The Algorithm of Influence
Influence isn’t what you have, it’s what you can convince others they need. Every time a product is launched we are persuaded not only of its desirability but that it has rendered everything that came before redundant. To cling onto the old is to live in the past. This was played out last week when […]
HyperNormal: PR in a post-truth world
As we gaze on the latest stunt or cracking campaign for a new talking fridge we miss out on the darker side of the industry. Too often PR does not question the larger informational frameworks in which we communicate. That’s where Vladislav Surkov comes in. Surkov remains semi-invisible and anonymous, lurking in the shadows. He […]
From Paddy to the Donald- the Economic Bubble of Outrage
Spare a thought for Panama. They want to be known for their high levels of literacy, their traditional straw hats and their eclectic cuisine. Yet thanks to the famed leaked papers this country of less than four million continues to be synonymous with Dickie Roepers swigging their Crème de menthes on their untaxed island getaways. […]
How does Sam Allardyce ever come back from this?
As Sam Allardyce jets off to his Spanish villa, he will have ample time to reflect on how he became the shortest serving England manager of all time. It is no surprise that Big Sam says he has not ruled out returning to football. Nor should he. No one wants a crisis but once it has […]
Corbyn- PR Revenant?
Jeremy Corbyn goes from clinging on to gripping the Labour party by the neck. Forget the Revenant this year’s great survival story belongs to the softly spoken radical for Islington North. A year in to the experiment, and two successful leadership contests later, we know any attempt to school the ragged trousered socialist in the ways […]
Hiddle-split: PR lessons from a shomance
It was a romance worthy of a bard, a ballad to rival John and Yoko. Only the most cynical of PRs would dismiss the star-crossed lover affair of Tom Hiddleston and Taylor Swift as a stunt. Well I am a cynical PR man and from day one the pictures of the well-groomed couple canoodling on […]
PR fails to catch em all
Pokemon Go has entered the decline stage. This is the fad phase after the belles-lettre stage that sees a flurry of pretentious musing on how said fad is changing everything and the one before the stage where your parents get into it. Meteoric popularity followed by equally dramatic trailing off is nothing new. The Washington […]
Showmanship- the common factor
In a striking number of folkloric traditions the number 13 is synonymous with excess and things coming undone. ITV is hoping those folks are wrong. As the 13th series of X Factor streams into our handheld living rooms the rumour mill once again begins to whirl. This time the big name in line for a […]
Lynne Franks- master of PR bluff calling
They fuck you up, your sons and daughters. This was the lesson learned by PR legend Lynne Franks when she opened her Mail on Sunday to discover her grown up son lambasting her as “too selfish to raise children”. To be fair to Josh Howie, his description of the archetypal eighties career woman, “on the […]
Trump and the end of objectivity
Ask a reasonably clever ten year old what a journalist is and she will say someone who reports what is happening. While this impression may become more nuanced as we develop a greater understanding of how news is broken and spun this basic understanding still underpins our view of what the media is. How is […]
In praise of survival
This month marks the last time a brand new VCR will roll off the conveyor belt of Funai Electric in Japan. It is 12 years since most major shops in the UK and Europe stopped selling VCRs, relegating their bulky tapes to ever-decreasing shelf space at the back of charity shops. Someone, somewhere was still […]
The lie that won
The comedy is that David Cameron believed his own lie. The tragedy is, so did the rest of us. The Conservative victory at last year’s election sent shockwaves through the media and political establishments. When the dust had settled and the pollsters had been pilloried, it was all so obvious why the Tories had won- […]
Experts be damned: on post-factual communication
‘Post-factual’ is a phrase we’ve been hearing a lot of lately. Once upon a time you would have been discredited for calling the Bank of England corrupt. Now –as Rafael Behr quotes in his Guardian long read autopsy of the remains of Remain– you can plaster it over a bus and the BBC will give […]
Zen and the art of Cannes Lions
“What is this festival anyway?” asked a bemused Dave Grohl to an audience of star struck advertising folk. Few of the execs in the room –who had spent the last few days pickling their vital organs in Rosé- were in a fit state to respond. There are several ways of answering Dave’s question. Excess knows […]
Brexit and the end of the general public
In PR we talk about reaching out and cutting through. We craft messaging that will engage that poised and docile mob we call ‘the public’. Well, if this morning’s result has shown us anything it’s that this pursuit is utter rubbish. Any illusion of commons threads that bind together our diverse country has given way […]
Outside the Referendum Bubble
“Lost for words”. This was how so many of us reacted to the senseless, brutal murder to MP Jo Cox. After a frenzied week of last ditch campaigning for the upcoming referendum the tragic event in Birstall has catapulted everything into miserable perspective. Only on Wednesday the Dumbish Armada was descending down the Thames. Even […]
Muhammad Ali: titan of the ring who invented a unique brand of showmanship
Muhammad Ali was a limitless divinity, touched by a tincture of madness. He was the showman beyond all showmen, conquering the decades with an all powerful chaos. When I was still in short trousers I witnessed his all consuming hype machine sweeping up all in his path. Nobody was immune to it: an intoxicating deity, […]
A week of spin can’t save Top Gear from ratings slip
The spin and backtracking that have characterised Chris Evans’s steering of Top Gear have been more Downing Street press office than racing track. Last year it was “100% not true” that he was in line to fill Clarkson’s shoes; months later the BBC announced that they had signed him up for a three year stint. […]
Jose Mourinho produced a PR masterclass to land his dream job at Manchester United
Jose Mourinho’s journey to Manchester United is the culmination of an impressive behind-the-scenes campaign of media manipulation. Assistant professors at Harvard Business School – where Sir Alex Ferguson has taught – would call it strategic positioning. It has been a masterclass in PR and playing between the lines. To read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/05/24/jose-mourinho-the-special-one-produced-a-pr-masterclass-to-land/
Manchester Utd's PR is stuck in the dark ages
Louis Van Gaal reportedly first heard of his sacking from his wife after she’d seen the BBC breaking news alert. Harsh stuff. Despite the FA cup win there clearly was no love lost between the Dutchman and the Glazer family. As the bungled leaking of Van Gaal’s sacking showed –first he was out, then he […]