Gordon Blue
Good chat with Lynne Franks yesterday on what used to be GLR but is now called BBC London. At one point the producer nipped in to tick Lynne off for using ‘bloody’, which I found quaint. Apparently ‘crap’ is fine on the BBC, but ‘bloody’ starts the phones ringing. They were glad I wasn’t Gordon […]
BAD NEWS
The eerie, blurred video images of the hostage Kenneth Bigley, pleading for his life with the odds so stacked against him, are working hard demoralising us in every living room in the land. The poor man may well suspect that he’s an unwitting pawn in someone else’s publicity stunt, but he probably won’t see the […]
AND THE WINNER IS…
Just back from helping judge the Grierson Awards for documentary film making. They’re named after the great John ‘Night Mail’ Grierson (1898-1972), but that’s all I’m allowed to tell you. I can’t tell you what we judged, what won, what lost, who the other judges are or where we did the judging. A quick glance […]
DEUCE OF AN EVENING
Pleasant crowd of sporty types gathered in the Groucho the other night for some serious old fashioned stiffening on champagne and tequila before putting themselves through the Wimbledon premier – Angus Deayton, Tony Hawks, Aldo Zilli, Chris Evans, Anabelle Croft (as expert witness?) and Penny Smith from GMTV. Are they all tennis fans? Guess so. […]
STUNTMANIA…
…Rules OK? From Batman to the Sun Bomber to Otis Ferry & the Chambermen, the newspapers are now gorging themselves on Stunt. This is the outcome of what must have been a feast of secret planning over what the rest of us thought was just the Silly Season. The invasion of the House of Commons, […]
CAN'T BUY ME LOVE
Tucked away in PR week is a sad little paragraph about Geoff Baker getting the sack from Sir Paul McCartney’s organisation MPL. The two have parted company after a solid association lasting 15 years, and as of now Baker is unemployed. ‘His behaviour has not reached the professional standards I had come to expect from […]
Command and control
The snap that came with a catch Mark Borkowski, a veteran publicist, said that it is now “the norm” for exclusive pictures to be released to the media with stipulations about how they are to be used. If the Royal Family is embracing the ways of celebrity PR, he is only surprised that it hasn’t […]
Batman
The history of direct action is a proud one, taking in the likes of Peter Tatchell, Greenpeace and Swampy. Many feature very brave individuals � think of those campaigners on their tiny inflatable boat heading out to tackle a huge tanker or whaler. And it does work. The bottom line is that here we are, […]
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
There was an old fashioned feeling to the Groucho last night, in which diminutive terpsichordist Wayne Sleep and Mexican-speaking beardo Rory McGrath very nearly came to blow, blows sorry. ‘I wouldn’t put my **** anywhere near your mouth’ shouted David at Goliath. How very nostalgic. And Gordon Ramsey was in the brasserie so the food […]
What's so funny?
What’s so funny? Mario Testino’s 20th-birthday portrait of Prince Harry with his brother and father shows the three royals sharing a joke. But is that all that’s going on? We ask the experts for their analysis Mark Borkowski PR expert Prince Harry’s official 20th-birthday photograph is the tried-and-tested, safe PR route favoured by the royal […]
�This Morning� this morning. Invited on to �This Morning� with the smart n savvy Lorraine Kelly and Philip Schofield. �All Human Life Is There� the News of the World used to emblazon across its masthead. Well, Rupert Murdoch�s editors may have lowered their sights, but not the ITV pantechnicon that is This Morning. There�s more […]
‘This Morning’ this morning.
‘This Morning’ this morning. Invited on to ‘This Morning’ with the smart n savvy Lorraine Kelly and Philip Schofield. ‘All Human Life Is There’ the News of the World used to emblazon across its masthead. Well, Rupert Murdoch’s editors may have lowered their sights, but not the ITV pantechnicon that is This Morning. There’s more […]
NOT ENOUGH COOKS
A pleasure to meet up with Robin Cook MP, the distinguished member for Livingston, former Foreign Secretary, and notorious racing enthusiast. The occasion was the Oldie Literary lunch in Edinburgh yesterday, which I was hosting on behalf of our clients Swan Hellenic. Other guests included the travel writer Charlie Connelly, author of ‘Attention All Shipping’. […]
Return of the Governor and defence of the soundbite
Go back a few weeks. The polls said the nation suspected the Prime Minister of having deceived its representatives in the House of Commons. The polls said we believed he had deliberately misled us over Iraqi munitions to get some urgency into ‘our’ support for George W. Bush’s Middle Eastern expedition, and get the sacking […]
Borkowski at Guardian seminar on music file-sharing
“The MusicAlly debate: PR and P2P – the perfect anti-piracy pitch” on Monday September 13, 2004 from 6.00pm at the Guardian Newsroom, London, EC1. Sponsored by the Guardian, Guardian Unlimited and the Observer, the panel discussion will hear three top advertising, PR and marketing executives – Tim Duffy, the head of M&C Saatchi, Interbrand boss […]
Do journalists necessarily make good PR's?
The Media Column: ‘Journalists are always among those most ready to sneer at PR’ by Bill Hagerty ‘Mark Borkowski, who runs the PR company of the same name and has recently been presenting Son of Barnum, a one-man show on publicity and publicists, is not convinced that good journalists necessarily make good PRs.’ http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=554501
MARK BORKOWSKI – SON OF BARNUM EDINBURGH – INDEPENDENT REVIEW:
Mark Borkowski: Son of Barnum Assembly Rooms EDINBURGH – INDEPENDENT REVIEW: This canter through the history and application of publicity stunts is more a lecture and slide-show than a one-man show and anyone considering getting up in time to catch Son of Barnum should definitely bring a notebook. From his own career, Borkowski picks out […]
Fuming over ban
Fuming over ban THE Fringe�s reputation for cutting-edge performance art is being jeopardised by the council�s “hysterical” attitude to health and safety, it was claimed today. Performer Mark Borkowski launched a scathing attack on city officials after being refused permission to use a chainsaw in his act at the council-owned Assembly Rooms. http://news.scotsman.com/archive.cfm?id=951392004
FCUK, off: fashion label decides to rest 'tired' logo
FCUK, off: fashion label decides to rest ‘tired’ logo Independent – London,England,UK … The publicist Mark Borkowski said the new promotion was a way to refresh the label in the face of competitors who were imitating the original campaign. … http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=551885