Mark My Words

So, the time has come to kill the economy of hope. Not hope itself. The industry built around it. Every two years, England demonstrates the business model. Take a talented team, add encouraging performances, a young star and a manager suddenly expected to do rather more than pick eleven footballers, find the lost grail of […]

Will Jude Bellingham Become Bigger Than David Beckham?It’s the question I’ve been asked more than any other over the past few weeks—usually with the faint implication that I might produce a definitive answer, like a man who keeps the master key to fame in his inside pocket.Can Jude Bellingham become bigger than David Beckham?After forty […]

Tomorrow, a nation holds its breath. Sixty years of hurt, and as every England supporter learns before they learn long division: it’s not the despair that kills you. It’s the hope. At the centre of it all, a 23-year-old from Stourbridge who appears, unnervingly, to be self-assured.English football used to produce greatness in exactly the […]

This week’s High Court verdict 97 claims dismissed, and a victory speech from Paul Dacre delivered with all the quiet restraint of a gender reveal party should, by rights, be a full stop. Not for the Mail. For Harry.The ancients got there first, as they tend to. Fame, Atticus warned, is a poison most would […]

There is a growing belief in marketing that attention is transferable. It isn’t.DoorDash may have bought Brooklyn Beckham, but what it received was the entire Beckham family psychodrama bundled in for free. Whether orchestrated or not, the story has overwhelmed the product. Nobody is discussing food delivery. Nobody is discussing the brand proposition. They are […]

I’ve been spending far too many late nights watching the World Cup. After five days, I am still struggling to comprehend the BBC’s studio coverage.ITV appears to have rented New York. Brooklyn studio, Manhattan glittering backdrop, the whole thing looking like football’s answer to a Scorsese opening shot, minus the Gershwin soundtrack. The BBC appears […]

Nils Leonard says #PR should be scared and, predictably, half the communications industry has spent the week reposting the quote in the hope of catching some reflected glory. Which is rather wonderful because the entire episode demonstrates exactly where we are. A good advertising man throws a hand grenade into the discourse, everybody rushes towards […]

Episode three of THE FAME FORMULA lands tomorrow, and it’s a proper one. My guest is Lynne Franks OBE, the woman who built modern PR before every third person on LinkedIn appointed themselves a “personal brand strategist” and storytellerLondon Fashion Week was just one landmark on her map. Lynne helped redefine the entire culture around […]

For years reality television has sold itself as a democratic route to fame. A contemporary three-ring circus haunted by the ghost of P. T. Barnum. Ordinary people transformed into stars by the will of “the public”. A meritocracy with contemporary additives and sponsored dental whitening.But beneath the glossy language sat something far older and rather […]