Experts be damned: on post-factual communication
‘Post-factual’ is a phrase we’ve been hearing a lot of lately. Once upon a time you would have been discredited for calling the Bank of England corrupt. Now –as Rafael Behr quotes in his Guardian long read autopsy of the remains of Remain– you can plaster it over a bus and the BBC will give […]
Zen and the art of Cannes Lions
“What is this festival anyway?” asked a bemused Dave Grohl to an audience of star struck advertising folk. Few of the execs in the room –who had spent the last few days pickling their vital organs in Rosé- were in a fit state to respond. There are several ways of answering Dave’s question. Excess knows […]
Brexit and the end of the general public
In PR we talk about reaching out and cutting through. We craft messaging that will engage that poised and docile mob we call ‘the public’. Well, if this morning’s result has shown us anything it’s that this pursuit is utter rubbish. Any illusion of commons threads that bind together our diverse country has given way […]
Outside the Referendum Bubble
“Lost for words”. This was how so many of us reacted to the senseless, brutal murder to MP Jo Cox. After a frenzied week of last ditch campaigning for the upcoming referendum the tragic event in Birstall has catapulted everything into miserable perspective. Only on Wednesday the Dumbish Armada was descending down the Thames. Even […]
Muhammad Ali: titan of the ring who invented a unique brand of showmanship
Muhammad Ali was a limitless divinity, touched by a tincture of madness. He was the showman beyond all showmen, conquering the decades with an all powerful chaos. When I was still in short trousers I witnessed his all consuming hype machine sweeping up all in his path. Nobody was immune to it: an intoxicating deity, […]
A week of spin can’t save Top Gear from ratings slip
The spin and backtracking that have characterised Chris Evans’s steering of Top Gear have been more Downing Street press office than racing track. Last year it was “100% not true” that he was in line to fill Clarkson’s shoes; months later the BBC announced that they had signed him up for a three year stint. […]
Jose Mourinho produced a PR masterclass to land his dream job at Manchester United
Jose Mourinho’s journey to Manchester United is the culmination of an impressive behind-the-scenes campaign of media manipulation. Assistant professors at Harvard Business School – where Sir Alex Ferguson has taught – would call it strategic positioning. It has been a masterclass in PR and playing between the lines. To read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/05/24/jose-mourinho-the-special-one-produced-a-pr-masterclass-to-land/
Manchester Utd's PR is stuck in the dark ages
Louis Van Gaal reportedly first heard of his sacking from his wife after she’d seen the BBC breaking news alert. Harsh stuff. Despite the FA cup win there clearly was no love lost between the Dutchman and the Glazer family. As the bungled leaking of Van Gaal’s sacking showed –first he was out, then he […]
Noises off: The EU referendum and the virtue of shutting up
Every political campaign eventually enters a silly season. Apocalyptic scenarios are invoked; pledges are carved into stone; statistics are rendered meaningless. Even the dead aren’t safe as our great icons are dragged up and ventriloquized by either side. For the EU referendum the shift from apathy to absurdity has been sudden and overwhelming. One day […]
Woody Allen: The ties that bind old media to protecting old men
It was not a cover-up or an establishment conspiracy that let the likes of Savile, Harris and Cosby off the hook for so long. So much had been invested into building their public personae. Love ‘em or loathe ‘em they are part of our cultural fabric. For a journalist to ask awkward questions would be to […]
Peston on Sunday needs a much stronger marketing push – and less of the daytime TV vibe
It was always going to be an uphill slog. Robert Peston’s new politics show seems to have been dwarfed by the Andrew Marr juggernaut. BBC One’s Sunday morning programme found an audience 10 times that of Peston’s debut 10am slot yesterday. The producers of the ITV show will, not unfairly, cite the hot weather as disproportionately […]
Feeling Good: in defence of the New Day
The obituaries to the New Day appeared before the first edition. The announcement, 49 issues later, that the paper is closing has come with little surprise. The media bubble postmortem has latched onto not what went wrong but the lunacy of launching a new for-sale paper in the first place. Was failure really written from […]
Labour needs to learn the art of Ranieri
To paraphrase one Vladimir Ilyich, the more something is said the more it becomes so. This is the essence of spin. A few weeks ago it was all about David Cameron’s family finances. He tried to dodge hard answers until it dawned on Carlton’s ex-PR chief that denials and prevarications were only fuelling the story. […]
Hannah Woods – whose “arch” eyebrow, print knitwear and encyclopaedic IQ captivated University Challenge viewers as she led her team to victory – has the potential to earn millions if she capitalises on her new-found fame, a leading PR expert said today. Read more of Mark’s thoughts on becoming an internet sensation overnight here
Mark with Newsweek on whether or not Amazon's investment will pay off.
British PR guru Mark Borkowski tells Newsweek that Amazon’s investment could prove wise and boost the streaming service, which is said to have 46 million Amazon Prime subscribers worldwide. In comparison, Netflix has 75 million. Read more here
THE TRUTH ALWAYS COMES OUT' – Mark on the privacy injunction in the British Media
The injunction farce shows there are no boundaries in social media, according to a PR and branding consultant. Mark Borkowski said the truth will ultimately come out as it did when football’s Ryan Giggs tried to hide his infidelity. ‘This scenario is akin to King Canute who sat on the beach trying to hold back […]
If the price is right – Mark quoted in the Sunday Times on Celebrity Endorsements
Breaking news: once one of the coolest women in the world, the 1990s supermodel Helena Christensen is set to become the face and presumably bikini-clad body of Thomson Holidays’ luxury arm. That’s a whole ton of sun. She’s not the only one to take the cash for a touch of naff… Read more here
The Killer Apps of Steel and Tradition
The history of steel is the history of the British industrial revolution. Tuesday evening –which saw the decision by Tata to close all of its steelworks in the UK, consigning the production of the metal to potential oblivion- either marks a new chapter or is a concluding footnote. Niall Ferguson once used the term Killer […]
Top Gear's Cenotaph apology proves just how much the show is missing Clarkson and his balls
It is open season for attacking the new series of Top Gear and the first shot has been fired. A former British military commander criticised one of the show’s hosts Matt LeBlanc and a professional driver who performed “doghnuts” near the Cenotaph in Whitehall during an interview with BBC Radio 5 live. Col Richard Kemp said […]
Top Gear Cenogaffe: A PR Monstrosity
No one seems to have gotten out of the Top Gear Cenotaph-gaffe unscathed. The presenters have been throttled into unreserved contrition. The BBC has been branded foolish for giving the go-ahead to the £100,000 stunt and Westminster council have been labelled naïve. The area’s commitment to low emissions also took a beating with the noxious […]