Mark My Words

Boris’s speech (or should I say standup routine?) trampled on convention, political correctness and expectation with reckless abandon at the Conservative Party conference this week. For most, cycling through a rolodex of staff party jokes would not be the immediate protocol for a major leadership convention. Boris, however, seems to take a page or two […]

Trump is coming back. Will he still rule social media? It’s easy to imagine that a populist without a platform is like a bull without horns—an aggressive but impotent force in a political landscape as attention-addled as our present one. Thus, some may have concluded that Trump—who has been permanently suspended from Twitter and temporarily banned […]

There’s an epic irony to the ‘Nirvana Baby’ suing the band for exploitation for using a photo of him at 4 months old on the cover of Nevermind.As many pointed out on Twitter, the fact that in the offending photo he is grasping for a dollar bill is eerily symbolic, but there’s another currency driving […]

Since its inception in 2001, the so-called ‘War on Terror’ has occasioned some memorable images from American leaders. But the most recent image to emerge—President Biden as a solitary figure, old, isolated, and presiding over the disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan, represents a new low for Presidential self-fashioning in the social media age. We are far […]

Idea porn happens when a group of people gather in a silo, usually a brainstorming situation, to develop a crowd-pleasing concept. This group gets so excited by the potential incarnation of an idea that their collective desire spirals into something almost sexual – a kind of orgasmic glee that overrides the reality of the potential […]

In the aftermath of England’s loss at the Euros, a wave of disappointment swept across the country. This was followed, distastefully, by acts of hooliganism that saw Leicester Square littered with broken glass bottles and witnessing unsightly acts of public indecency. Yet, what nobody had been prepared for was the shocking racism that reared its ugly […]

I’ve been thinking about Gareth Southgate and the quiet effectiveness of his leadership style.Our contemporary understanding of leadership is often formed through constant exposure to loud, colourful demagogues (Johnson, Musk, Trump. While it’s hard to deny the success of this style, it’s not the only one whose stock is rising.England men’s football team’s historic victory […]

We live in a world where a single, high-profile act can obliterate billions in a company’s value. Remember when Elon Musk smoked a joint on talk radio—Tesla’s shares fell by almost 10%. Ronaldo’s ‘Drink Water’ moment at the Euro cup shows just how much damage bad publicity can do.  Nonetheless, Ronaldo’s Coca-Cola snub is the most extreme […]

The post-match press conference has yielded as many iconic moments as it has sporting clichés: I’m thinking of Kevin Keegan’s infamous ‘I will love it’ rant, former Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson’s ‘ostrich’ tirade, and, further afield, Mike Tyson’s ‘I wanna eat your children’. With the press conference come a fair share of gaffes. One understands, then, Naomi […]

I found myself staying up late watching a profoundly depressing Question Time last night. What emerged, amid discussion of Boris’s cash-for-curtains deal with an anonymous private benefactor, was that the audience expects such behaviour from politicians and are much less scandalised by graft than one would think. People cheered as an audience member passionately defended […]

Furore among football fans this week as news leaked that 12 of the world’s biggest clubs were breaking away from the sport’s governing bodies to form a ‘European Super League’ (ESL).The revelation wasn’t so much announced as dropped like a ballistic missile and has, both operationally and in terms of potential fallout, been a disaster […]

It’s being described as ‘the worst IPO in London’s history’. What can we learn from Deliveroo’s historic flop? The public’s perception of their values played no small part in the poor performance.Sure, the money-men are blaming various details about the IPO process. Deliveroo’s advisers blamed short sellers for the plunge; others say Deliveroo priced its […]

From recent headlines and tweets, you’d think that Piers Morgan was over and done for. Sure, he’s baited controversy in the past, his critics say, but now he’s gone too far… The backlash he’s sparked means he will never float again. A man who has made an art of being cancelled in the traditional sense […]

Over here in the UK, the story of Meghan and Harry’s tell-all interview is all-consuming. Expectation has only intensified as it draws nearer. But what about in middle America, where people have already seen it?We circulated a survey which brought to light some interesting findings.We reached out to young people mostly in the middle of […]

Woke parents are applauding Hasbro’s announcement that it will create a gender neutral Mr Potato Head, simply called, Potato Head, as cultural conservatives everywhere are whining about the latest example of political correctness gone mad. Meanwhile, people are suddenly talking about a toy that, like so many Micronauts and Chatty Cathies, could easily have been […]

A look at the communications and reputation management rationale behind the major champagne deal confirms it as smart business for both parties:Today the news broke that French luxury giant LVMH has purchased 50% of Jay Z’s Armand de Brignac ‘Ace of Spades’ champagne. The deal has generated global business news headlines and has been applauded as […]

I love technobabble in space movies. One of my favourite scenes from Apollo 13 is when Tom Hanks recreates the infamous, ‘Houston, we have a problem’ moment, which I remember hearing on the radio as a child. What follows is a barrage of technical language and spaceship jargon that only an engineer at Space X […]

Captain Sir Tom Moore—whose fundraising efforts raised an incredible £33 million for the effort against COVID-19—has died at the venerable age of 100. Though his legacy is undisputed—he is a war hero whose optimism and lust for life inspired the nation—the story nonetheless has an ambivalent resonance, not least because Captain Tom’s legacy will be […]

In the past week, individual traders have shown that they too can use a tactic from the hedge funds’ arsenal, and put on the ‘short squeeze’—on Wall Street itself.But if this is going to be more than a story about David v. Goliath—the big, tech-savvy investment giants v. the sparky, individual traders of the internet—Wall […]

Pfizer just unveiled a new corporate identity, completing a lengthy process. Thousands participated in focus groups, hundreds of possible designs were considered, and multiple agencies and brand consultancies gave their ideas. The company wants to communicate that it’s no longer just a pill. The new design is meant to represent the new technology they offer, […]