Co-op and Virgin pull News of The World advertising

Two more travel brands have announced they are to pull advertising from News of The World in the light of allegations on phone hacking.

Two more travel brands have announced they are to pull advertising from News of The World in the light of allegations on phone hacking.


Despite yesterday saying it had no plans to pull advertising The Co-operative Group today had a change of mind pending an investigation in to the allegations that centred on the hacking of murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s mobile phone.


In a statement it said: “The Co-operative Group has taken the decision to suspend temporarily any further advertising and promotional activity with the News of the World until the outcome of the investigation is known.


“The Group is a consumer-owned business which adheres to strong ethical standards. These allegations have been met with revulsion by the vast majority of members who have contacted us.


“We would urge everyone involved to bring this matter to a speedy conclusion for the sake of all those who are affected by these events.”


The move comes as a campaign on micro-blogging site Twitter under the hashtag #NOTW continued putting pressure on advertisers to act.


Virgin Holidays also said today that it was withdrawing advertising. It said: “We reviewed our plans yesterday in the light of emerging developments and decided to withdraw the very limited number of classified adverts we had booked for several of the Virgin Holidays brands for this Sunday.


“We are continuing to monitor the situation on a week by week basis and as this an ongoing investigation we cannot comment further.”