The Tory in Shoreditch Clothing
Pondering the 1980s Stewart Lee observed that culture itself seemed to hate Thatcher. Musicians hated Thatcher. Comedians hated Thatcher. Writers hated Thatcher. There were even aliens from the future in 2000AD comic strips who hated Thatcher. And yet she still managed to get elected. Three times. On May 8th the left were again confronted by […]
What just happened?
If tweets were votes, Miliband would be installing his 8 ft monolith into the Rose Garden this afternoon. Even as they were haemorrhaging seats in Scotland, Labour were adding followers on twitter and making friends on facebook. In the last two weeks Miliband was averaging almost 2,000 new fans per day. His (over-)hyped interview with […]
Don’t throw the burger out with the gherkin
As seen on The Guardian Who said juggernaut brands can’t self-reflex their muscles? On Wednesday McDonald’s supersized on nostalgia with the re-launch of the Hamburglar. It went viral. Twitter exploded with shares comparing the new fast food bandit to celebrities ranging from wrestlers to politicians. A far cry from the cheeky childish earlier incarnation –last […]
The writings on the wall
The more metaphors that are pinned to Labour’s 8ft pledge slab the more the original meaning of the limestone monolith has sunk into the bog of Baldrick ideas. The only positive that can be spun out of Ed’s stone is that it marks a rare moment of consensus across the political divide: on the right […]
Spinning hearts and minds: The triumph of PR
Last night Question Time dissolved its usual audience of flustered halfwits and elected another to give Cameron, Miliband and Clegg a proper grilling. As the Guardian’s Owen Jones tweeted this was set up to make the politicians “fear the people”. For what felt like the first time in the election, the slick, tinted-windowed campaign machines […]
The Marmite Pret-a-meter
It was only meant to be a retail report at the backend of the Tuesday Standard. But when Pret A Manger CEO Clive Schlee let slip that he has given his baristas the power to hand out free drinks or food to customers the interview became one of the paper’s most read stories. Over the […]
Being Human
There is sure to be an intern at CCHQ whose Camfandom idea didn’t get much of a hearing at the Monday morning hangout. When the #Cameronettes did begin to trend on the coattails of the milifans it had as much organic credibility as a cheese string. It doesn’t matter whether the origin of this blue […]
Red Ed, Dull Dave and substance of personality
Ed Miliband doesn’t do “photo-op politics”; he stands for ideas and substance against the soundbites and style of the Tory brand. That combatting style in politics is its own kind of political style is nothing new. Remember Saatchi & Saatchi’s attempt to turn the former PM’s dour persona into an ironic vote winner, “Not flash, […]
Selfie Politics
5 years ago he was, according to The Sunday Times, “more popular than Churchill” and the other was cleaning fish guts off the floor of Billingsgate Market. The Nick Clegg-Joey Essex selfie shows us how far these posers have come and how far our politics hasn’t. 2010’s Cleggomania came on the back of those ‘historic’ […]
The Grand National 2015: Don't airbrush Ladies Day
The boss of Aintree has called for “negative” photographs of Ladies Day at the Grand National to be banned. But isn’t getting dressed up, drinking too much and having fun part of the appeal? I spoke to Harry Wallop at the Daily Telegraph about this topic.
Lufthansa's crisis communications approach to Germanwings disaster
I would expect Lufthansa one of the largest airlines in Europe, both in terms of overall passengers carried and fleet size, to have invested in a substantial crisis provision. Sadly, for all corporations, things will go wrong in any given situation, we know this as Murphy’s Law. A multimillion pound crisis business has been built […]
Is anyone the winner?
So there are two questions in light of Clarkson being ‘sacked’. 1. Can the BBC win back the fans whilst reinventing a format for Top Gear without the key constituencies at the heart of the show. Is there a creative genius still throbbing inside the BBC to triumph with a new show and gather a […]
Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC: the corporation's latest comms crisis
Remember this new word: ‘voyeurgasm’ – translated as the joy of watching a media storm meltdown on all channels. Crisis and Clarkson fit hand in glove. He is a man resolutely himself, much loved and widely loathed. So, let’s mutter the unsayable – it will be a sad day when Clarkson packs away his webbed […]
The world now spins a story
Yesterday we got the news that Starbucks is to back a social storytelling start up. Of course. Today storytelling is colonising every aspect of business, taking precedence in the order of things. It’s not hard to see why stories are so powerful. Borkowski was built on the premise of stories and we have been telling […]
And it wasn't even raining!
Remember last year at the Oscars? “No, it wasn’t a marketing stunt”, said Samsung, who may have paid a reported £12m for its advertising “integration” but the company, it insisted, was every bit as astonished as everyone else when host Ellen De Generes’s star-studded selfie, taken during the broadcast on a Samsung smartphone, became the […]
We Must Not Help to Advance the ISIS Agenda
ISIS craves prominent news coverage, and they crave momentum behind their desire to spread terror. This week their heinous images spread quickly online – propaganda meant to both shock the West and recruit new devotees. It raised a sensitive issue for news outlets again. Should they show the images, after all just one click away […]
Leadership doesn’t come with a promise…
“Problems cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need people who can dream of things that never were.” – John Keats One thing is for sure, those with a true purpose don’t follow the rules! Nobody who had the honour of listening to Ben Saunders […]
Prince Andrew and the cold hard facts
As stories go, it’s a good one! Prince Andrew, underage sex, plus a reputation and questionable judgement already in question now under further scrutiny. This is the age of perceptions. Reputation is driven by what we feel and not by the cold, hard facts. Without a rock-solid purpose for yourself, being a spare is a […]
The ongoing UBER PR trip
You can say what you like about Uber, but when it comes to a value added experience to drive loyalty to their brand they are in the driver’s seat. In Uber’s first coordinated, multi-city event, film studio 20th Century Fox is giving users of the ride-sharing service a chance to win exclusive passes to an […]
The Ugly Side of the Beautiful Game: Why is football so bad at PR?
My thoughts from The Drum earlier this week on why football is so bad at PR. The Ched Evans #fail juggernaut rumbles on. This negative fallout reframes football, sucking the hapless into its black hole. The whole affair suggests there is something rotten at the heart of the enterprise. Sadly, the idiot Evans’ hubristic soap […]