Queen Elizabeth is a canny one. She always picks the winning side.
Queen Elizabeth is a canny one. She always picks the winning side. She’s successfully backed Scottish Union twice. Her horses have won over 1,600 races. She came round to the Diana mania with grace and an Oscar via Dame Helen. Read more at http://www.prweek.com/article/1386638/will-suns-queen-backs-brexit-story-rock-eu-campaigns-pr-pros-give-views#V1hEULPfcxQaKbSO.99
Maria Sharapova's PR is perfect so far – now the hard work starts
She may be facing the biggest crisis of her career but Maria Sharapova gave a master-class in damage limitation when she announced she had failed a drugs test. For this story not to leak out beforehand is extraordinary in this era of innuendo, which shows the level of negotiating power that her management have. The […]
Cheryl and Liam's Instagram relationship makes a corporate merger look like a casual fling
In Hail, Caesar!, the latest zany yarn from the brothers Coen, a movie PR man called Eddie Mannix (played by Josh Brolin) attempts to divert attention away from a studio crisis by publicising the “secret romance” of two of his biggest stars. In the studio system of the early 50s this was normal – as a […]
What the hell is good publicity?
Oscar Wilde didn’t say all publicity is good publicity. It was another Irish cause célèbre Brendan Behan who coined the phrase (though he conceded that obituaries are best avoided). If this were true there would be no need for PR. Rather, Wilde wrote that not being talked about can be relatively worse than facing a […]
Super Bowl 50: from metonymic to moronic
Normally a potato-faced jock saying he fancies a bud is not worth much thought. But the Super Bowl isn’t normal. Peyton Manning, fresh from leading the Denver Broncos to victory over Carolina, told CBS he’s going to “drink a lot of Budweiser tonight.”With one seemingly impromptu slip –followed by a less impromptu-seeming second- Anheuser-Busch, his […]
He’s still standing, others have moved on
Elton John hit all the right headlines yesterday in time for the release of his new album ‘Wonderful Crazy night’. However with Sir Elton’s piano practice at St Pancras Station spontaneity seems to the be the hardest word. From the Guardian to the Evening Standard, the papers dutifully danced to the tune of a generic […]
#OscarsSoWhite: For Your Discrimination
Not a day goes by without someone new “weighing in” on the Oscars So White row. Yesterday it was Obama’s turn, today it’s mine. Say what you will about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but they know how to keep entertainment hacks busy. The diversity in opinions crowding for attention since the nominations […]
Blue Monday- sending out the right signals
It’s banal. It’s cynical. It lacks all credibility. Yet somehow Blue Monday has become an actual thing, a date that registers on our cultural calendar and even has its own Wikipedia page. This is the day, usually the third Monday in January that Psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall showed to be the most miserable day of […]
David Bowie – the reclusive master of self-promotion (The Drum)
It was this time three years ago when the release of a song sent shockwaves around the world, from Ibiza to the Norfolk broads. David Bowie marked his 66th birthday by giving his fans ‘Where are we now?’, a mysterious but somehow so familiar new single, his first in a decade… http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2016/01/11/david-bowie-reclusive-master-self-promotion
Lynton Crosby: a noble knight with a common PR touch
There is no worse PR for the establishment than to be seen to be awarding good PR, but Conservative campaign guru Lynton Crosby’s knighthood is a vindication of his world-class talents, writes Mark in PR Week. http://www.prweek.com/article/1377973/lynton-crosby-noble-knight-common-pr-touch
PR in 2015: The Trouble with Authenticity
In 2015 we all loved authenticity, right? The ‘New Politics’ engaged and enraged in equal measure. Cannes Lions was all about purposeful brands. FleishmanHillard launched a new product to help companies drive an authenticity agenda. Whether you’re a boutique dentist or selling bleach being human was at the centre of everyone’s comms strategy.For PR this has been […]
Parting Shots (The Drum)
As Sir Elton John and his publicist say their goodbyes, I ask if the role of PR is underrated. http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2015/12/18/parting-shots-sir-elton-john-and-his-publicist-say-their-goodbyes-role-pr
Donald Trump: The Dame of Panto Politics
Donald Trump is a festive panto that has gone on past its season. He struts from podium to studio with the self-sacrificing gall of a celeb foregoing Beverly Hills for a stint of Mother Goose at a dreary middle England theatre. With each of his bombastic interventions there’s always the sense that he’s disappointed we […]
What’s left of the propaganda powder keg?
In any move to war we get bludgeoned with the inevitable metaphors of motion. Whether it’s a strategic progression or headlong rush, a targeted advancement or mission creep, there is no turning back from the march of predictable language. Interestingly, in his seminal manual on how to hack our psyche’s mainframe Edward Bernays also captures […]
Mark My Words named PR blog of the year
Last week Mark My Words was awarded Vuelio’s PR and Marketing blog of the year. Thank you!
Little Red Lines
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This is how shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s whipping out of Mao’s Little Red Book went down in the Commons yesterday. Critics, on both sides of the house, have lambasted the former backbench romper stomper for quoting from a genocidal dictator. McDonnell argues this “flamboyant gesture” was required to […]
You can’t get better than a PR quickie
The formula for the Christmas Ad is out and even PRs are having a go. John Lewis’s Man on the Moon and Sainsbury’s Mog the Cat may have been beamed out into the national conversation courtesy of big budgets, social media overkill and appearing on platforms that still demand attention; but a bundle of Christmas-themed […]
TV Adverts
From the infuriatingly catchy to the plain bizarre Mark joins Adrian Chiles on Five Live to discuss the value of TV adverts- past and present. Alongside branding guru Robert Bean and Go Compare’s opera singer Wynne Evans Mark explores how, from Andrex to John Lewis, classic TV ads inject a brand into our cultural bloodstream. […]
A World without PR
In this month’s PR Week I ask what a World without PR would look like and basically imagine myself out of existence….. http://www.prweek.com/article/1371355/mark-borkowski-brave-new-world-without-pr
Dreaming of Christmas 2016
You could power much of the national grid on the hype that’s been fissioning on social media. We’ve been drip fed on teasers and speculation has been rife. It isn’t a new Star Wars or Bond. It’s November 2016 and we’re watching the latest John Lewis Christmas ad. Could it possibly top the previous year’s […]