The Goat And The Vagina
Publicity stunts that cause indignation stretch back for hundreds of years, but this week media indignation continued to heap on Sony Play Station, in fact it has soared to Number one for a stunt to outrage all outrages. A row has been ignited over animal cruelty and the ethics of the computer industry by Sony’s […]
Vulture Culture
Hugh Grant’s brush with the law for a cafuffle with a rouge snapper has resulted in my inbox being besieged by requests from fevered media outlets wanting me to comment on whether his career is over . In the 24/7 news cycle, Hugh is a top topic after losing it with a papp, and many are of the […]
You’ll need to be a really good liar.
I found this interesting nugget from Joe Eszterhas excellent book “The Devils Gude to Hollywood” PR folk take note! Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo: “The art of lying is the art of the practical. It ought never be indulged in for the pure pleasure of the thing, since over usage dulls the instrument, corrodes the character, and […]
Blog Jewellery
I am surrounded by blogs not unlike a plague of locusts. Attached to every email signature that arrives in my inbox from a fellow PR uber cheese, is another link to yet another wacky blog. Cleaning off this smelly, vacuous, verbal diarrhoea, I urge fellow travellers to focus on the issues at hand. This current […]
You Name It
Every morning I wake up and wonder what kind of opportunities the day will bring. As a publicist, I have to be careful what I decide to get involved with. I read in the The Mirror today about the campaign to keep the memory of Charlie Thompson alive. She was the 13 year old girl […]
Rest in Peace cuddly Boris
Sad news, the mighty Boris Yeltsin has passed away and has moved on to take his seat in the great Politburo in the sky. I had the privilege of meeting Yeltsin in Moscow in 1996. I was on a recce to see the Moscow State Circus before it visited London in the summer of 1987. […]
What Katie does next
What Katie does next is critical to her future. by CLAIRE SMITH THE nation, and indeed the world, continues to be enthralled this week by the question why two twentysomethings who met at university have decided to split. In the absence of any concrete information from either Prince William or Kate Middleton, speculation continues to […]
Anyone for PR?
In the first episode of the new Harry Enfield / Paul Whitehouse series, there’s a sketch in which an antique dealer is trying to exploit a rather stupid Notting Hill “yoga whore”. Sarcastically, the Enfield character suggests that the woman should take up a career in interior design. The woman replies: “Actually, I’ve just had […]
Windsor v Middleton
The newspapers are crammed with every theory under the sun about the end of the royal romance. We always expect royal romances to be to be like fairy tales, but over the years they have morphed into fables that have been truly grim, with no happy endings. Surely the papers should be ecstatic that William […]
I smell a stunt!
Sorry if this is going to come as a shock, but I smell a stunt! No one wants to believe it is a stunt, because we are always prone to hoping, more often than not against the usual flow of hope, that a bit of movie history is alive and well. However, may I be […]
No More Heroes #2
Radio 5 Live Weekend News Broadcast on – Sun 08 Apr John Pienaar at the helm talks to Mark Borkowski about the PR fall out as the 15 British military captives who were released by the Iranians are authorised by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to sell their stories
Mark talks on BBC Radio 5 live about Keith Richards claim
Mark talks on BBC Radio 5 live about the reaction to the headlines surrounding Keith Richards claim that he snorted his dead father’s ashes.
No more heroes?
As someone who has been involved part and parcel in the modernisation of PR under the influence of the Murdoch papers, the internet and 24/7 news and who has watched from the inside as celebrities took to selling their stories to the press in the same manner as a butcher sells sausages, I am inclined […]
Chocolate Billboard
Once upon a time, there was little imaginative thinking when using outside space for publicity stunts. Brands were merely content to have a uniform message on thousands of Adshel sites all over the Capital. I firmly believe there is a fantastic opportunity to bring outdoor advertising to life. Yesterday, we created an action in Covent […]
Falkland War and Ian Macdonald the voice of the bad news remembered
There has been so much coverage this weekend on the anniversary of the Falklands War, with many of the original war correspondents reminiscing 25 years on. One person who isn’t seen in print marking the anniversary though is Ian Macdonald, ministry of defence spokesperson who became a nightly figure in the nations’ living rooms. Macdonald […]
Steve Mclaren and the art of great PR
Beleaguered England manager, Steve McClaren, was caught throwing his toys out of the pram during a post-match conference following England’s unenthusiastic performance against the minnows of European football, Andorra. Instead of fielding an array of pointed questions from the assembled press corps, the England coach simply walked out of the post-match news conference, telling the […]
Lessons of the PR founding fathers
Mark Borkowski on using the lessons of the PR founding fathers to keep it real in the 21st Century Click here to view enlarged image
PR Week Powerbook
I am informed by David Brain’s blog that PR Week have published their PowerBook, Evidently I am on a list of folk that have declared some strange peccadilloes. David’s blog http://www.sixtysecondview.com has more information, when I can find the time to read the thing I will offer my point of view.
Food For Thought
The food industry is an ingenious beast when it comes to persuading consumers to swallow information about the benefits of their foods. It’s a long-term investment for them to manufacture attitudes towards their product and they’ll go to any length to plug it, covertly or openly. Usually, stealth is the favoured action. There’s a story […]
Wimpey & Woodrow
Listening to the Today Programme yesterday morning, I was depressed to hear the story in Business News about the merger of George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow. The reason was not so much the merger itself, but the bland and faceless media-trained voice of Peter Redfern, chief executive of Wimpey. It was deeply upsetting to hear […]