David Bowie – the reclusive master of self-promotion (The Drum)
It was this time three years ago when the release of a song sent shockwaves around the world, from Ibiza to the Norfolk broads. David Bowie marked his 66th birthday by giving his fans ‘Where are we now?’, a mysterious but somehow so familiar new single, his first in a decade… http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2016/01/11/david-bowie-reclusive-master-self-promotion
Lynton Crosby: a noble knight with a common PR touch
There is no worse PR for the establishment than to be seen to be awarding good PR, but Conservative campaign guru Lynton Crosby’s knighthood is a vindication of his world-class talents, writes Mark in PR Week. http://www.prweek.com/article/1377973/lynton-crosby-noble-knight-common-pr-touch
PR in 2015: The Trouble with Authenticity
In 2015 we all loved authenticity, right? The ‘New Politics’ engaged and enraged in equal measure. Cannes Lions was all about purposeful brands. FleishmanHillard launched a new product to help companies drive an authenticity agenda. Whether you’re a boutique dentist or selling bleach being human was at the centre of everyone’s comms strategy.For PR this has been […]
Parting Shots (The Drum)
As Sir Elton John and his publicist say their goodbyes, I ask if the role of PR is underrated. http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2015/12/18/parting-shots-sir-elton-john-and-his-publicist-say-their-goodbyes-role-pr
Donald Trump: The Dame of Panto Politics
Donald Trump is a festive panto that has gone on past its season. He struts from podium to studio with the self-sacrificing gall of a celeb foregoing Beverly Hills for a stint of Mother Goose at a dreary middle England theatre. With each of his bombastic interventions there’s always the sense that he’s disappointed we […]
What’s left of the propaganda powder keg?
In any move to war we get bludgeoned with the inevitable metaphors of motion. Whether it’s a strategic progression or headlong rush, a targeted advancement or mission creep, there is no turning back from the march of predictable language. Interestingly, in his seminal manual on how to hack our psyche’s mainframe Edward Bernays also captures […]
Mark My Words named PR blog of the year
Last week Mark My Words was awarded Vuelio’s PR and Marketing blog of the year. Thank you!
Little Red Lines
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This is how shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s whipping out of Mao’s Little Red Book went down in the Commons yesterday. Critics, on both sides of the house, have lambasted the former backbench romper stomper for quoting from a genocidal dictator. McDonnell argues this “flamboyant gesture” was required to […]
You can’t get better than a PR quickie
The formula for the Christmas Ad is out and even PRs are having a go. John Lewis’s Man on the Moon and Sainsbury’s Mog the Cat may have been beamed out into the national conversation courtesy of big budgets, social media overkill and appearing on platforms that still demand attention; but a bundle of Christmas-themed […]
TV Adverts
From the infuriatingly catchy to the plain bizarre Mark joins Adrian Chiles on Five Live to discuss the value of TV adverts- past and present. Alongside branding guru Robert Bean and Go Compare’s opera singer Wynne Evans Mark explores how, from Andrex to John Lewis, classic TV ads inject a brand into our cultural bloodstream. […]
A World without PR
In this month’s PR Week I ask what a World without PR would look like and basically imagine myself out of existence….. http://www.prweek.com/article/1371355/mark-borkowski-brave-new-world-without-pr
Dreaming of Christmas 2016
You could power much of the national grid on the hype that’s been fissioning on social media. We’ve been drip fed on teasers and speculation has been rife. It isn’t a new Star Wars or Bond. It’s November 2016 and we’re watching the latest John Lewis Christmas ad. Could it possibly top the previous year’s […]
Corbyn and the PewDiePie effect
“Once the press officer becomes the story, it is the end of the press officer.” This was the verdict of one of David Cameron’s inner circle on Andy Coulson. For Seamus Milne the knives were out from day one. Jeremy Corbyn’s new PR chief- branded “fascist” and “odious” on Twitter and treated as “a man […]
What our stunts say about us
Last week an eloquent appeal was made by Mark Perkins to all London PRs: stop floating things down the Thames. He reminds us (given how forgettable they all are) that this year our murky waterway has been invaded by an armada of houses, apocalyptic horsemen, lottery balls, melted ice caps- to name a few. In […]
Radically Dull
The commentariat are baffled by Jeremy Corbyn. He does the unthinkable of giving straight answers to hypothetical questions. He can be pictured with a large marrow and not look ridiculous. So infuriated was Eamonn Holmes by Corbyn’s lack of sartorial concern that the Sky presenter gave up on sentences and reverting to a state of […]
Dawn of the Red
In the early hours of Monday the undead corpse of old Labour was seen walking across Westminster Bridge. The zombie being harangued by a small cohort of junior journalists was the newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Over the summer a virus known as Corbynmania spread through disaffected members of the public. Alarmist rumours of […]
“Potentially concerning”
Potentially Jeremy Corbyn could be Prime Minister and Donald Trump president. Potentially particles colliding in the science world’s answer to the circle line could inadvertently open up a world-consuming black hole. Potentially Katie Hopkins could someday make a good point. Everything is potential. When we are told, on the basis of a speculative connection between […]
The Queen is dead, long live the Queen – Who needs PR?
Rebekah Brooks is back. To use Robert Thompson’s words: “Rebekah will lead a great team at News UK into the digital future, while maximising the influence and reach of our newspapers, which remain the most informative and successful in Britain and beyond”…blah blah blah. Michael Wolff, the American author of a biography of Mr Murdoch […]
McFlop
The sea turns to blood. The sun scorches the earth. The seven seals open. The Whopper and the Big Mac unite. Such is the vision of cataclysmic world destruction prompted by this cynical invitation to McDonald’s to join forces with Burger King in aid of, erm, world peace day. The McWhopper advertisement ran in the […]
Moral Hazard
They haven’t won their four warm up games. They lost the community shield to their arch-rivals. And the start of the season was a less than spectacular draw with Swansea. Yet the only thing we’ve been talking about is José Mourinho’s spat with a doctor. In one word: result. In the week leading up to […]