Sarah Ferguson: Shooting Hangers-On in a Barrel
So Sarah Ferguson has been turned over by the News of the World this morning? Reading the front page, it was as much as I could do not to yawn. Yet another sorry tale of money grubbing in Banana Republic GB. The cash for access sting is unsurprising; it indicates that some people close to […]
Cleggameron: How Calm is Their Coalition?
Clegg and Cameron are making a surprisingly good fist of unity thanks to the brand new and shiny PR machines behind the scenes, not to mention the PR machine that is Cleggameron. It’s working so well that even Rory Bremner admits to being unsure about how to satirise them. I can’t help but feel a […]
Manga Monsters and Risky PR
Looking carefully at the one-eyed Manga nightmares that are the 2012 Olympic mascots, I have been wondering at the designers’ thinking – and not as negatively as you might suspect. I think there may be a classicist at work behind these Cyclopses. According to Hesiod, the Cyclopses were strong, stubborn giants who were “abrupt of […]
Lineker's Sporting Stance
Top PR marks to Gary Lineker for withdrawing from writing his column for the Mail on Sunday in protest over their handling of the Lord Triesman story. Lineker has done the right thing by distancing himself as effectively as possible from the Mail on Sunday’s stance – even though they have offered him the opportunity […]
A Design is for Life, Not Just the Olympics
The London Olympics committee launch the 2012 Olympic mascot tonight on the One Show and everyone with an interest in design is hoping that it’s not a dog’s breakfast, like the logo, which looks, most unfortunately, like an abstracted version of a Simpsons porn cartoon as drawn by a committee, all of whom were wearing […]
Kiss and Tell Nation
There’s quite an outpouring of anger in the wake of Melissa Jacobs’ kiss and tell on Lord Triesman – some of it is even being directed at Max Clifford, who is attempting to sail over the affair with the caveat that he was only doing his job. It’s worth bearing in mind that, had this […]
How to Save Public Figures from Sex Scandals and Themselves
The collapse of Lord Triesman – and potentially the British 2018 World Cup bid he was in charge of – after a fit of sexual hubris and some seriously careless talk about bribery, brought on by the less-than-sincere attentions of a younger woman, is a sorry story, but a familiar one. This is a story […]
Britain's Got Cliché
It strikes me that all is not well in Britain’s Got Talent, that something is falling apart. This year, the show opened on 10.6 million viewers (a 44% share). By May it was on a 43%. After four weeks in, it is currently running down 5% on last year, which opened with 11 million viewers. […]
Lobbying for Power
Most people in the country are worrying about the leadership of the country under the new coalition, and their concerns for the nation run to a number of issues, from what will happen with capital gains tax, what will happen with inheritance tax, will there or won’t there be cuts in public services, will the […]
Wined, Dined and Politically Inclined
I went to supper at the small but deliciously formed Texture restaurant in Portman Street last night with our clients, the government of South Australia, hosted by the Agent General, Bill Muirhead, to celebrate the First Family of Australian wine production. I sat next to Robert Hill Smith, who runs the Yalumba winery. Yalumba is […]
The Spin and the Power
Most people in the country are worrying about the leadership of the country under the new coalition, and their concerns for the nation run to a number of issues, from what will happen with capital gains tax, what will happen with inheritance tax, will there or won’t there be cuts in public services, will the […]
Post-Election Stuntwatch: Wrestling for Control
The failure of anyone to take meaningful control of the country in the wake of the General Election says a great deal about the hype that the media work up as a cappuccino froth of sound bites. It felt like going to a bad movie – the trailer was exceptional but the movie itself is […]
Election Stuntwatch: All Great Leaders Need Great PR
Since I encountered an intriguing article on Genghis Khan, which seemed to me to prove that he was one of the first great leaders to employ a publicist, and posted a link to it on Twitter, there have been quite a number of responses suggesting that Jesus, Pliny, Alexander the Great and Moses all employed […]
Election Stuntwatch: Gordon's Gaffe on Tape
Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives states that ‘anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment!’. From now on, I suspect, any political instance of this law in action will be known as the ‘Brown Variant’, after unguarded remarks about a woman he had just spoken to on a walkabout were broadcast to the […]
Election Stuntwatch: The Rise of Old Media
When I was 19, the publicist Theo Cowan – this country’s first pro celebrity PR wrangler, who created the Rank Charm School, an acting school run the Rank Film company that brought the world Roger Moore, Joan Collins, Christopher Lee, Diana Dors and more – granted me an audience in Poland Street. “Keep your clients’ […]
iPR: How Apple Play PR
The big question dominating the PR world this week is “have Apple changed their ways and started leaking product to the press?” after a prototype of the next iPhone found its way into the hands of tech journalists at Gizmodo. The way in which Apple practices its PR is fascinating. They are intensely secretive, they […]
Election Stuntwatch: The Leadership Debate
We’re living in what Seth Godden calls “the century of ideas diffusion”. Last night’s historic TV debate was launched with a weight of expectation as to how it might change this perception. If it did, it was mostly for the political classes. The debate was carefully, rigorously planned as an attempt to revivify politics, seen […]
Election Stuntwatch: Week One
One person who understood deeply and passionately about making the most of publicity – and who would have livened up the coming election no end if he had cared to participate in the process – was Malcolm McLaren, who died yesterday. A non-conformist who enlivened punk with his arch brand of anarchy and who helped […]
Mawkish Genius: Tiger In the Nike Psychiatrist's Chair
The Independent have published a piece by me on Tiger Woods and the new, daring Nike advert he appears in. Here’s an excerpt: “Through all of Tiger Woods’ scandals, Nike have stayed with him. Other sponsors disappeared, but when he made his big apology, they were sitting in the front row. And now they’re taking […]
Advertising Therapy: Nike and Tiger Woods
You wait all week for a good publicity conversation generator that is not related to the general election – and then an astonishing one pops up, in the shape of Nike’s Tiger Woods tour de force.