‘Twerking’ by any other name… Presenting: the most famous star the world has ever seen. Again!
The marketing and exploitation of the female image as part of the fame trajectory – for good or for evil – has a very long tradition. I first encountered the detail of helpless blind-ambition of fame-hungry starlets, whilst researching my book the Fame Formula. The manipulative craft of the publicist can be detected in the […]
Supernatural PR: fear that fans can love
If you’ve been anywhere near a newsfeed this week, you’ll have seen the clever “coffee shop surprise” viral ad for the remake of 70’s horror flick Carrie. The short video (it’s here if you’ve managed to miss it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlOxlSOr3_M) is set in a New York coffee shop, modified by some special effects pixies so that […]
Daily Mail’s magic trick: former half-human Red Ed, now fully formed
So the Mail/Miliband hoo ha drags on – as I write this an argument already played out a hundred times on twitter is being hashed out afresh on Question Time. I don’t want to contribute to either side of the moral debate, but I do want to make an observation. For once, the Mail, the […]
There is nothing more dismal than a fact
I like a good story as much as anyone, and I can’t claim to always be obsessive in my pursuit of the truth, but coverage of the so-called ‘White Widow’ Samantha Lewthwaite on Friday and over the weekend has put the British media to shame. Unsubstantiated claims that she was linked to the Westgate Mall […]
GTA V Launch: A PR Cultural Milestone
Hats off at Borkowski towers to the pixies behind the GTA V launch, one of the most staggering, captivating launches I’ve laid eyes on for years. The game has shifted £500m worth of units in 24 hours, and analysts are putting good money on its hitting a billion within the year. The petty crime ‘em […]
Ketchum PR
Following recent reports into Ketchum PR’s involvement with Russia, we thought we would take a deeper look into how the PR giant works its magic worldwide. This is not the first time that the PR behemoth has struck controversy, yet they continue to go from strength to strength. What is their secret? First and foremost, […]
Kitkat Kerplunk: Going beyond Google and Evil.
News of Google and Nestle’s KitKat/Android partnership has been met with a wealth of delighted puns in the tech community, but brand managers and business writers have been left with a bitter aftertaste in their mouths at the announcement of this unusual pairing. Though the press release has been widely parroted, and for the most […]
Conquest without contribution: sport now second to scandal and salary
Another late summer morning, another punning sport scandal headline graces the front page of the Sun. ‘L.Pee.W’ screamed the red top from Newstands across the country, as news broke that England’s victorious Cricket squad had celebrated their triumph with not so much a sticky wicket as a wet one. This would have been a big […]
Here’s to the crazy ones: Brin’s burger a sign of wilder times?
Last week, the first ever synthetic beef hamburger was served to a panel of experts. It was a Promethean feat of human ingenuity, involving weeks of intensive lab work, hand weaving of microscopic fibres, and the expenditure of a cool £215,000. Despite all this, however, the achievements of Dr Mark Post and his team pale […]
Narrative by numbers: The production line of storytelling
I recently came across a post on PR Newswire’s blog (http://blog.prnewswire.com/2013/08/01/using-storytelling-to-drive-business-goals/) informing me of all the ways I could use storytelling to drive my business goals. Like the narrator of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, who finds himself cast back in time upon consumption of a madeline, I was sent rocketing back to […]
Plato, pressure and the death of PR stunts
Activists scaled The Shard and the Home Office brazenly paraded their views on strategically driven ad vans. Has the PR stunt died a somewhat tepid death? In a CommsChat twitter conversation, Mark Borkowski discusses bullish lobbying, the art of EQ & the importance of play via Plato.
All That Twitters Is Not Gold: The Challenge of Taming the Social Herd
This week, the British media’s obsession with Twitter reached a new zenith. Unfortunately for the social network, however, this was no love in. Instead, after feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez drew attention to vicious slurs and threats made to her via the site at the end of last week, commentators have been up in arms, arguing […]
Jurassic Ad Men: a marriage of equals or the last of a dying breed?
This week, the business and media commentariat have talked of little but the upcoming merger of Omnicom and Publicis, the second and third largest advertising groups in the world, respectively. As befits a venture which involves hundreds of the world’s most glamourous admen and women, the accompanying spin is so utopian as to be dazzling. […]
iBaby: Clarence House's latest must have toy
Photo Credit: Andre Camara So there we have it; the conclusion of the greatest product launch campaign Britain has ever seen. No, Apple didn’t bring out the iWatch while you weren’t looking. I’m talking about the latest release from modish mass market lifestyle brand Clarence House. In order to promote the latest instalment in […]
Lobbying washes whiter
When, in 2010, David Cameron described commercial Lobbying as the “next big scandal” in British politics, he drew attention to a strange truth. The work of the commercial lobbyist has all the necessary triggers for popular British outrage, not least because it’s conducted by a tightly networked elite behind closed doors. Despite this, the public […]
Greenpeace vs The Shard: Unleashing the Heat of the Arctic Campaign
Last week, six members of Greenpeace ascended their way into the history books during fifteen hours of sheer sweat, muscle and no doubt emotion, as they scaled The Shard to draw attention to Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic. It was a bold, inspiring, beautiful action, that did the thing that all […]
Andy Murray: a modern hero in an old fashioned mould
As Britain hails a new hero in the shape of Wimbledon great Andy Murray, it’s natural to wonder what impact his victory will have on him from a PR point of view. The genius of Simon Fuller and his team at XIX Entertainment, managers of the tennis star, is that they are building a brand […]
Celebrity Whistleblowers: A New Breed of Fame Junkie?
“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” So said Benjamin Franklin, a man who knew a thing or two about the activities of the state and its miscontents. He recognised the haste with which word spreads once a secret gets out, particularly when the information contained is shocking or surprising – […]
Smart Ways to Advertise
A railway safety advert that’s been tunefully taking Australia by storm has penetrated the international conscious after winning the ‘biggie’ of the advertising world: the Cannes Lions Grand Prix. The ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ ad is beautifully simple and has all the hallmarks of a great, modern campaign. It’s funny, it’s catchy, it appeals to […]
The Starcom Invasion of the Twittersphere
There was a news break from the FT on Monday which reported “Starcom Mediavest Group has signed a huge advertising deal with Twitter” representing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue over multiple years for the tech company. Wisely, Twitter and Starcom declined to discuss the financial details of the agreement. According to the FT, […]