We need to talk about Edinburgh
I’ve been going to the Fringe Festival for as long as I can remember. It remains the seminal arts event in Britain today, only behind Glastonbury in its symbolism. But this year, I couldn’t help but detect a lethargy about the place. There’s the usual press of bodies on the Royal Mile, as tourists, festival […]
Love Island and the Overexposed Millennial
It’s a curious thing, modern Britain. For almost a week, we’ve been openly discussing that great taboo, pay. for even longer though, we’ve been talking about sex. Not even the clammy, soul-cleaving let-down kind most Brits endure, but high-octane, tanned, effervescent and salubrious copulating. Mail mouthpiece Peter Hitchens referred to it in his column as […]
Now is the winter of our dis-content: A glossary for the times we live in
Do you confuse your branded storytelling with your sponsored content? Are you disruptive or merely a dial-mover? How old is too old to be millennial? If these questions keep you up at night then you clearly aren’t on the right sedative. For the rest us, I’ve been mulling over some of the phrases that have […]
From fake to fomo- what you were really missing out on at Cannes Lions
FOMO. Fear of missing out. One eye always on a more interesting interlocutor. In Cannes there is always a party more glamorous and exclusive that has passed you by. The yacht will have sailed before you even knew it. Forget the smiles and the sun. The all-pervasive sense that you get from a certain type […]
BBC needs to talk value [Drum]
Something most un-British is happening in the national conversation: we’re talking about pay. The six figure salaries of top TV talent and the payslips of public sector workers are two very different issues. Yet both come down to the matter of value and worth. The BBC has been forced kicking and screaming to make the […]
Let’s not give up on truth.
Working out exactly what’s distinctive about Borkowski as an agency, what makes it tick, and why it’s been so successful has taken a long time. It’s only now, nearly thirty years since the agency was founded, that it’s possible to provide a semi-systematised overview of something which has been instinctual for years. We tell stories, […]
When will the likes of Walkers learn that people do not love brands? (Drum)
The hijacking of Walkers’ Champions League promo – which asked fans to tweet selfies to be included alongside Gary Lineker – begs the question: how did no one see that coming? As ever in new media land, the idea would have gone through countless planning sessions and stress tests. Each time bearded Dalstonian (apologies) creatives […]
Boo Netflix all you like, it’s here to stay
Second to the Palm d’Or the greatest achievement a filmmaker can hope for from a trip to Cannes is a good old booing. A very special kind of cacophony is rewarded to a film that succeeds in irritating le bon goût of French cineastes- it’s less of a boo and more like the mooing of […]
Corbyn's Labour manifesto: when is a leak not a leak? (The Drum)
Jeremy Corbyn has always insisted that Labour policy be decided by consultation and debate. With the leaking of a draft of the party’s manifesto, Labour has launched its most ambitious act of policy crowdsourcing. As a pundit pointed out, leaking the manifesto is probably the surest way of getting the media to seriously read it. […]
Brad’s second coming
Antiquity had the crucifixion. The French Republic had the Guillotine. For us the arena for bringing down the high and mighty is the tabloid mud pit. Lucky for our modern Dauphins reputational execution is not as lasting as actual decapitation and a second chance is always on the table. In his tell-all interview with GQ […]
The myth of the vote winning slogan
Gallons of intellect, insight and idiocy are poured into election campaigns- all in search of a magic slogan that will catapult a candidate to victory. The amount of money sloshing around in the election market reflects the mythology that has been built around the campaign guru. The power of a phrase to win is often […]
GE2017: A campaign of re-heated leftovers
If you’re looking for a good word of the day, try apanthropinization. It means to rise above or resign from one’s narrow concerns and worldly worries. Over the next six weeks of what looks set to be a dreary election campaign we will all be needing some of that. We’ve moaned about the lack of […]
Give corporate communicators a break- failure starts and ends with leadership
Cometh the PR crisis, cometh the troll. In the past week we’ve had an Easter bumper pack of public relations blunders for the twitterati to sink their teeth into. The mother of all has been the United Airlines fiasco which saw a passenger “re-accommodated” in a “de-planed situation” after he refused to be “auto-volunteered” off […]
Pseudo news is no response to fake news
Each day Whatsapp and Messenger process around 60 billion messages. We’ve never been more communicative- and the burden for instant response has never been greater. It’s quaint then that the main news story of the week has been the delivery of a single letter. Since the declaration of Article 50 was signed by the PM […]
Social media giants need to bulk up narrative in questioning times
Next week Theresa May will be writing to the European Council to declare her intentions to initiate Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. The resounding message of last year’s referendum –for right or wrong- was the country’s desire to ‘take back control’. The message was an alluring one. We have long been told we live in […]
Unfriended: What Facebook tells us about PRs and the media
Search current articles on Facebook and you’ll find pages and pages on its exciting new messaging app. What is clearly a Snap Chat rip-off, the app allows users to share photos and videos that vanish in 24 hours. That this news itself comes little more than a day after a BBC report into the social […]
Best Picture mix-up is the best PR stunt Oscar’s ever pulled
In a night of surprises the greatest revelation of the 89th Academy Awards was that Pricewaterhousecoopers plays a leading role in counting voting. If anyone ever queried the involvement of accountants in Hollywood the Best Picture mix-up has provided sufficient ammo. The knee-jerk statement of regret from PwC, coupled with the obligatory promise to investigate […]
Brands all over the world are praying that Trump attacks them
Donald Trump may have only been in office for three weeks, but he’s already started to work his entrepreneurial magic. Taking to Twitter to lambaste Nordstrom for withdrawing his daughter Ivanka’s clothing line, he unleashed an outpouring of consumer love. The store’s stock finished the day up 4%. Meryl Streep’s performance in “Florence Foster Jenkins” […]
Brand Beckham will take more than a minor email leak about knighthoods to bring it down.
No one likes a show-off. Even if you’ve won 19 major trophies in a 20 year football career and have reinvented yourself into a $1bn empire spanning fashion, music and film, it isn’t a good look to cry out for recognition. Yet any obituary of Brand Beckham in light of the email leak is […]
The Truth Behind the Beyonce Pregnancy Photoshoot
Above all else an iconic image is an expression of power. Think of Korda’s photo portrait of Che Guevara –starting life as propaganda for a dynamic young radical it wassucked into the incredible merchandise mill of capitalism. When Korda first photographed the Argentine radical we were exposed to at most 500 images a day. In […]