BOOK OF THE MONTH: SEPTEMBER 2015

 

Guinness World Records is celebrating 60^th anniversary this year. Guinness World Records was founded after Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the Guinness Brewery, argued with the hosts of a shooting party he was attending in Ireland over the fastest game bird.

As a result, he asked the sports journalists Norris and Ross McWhirter to compile a book of facts that would be part of a Guinness promotion designed to settle arguments in the pub. Guinness Superlatives was incorporated in November 1954 and the first book was bound on August 27, 1955.

The book became a bestseller in Britain by Christmas. In 2001, Diageo, the new owners of Guinness, sold the brand for £50m to Gullane Entertainment. It was then passed on to Hit Entertainment, before it was bought by Canadian tycoon Jim Pattison for an undisclosed fee in 2008.

Pattison’s holding company, the Jim Pattison Group, is the second largest private company in Canada. When Pattison bought Guinness World Records, he already owned Ripley’s Believe It or Not, which had the rights to run Guinness World Records museums and attractions around the world.

Guinness World Records has sold more than 134 million books in more than 100 countries, including 2.75m last year. Roughly 97% of people in the US and the UK recognise the brand, which is a percentage that most companies could only dream of.

The business behind the world records is substantial. The UK parent company, show that in 2013 it generated revenues of £23m and pre-tax profits of £4.5m. 70% of the business comes from publishing and other media such as its television shows, but a further 30% comes from corporate events.

Once just dusty tomes inexplicably filed in the reference sections of school libraries and pored over by kids who wanted another look at the world’s tallest man or the world’s fattest twins, Guinness World Records seems to grow more sophisticated by the year. 

Website: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com