, monitor and control the energy market is stronger than ever. It seems that there are no limits to what can be controlled by political decisions.

The political landscape of the 2010s is framed by issues relating to climate change, the financial crisis and the euro crisis. Solutions are sought in politicians’ toolboxes rather than the market. In terms of energy, politicians want to do more than cap emissions with a trading scheme. They want to control all aspects of the transformation of the energy system, including the prohibition of ordinary light bulbs.

The big paradox is that most of Europe is controlled by centre-right governments: Cameron (UK), Rutte (Netherlands), Reinfeldt (Sweden), Coelho (Portugal), Rajoy (Spain) and Tusk (Poland) … and this is only a partial list. The generation of politicians governing Europe today was born in the 1960s or late-50s and brought up in youth organisations where the free market was the watchword, Margaret Thatcher was the icon, and Ayn Rand’s books were elevated nearly to the status of the Bible.

How can this development be taking place in a European Union that many voices on the left are constantly touting as a market-liberal project?

We see four possible explanations behind the actions of Europe’s leaders – and these are Read the rest of this entry »

‘Huffington Post’ alumnus Rob Fishman and Jeff Revesz launched Yoke, a matchmaking app for Facebook, in the last week of March 2012.

An online dating application designed to pull information from user profiles to help them meet their friends’ single friends on the basis of common interests, Yoke managed 7,000 users in its very first week.

The app is already being talked of as a success. Mashable writer Lauren Indvik  said:

The app’s feature set is rather limited, but compared to the other Facebook dating apps I’ve seen, Yoke shows the most promise.

Unlike its counterparts, like Read the rest of this entry »

Update: This video just won a gold in the PR category at the New York Festivals!

Laundry is a low, low engagement category but stains are not! Ariel Fashion Shoot was a live event in Stockholm Central station where an industrial robot controlled by consumers via Facebook stained garments. The rules were simple: Aim, stain and win, and the garments were then washed live and sent to the winners. This campaign was a collaboration between MSLGROUP in Stockholm and Saatchi and Saatchi Stockholm. Watch the video here:

By Stephy Liu, Senior Consultant, MSL China

Is there real value in social media for businesses? Are there hard-and-fast rules brands must follow? And is there only one approach? Over 50% of Internet users in China are registered with a social media website and over 70% of those users follow brands. This rapid increase of social and mobile media growth in the China market has nudged brands into building successful and attractive brand pages for a variety of social media platforms. But, what’s the magic formula?

We explore these questions, and more, in our latest whitepaper Anyone Could Be Your Brand Ambassador, which has been launched in partnership with renren.com, China’s largest ‘real-name’ social networking site (SNS).

With this whitepaper, you’ll be able to take away the findings of a joint research project that looks to understand the most effective practices for operating SNS brand pages. We share effective brand page management models, supported by real life case studies and give concrete advice on how online word-of-mouth can work for companies doing business in China.

If you would like to read the whitepaper, scroll down to view it or download a copy from SlideShare. If you want to learn more or talk to one of our team members, feel free to send me an e-mail stephy.liu@mslgroup.com, and the team will be happy to share more of our insights.

Alessandro Chiarmasso

By Alessandro Chiarmasso, renewable energy expert and corporate practice lead at MSL Italia

The General Assembly of the United Nations has designated 2012 as International Year of sustainable energy. According to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, we need a global clean energy revolution: a revolution to make energy available and accessible to all; to minimize climate risks; to fight poverty and improve the health of the planet, enhancing economic growth, peace and security.

Within this global revolution, there are plenty of spaces for the participation of private investors alongside governments and international institutions. But how are investors being encouraged to support this collective effort to transform the planet? Let’s take a glance at the factors which affect their preference of one country or a geopolitical area over another:

Regulatory Environment  & Geographical Location

Firstly, it is important that there is a credible and stable regulatory and political environment, to give investors comfort that if there is a change in government the rules and regulations will not be rewritten over night. The financial community needs to know that the decision to support alternative energy is robust and is firmly supported by the wider community, and that there is an attractive investment environment.

Secondly, investors will consider Read the rest of this entry »