Corbyn and the PewDiePie effect
“Once the press officer becomes the story, it is the end of the press officer.” This was the verdict of one of David Cameron’s inner circle on Andy Coulson. For Seamus Milne the knives were out from day one. Jeremy Corbyn’s new PR chief- branded “fascist” and “odious” on Twitter and treated as “a man […]
What our stunts say about us
Last week an eloquent appeal was made by Mark Perkins to all London PRs: stop floating things down the Thames. He reminds us (given how forgettable they all are) that this year our murky waterway has been invaded by an armada of houses, apocalyptic horsemen, lottery balls, melted ice caps- to name a few. In […]
Radically Dull
The commentariat are baffled by Jeremy Corbyn. He does the unthinkable of giving straight answers to hypothetical questions. He can be pictured with a large marrow and not look ridiculous. So infuriated was Eamonn Holmes by Corbyn’s lack of sartorial concern that the Sky presenter gave up on sentences and reverting to a state of […]
Dawn of the Red
In the early hours of Monday the undead corpse of old Labour was seen walking across Westminster Bridge. The zombie being harangued by a small cohort of junior journalists was the newly elected Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. Over the summer a virus known as Corbynmania spread through disaffected members of the public. Alarmist rumours of […]
“Potentially concerning”
Potentially Jeremy Corbyn could be Prime Minister and Donald Trump president. Potentially particles colliding in the science world’s answer to the circle line could inadvertently open up a world-consuming black hole. Potentially Katie Hopkins could someday make a good point. Everything is potential. When we are told, on the basis of a speculative connection between […]
The Queen is dead, long live the Queen – Who needs PR?
Rebekah Brooks is back. To use Robert Thompson’s words: “Rebekah will lead a great team at News UK into the digital future, while maximising the influence and reach of our newspapers, which remain the most informative and successful in Britain and beyond”…blah blah blah. Michael Wolff, the American author of a biography of Mr Murdoch […]
McFlop
The sea turns to blood. The sun scorches the earth. The seven seals open. The Whopper and the Big Mac unite. Such is the vision of cataclysmic world destruction prompted by this cynical invitation to McDonald’s to join forces with Burger King in aid of, erm, world peace day. The McWhopper advertisement ran in the […]
Moral Hazard
They haven’t won their four warm up games. They lost the community shield to their arch-rivals. And the start of the season was a less than spectacular draw with Swansea. Yet the only thing we’ve been talking about is José Mourinho’s spat with a doctor. In one word: result. In the week leading up to […]
Clubbed to death?
Why Millennials are no longer going to nightclubs. Mark gives his thoughts in today’s Independent
The Cumber-down
“I’m going to try my hardest not to scream the minute he walks on stage” revealed one of the many Benedict Cumberbatch superfans to a WSJ reporter at last night’s first performance of Hamlet. I’m sure the Gielgubitches said the same back in ’48. Despite the worries that a legion of hysterical Cumberfans would have […]
The meaning of Cecil
Cecil was not a lucky lion. First being named after the unreformed imperialist who invented the concentration camp; then to be slowly killed, skinned and decapitated; and finally, to become a meme of the moment and plundered worldwide –from stuffed toy makers to press offices groping for a current analogy. (See Patrick Kidd’s skewering of […]
Mudslinging on twitter
She is considered the most influential female rapper of all time. He is has less sheen than a dog-eared copy of The Ragged Trouser Philanthropists. But it turns out that Nicki Minaj and the Labour leader hopeful Jeremy Corbyn have one thing in common. Both have shown this week that twitter thrives on good old […]
Flacked Off
What do you get when you pack a room full of PR folk and journalists – with the former outnumbering the latter 4 to 1? The result is less a confident face-off and more a joint session in existential angst interspersed by the occasional bout of mutual backslapping. Such was ‘Hacks V Flacks’, an event […]
PR stunt hubris and the Paddy Factor
It’s night-time. Toxic plumes are being pumped out of industrial chimneys. An image of a crying child cuts through the smoke-smeared sky. Surreal, disturbing, it’s like a batman signal for help from a beleaguered mother earth. After this haunting spectre of aerial gas chambers a logo and web address appear. It is an advert for […]
So Farah, not so good Freuds
The agency faces a formidable challenge fighting the wildfire of speculation surrounding the Olympic athlete since a Panorama investigation was aired. Read the opening paragraphs of athlete Mo Farah’s Wikipedia page and you’ll be confronted bya roll call of records sufficient to fill the sports category of several Trivial Pursuit decks. But amid the distances […]
Cannes Lions – the sober reality
Sex and death. “Two things that come once in my lifetime,” quipped Woody Allen. At this year’s Cannes Lions both happened- and that was just on the Croisette. The fatal car accident involving a Google executive and Twitter’s gleeful smuttering over a couple caught eloping on the red carpet after one too many melon balls […]
Merlin, PR wizard
“You’ll forgive me if I’m not really focussing on the share price at the moment” said Nick Varney, shooting down Kay Burley’s ambulance chasing questioning. It is the Sky News interviewer, not the Merlin Entertainment CEO, who is now feeling the heat. More interrogation than interview, Burley’s aggressive approach has generated more than 1,000 complaints […]
Battered
Twin US and Swiss investigations. A fall out with UEFA‘s chief. Excoriating editorials. Calls to resign from Prince William to Rod Stewart. Major brands threatening to withdraw their sponsorship. But what really convinced Blatter to call time on his FIFA presidency? Last week it seemed like he’d managed to pull one over on America’s long-armed […]
Breaking the Internet
My thoughts in today’s Independent on how the brand of Vanity Fair and the Khardashians have the power to break the Internet
How does it look?
For Thomas Cook accepting responsibility was a last resort– but it will survive If tackling the greatest ecological catastrophe of recent times with golf balls failed to reassure the US public the pronouncement by BP’s aloof chief exec Tony Hayward that he wanted his life back is the definition of insult to injury. This moment […]