Noises off: The EU referendum and the virtue of shutting up
Every political campaign eventually enters a silly season. Apocalyptic scenarios are invoked; pledges are carved into stone; statistics are rendered meaningless. Even the dead aren’t safe as our great icons are dragged up and ventriloquized by either side. For the EU referendum the shift from apathy to absurdity has been sudden and overwhelming. One day […]
Woody Allen: The ties that bind old media to protecting old men
It was not a cover-up or an establishment conspiracy that let the likes of Savile, Harris and Cosby off the hook for so long. So much had been invested into building their public personae. Love ‘em or loathe ‘em they are part of our cultural fabric. For a journalist to ask awkward questions would be to […]
Peston on Sunday needs a much stronger marketing push – and less of the daytime TV vibe
It was always going to be an uphill slog. Robert Peston’s new politics show seems to have been dwarfed by the Andrew Marr juggernaut. BBC One’s Sunday morning programme found an audience 10 times that of Peston’s debut 10am slot yesterday. The producers of the ITV show will, not unfairly, cite the hot weather as disproportionately […]
Feeling Good: in defence of the New Day
The obituaries to the New Day appeared before the first edition. The announcement, 49 issues later, that the paper is closing has come with little surprise. The media bubble postmortem has latched onto not what went wrong but the lunacy of launching a new for-sale paper in the first place. Was failure really written from […]
Labour needs to learn the art of Ranieri
To paraphrase one Vladimir Ilyich, the more something is said the more it becomes so. This is the essence of spin. A few weeks ago it was all about David Cameron’s family finances. He tried to dodge hard answers until it dawned on Carlton’s ex-PR chief that denials and prevarications were only fuelling the story. […]
Hannah Woods – whose “arch” eyebrow, print knitwear and encyclopaedic IQ captivated University Challenge viewers as she led her team to victory – has the potential to earn millions if she capitalises on her new-found fame, a leading PR expert said today. Read more of Mark’s thoughts on becoming an internet sensation overnight here
Mark with Newsweek on whether or not Amazon's investment will pay off.
British PR guru Mark Borkowski tells Newsweek that Amazon’s investment could prove wise and boost the streaming service, which is said to have 46 million Amazon Prime subscribers worldwide. In comparison, Netflix has 75 million. Read more here
THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT' – Mark on the privacy injunction in the British Media
The injunction farce shows there are no boundaries in social media, according to a PR and branding consultant. Mark Borkowski said the truth will ultimately come out as it did when football’s Ryan Giggs tried to hide his infidelity. ‘This scenario is akin to King Canute who sat on the beach trying to hold back […]
If the price is right – Mark quoted in the Sunday Times on Celebrity Endorsements
Breaking news: once one of the coolest women in the world, the 1990s supermodel Helena Christensen is set to become the face and presumably bikini-clad body of Thomson Holidays’ luxury arm. That’s a whole ton of sun. She’s not the only one to take the cash for a touch of naff… Read more here
The Killer Apps of Steel and Tradition
The history of steel is the history of the British industrial revolution. Tuesday evening –which saw the decision by Tata to close all of its steelworks in the UK, consigning the production of the metal to potential oblivion- either marks a new chapter or is a concluding footnote. Niall Ferguson once used the term Killer […]
Top Gear's Cenotaph apology proves just how much the show is missing Clarkson and his balls
It is open season for attacking the new series of Top Gear and the first shot has been fired. A former British military commander criticised one of the show’s hosts Matt LeBlanc and a professional driver who performed “doghnuts” near the Cenotaph in Whitehall during an interview with BBC Radio 5 live. Col Richard Kemp said […]
Top Gear Cenogaffe: A PR Monstrosity
No one seems to have gotten out of the Top Gear Cenotaph-gaffe unscathed. The presenters have been throttled into unreserved contrition. The BBC has been branded foolish for giving the go-ahead to the £100,000 stunt and Westminster council have been labelled naïve. The area’s commitment to low emissions also took a beating with the noxious […]
Queen Elizabeth is a canny one. She always picks the winning side.
Queen Elizabeth is a canny one. She always picks the winning side. She’s successfully backed Scottish Union twice. Her horses have won over 1,600 races. She came round to the Diana mania with grace and an Oscar via Dame Helen. Read more at http://www.prweek.com/article/1386638/will-suns-queen-backs-brexit-story-rock-eu-campaigns-pr-pros-give-views#V1hEULPfcxQaKbSO.99
Maria Sharapova's PR is perfect so far – now the hard work starts
She may be facing the biggest crisis of her career but Maria Sharapova gave a master-class in damage limitation when she announced she had failed a drugs test. For this story not to leak out beforehand is extraordinary in this era of innuendo, which shows the level of negotiating power that her management have. The […]
Cheryl and Liam's Instagram relationship makes a corporate merger look like a casual fling
In Hail, Caesar!, the latest zany yarn from the brothers Coen, a movie PR man called Eddie Mannix (played by Josh Brolin) attempts to divert attention away from a studio crisis by publicising the “secret romance” of two of his biggest stars. In the studio system of the early 50s this was normal – as a […]
What the hell is good publicity?
Oscar Wilde didn’t say all publicity is good publicity. It was another Irish cause célèbre Brendan Behan who coined the phrase (though he conceded that obituaries are best avoided). If this were true there would be no need for PR. Rather, Wilde wrote that not being talked about can be relatively worse than facing a […]
Super Bowl 50: from metonymic to moronic
Normally a potato-faced jock saying he fancies a bud is not worth much thought. But the Super Bowl isn’t normal. Peyton Manning, fresh from leading the Denver Broncos to victory over Carolina, told CBS he’s going to “drink a lot of Budweiser tonight.”With one seemingly impromptu slip –followed by a less impromptu-seeming second- Anheuser-Busch, his […]
He’s still standing, others have moved on
Elton John hit all the right headlines yesterday in time for the release of his new album ‘Wonderful Crazy night’. However with Sir Elton’s piano practice at St Pancras Station spontaneity seems to the be the hardest word. From the Guardian to the Evening Standard, the papers dutifully danced to the tune of a generic […]
#OscarsSoWhite: For Your Discrimination
Not a day goes by without someone new “weighing in” on the Oscars So White row. Yesterday it was Obama’s turn, today it’s mine. Say what you will about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but they know how to keep entertainment hacks busy. The diversity in opinions crowding for attention since the nominations […]
Blue Monday- sending out the right signals
It’s banal. It’s cynical. It lacks all credibility. Yet somehow Blue Monday has become an actual thing, a date that registers on our cultural calendar and even has its own Wikipedia page. This is the day, usually the third Monday in January that Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall showed to be the most miserable day of […]