From 2001 "I was Jacko's PR minder"
I thought I had taken on the dream PR job. But I didn’t realise that meeting Michael Jackson was forbidden. From the Independent 13 March 2001 A few weeks ago, I was employed by Michael Jackson. It soon became clear that what he wanted was a PR flunkey to hand out edicts and information to […]
OH, FOR A PRIVATE BOOTH.
What on earth is Cherie Blair up to? Why doesn’t she heed the sensible and professional PR advice about how to conduct herself which must surely be on tap, given her address? But no: in every government since 1997, regular as clockwork, some tacky Cherie-scandal unfolds, invariably evolving around what we are later told was […]
Does the mighty BP really find proper journalism so threatening?
One thing which makes huge corporations especially cross is when the media advisers they assume will help protect them from bad publicity fail to exercise proper PR housekeeping and end up landing them in sheep dip. Step forward the WPP media buying company MindShare, who recently issued a memo to the effect that BP wished […]
Hello? You want payment, publicity and your privacy?
Last week’s judgment in the legal battle between OK! and Hello! threw the future of the buy-up into doubt and raised a whole new set of questions about the rights of celebrities who do deals with the media. So where does the press go from here? We canvassed expert opinion http://news.independent.co.uk/media/story.jsp?story=640284 Mark Borkowski Head of […]
RATNER & THE BOTTOM LINE
Difficult to miss Gerald Ratner at the Royal Albert Hall last week returning to the scene of the crime. The epic brick-drop which saw the Ratner brand trashed Hiroshima-style by a couple of careless comments from its Chief Executive is the stuff of legend. Ratner, remember, was being amazingly successful at the time of his […]
The Groucho Club twenty years on
Inside Story: The Groucho Club – 20 years of schmoozing and boozing From riding bicycles down the stairs to setting fire to their chest hair, Groucho members describe the club they love so much that some of them even married the staff MARK BORKOWSKI, PUBLICIST I’ve been a member since it opened. I rubbed together […]
Borkowski the secret of my success
I’ ve always been happy to take risks, and that includes inventing (and killing off) a dancing dog Read the article from the Evening Standard 28th April 2005 Download file
Is this the end of brand Beckham?
Is this the end of brand Beckham? Scotsman – Edinburgh,Scotland,UK Leading PR man Mark Borkowski, whose clients include Vodafone, Peugeot and Virgin Megastores, is more optimistic for Posh and Becks.
Who's absolutely fabulous in PR?
Inside Story: Who’s absolutely fabulous in PR? They’re the people you rely on to make your name or your new product shine in the media spotlight, but who would they pick out as the cream of their crop? MARK BORKOWSKI: BORKOWSKI PR CLIENTS INCLUDE: SELFRIDGES; TISCALI; VODAFONE; PEUGEOT; VIRGIN MEGASTORES “Unfortunately, there are no great […]
The new McDonald scam
Spring is here and with it comes news of a potentially great publicity stunt. McDonald’s intends to embrace the Urban music scene by offering an extra royalty of “between $1 and $5” to bands getting radio airplay of songs which include a reference to the famous “Big Mac” hamburger.
NOW YOU C.I.A… NOW YOU DON’T.
Oh how we lapped it up. It was just before Christmas 2003, and I’m sure the US administration felt it deserved a lovely present. I know the British tabloids did. ‘Eight months after Baghdad fell, US soldiers found the dishevelled former leader of Iraq six feet under, hiding in a hole in the ground.’ claimed […]
Confidence tricks
From the Media Weekly Independent Newspaper In the Sixties he turned hoaxing from stunt into fine art, and that’s why Joey Skaggs is Mark Borkowski’s mentor
Why do PRs carry the can?
When something goes wrong, it’s always a ‘PR disaster’, and it’s not fair, says Mark Borkowski Every now and then, someone knocks up a list of “the most unpopular professions”, and journalists get to write about themselves for a change. Hacks, to whom the prefix “seedy” now seems to have become irretrievably attached, invariably top […]
Chartered Institute of Public Relations
How do you pronounce the acronym CIPR? Let’s think. It looks like the front half of one of my favourite hotels, the Cipriani in Venice. Yes. I think ‘chipper’ is the right way to say ‘CIPR’, and a quick glance at Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang reveals that since 1837 ‘chipper’ has carried the meaning ‘WELL […]
Spin docs take a funny turn
… Falling into this last category, presumably, is PR supremo Mark Borkowski (below). ‘What on earth was the Privy Council thinking … How does one take the news that the Institute of Public Relations has gone all legit and become the Chartered IPR? Last week, after 50 years of trying (apparently), the spin doctors’ union […]
Dispatches: A riot of their own
Who says there’s no such thing as bad publicity? Try telling that to the marketing executives of Ikea today. So successful was the hyping of Thursday’s new store opening in north London, that it turned into a disaster of spectacular proportions.
KNEEL!
Not a whisper, not a word, not even an inkling. Nothing. When my mobile went ‘beep’ this morning with the hot news courtesy of my MediaGuardian alert . I was genuinely astonished. Perhaps I’m flattering myself here, but the old ears are supposed to be pretty well cued-in at ground-level, the personal radar suitably calibrated […]
Bruised, he may be. But you can't write off Max Clifford
PR: Bruised, he may be. But you can’t write off Max Clifford Fellow showbiz publicist Mark Borkowski says the Clifford brand will survive the Hamiltons’ victory 06 February 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/media/story.jsp?story=608106 Max Clifford has worked in publicity since 1962 and has forgotten more than most media teenies know. He understands all about the really famous as […]
A new front is opened up in the cola wars: diet-conscious men
… The PR consultant Mark Borkowski believes that in the longer term, diet cola brands will have to face wider issues than whether a drink contains sugar. … By Ciar Byrne, INDEPENDENT Media Correspondent 01 February 2005 http://news.independent.co.uk/media/story.jsp?story=606545
The real sultan of spin
John Rendon is one of the most powerful men in the world, but the PR specialist rarely comes of out of the shadows Why are we all obsessed by lists? Take a look at the news agenda of any particular week and the media is full of them. This week it’s been lists of Oscar […]