The politics of chat
Dispatches Monday October 25, 2004 The Guardian What’s a poor publicist to do? When it comes to getting your clients on TV nowadays there are more chat shows than you can shake a remote at – currently over a dozen on terrestrial TV alone – but the five daily daytime slots are the hungriest. BBC […]
People power is winning the war against powerful corporate PR
The world may have gone off globalisation in a big way but more money is being poured into public relations than ever before on both sides of the Atlantic. So what is going on? Is this PR doing anyone any good? Or is it just face powder disguising the onset of decline? There is no […]
Words on David
What the professionals say about Beckham By Standard Sport 13 October 2004 THE PUBLICIST Mark Borkowski, public relations expert Beckham is now in a situation that whatever he does is perceived as a PR stunt. People simply do not trust him and he’s there with the royal family, in that whatever he does he cannot […]
Macdonald's debate
Question mark is hanging over McDonald’s Telegraph.co.uk – London,England,UK … “You’ve got to applaud them,” says Mark Borkowski, the public relations consultant. “It’s phenomenally bold. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/14/nmed114.xml
The worst job in the world?
�I�m sure some people think I have not got the brains to be that clever. But I do have the brains.� That�ll be the England football captain speaking, having just admitted that once he realised he�d broken a rib or two in Saturday�s game, he then deliberately fouled another player in order to secure a […]
My week so far
A surreal and bizarre week so far, kicking off with a kaleidoscopic Monday of laughter and tears. First to the Q Awards at the Grosvenor House, where half the Great and Good were gathered at a fantastic do. You�ve already heard about Sir Elton�s �f*****g� anti-Madge rave, but also present were U2, Elvis Costello, Mick […]
n.A.T.o. – a pop singer dressed as a suicide-bomber – causes outrage
A self-styled “suicide bomber” musician who sings in Arabic and performs in a full-length burqa is planning a “terror concert” in Britain. .. Mark Borkowski, a public relations adviser and the author of Improperganda – The Art of the Publicity Stunt, called Mr Shapovalov “a ruthless promoter”. … http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/03/wnato03.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/03/ixworld.html
Spinning sugar
Spinwatch brings our attention to the following campaign “The Oldways Preservation Trust, which earlier this year held a conference in Italy to promote pasta, is organizing another journalists’ confab, this time to discuss the virtues of sugar,” PR Week reports. “The trust … has secured the Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness, a Coca-Cola affiliated […]
Gordon Blue
Good chat with Lynne Franks yesterday on what used to be GLR but is now called BBC London. At one point the producer nipped in to tick Lynne off for using ‘bloody’, which I found quaint. Apparently ‘crap’ is fine on the BBC, but ‘bloody’ starts the phones ringing. They were glad I wasn’t Gordon […]
BAD NEWS
The eerie, blurred video images of the hostage Kenneth Bigley, pleading for his life with the odds so stacked against him, are working hard demoralising us in every living room in the land. The poor man may well suspect that he’s an unwitting pawn in someone else’s publicity stunt, but he probably won’t see the […]
AND THE WINNER IS…
Just back from helping judge the Grierson Awards for documentary film making. They’re named after the great John ‘Night Mail’ Grierson (1898-1972), but that’s all I’m allowed to tell you. I can’t tell you what we judged, what won, what lost, who the other judges are or where we did the judging. A quick glance […]
DEUCE OF AN EVENING
Pleasant crowd of sporty types gathered in the Groucho the other night for some serious old fashioned stiffening on champagne and tequila before putting themselves through the Wimbledon premier – Angus Deayton, Tony Hawks, Aldo Zilli, Chris Evans, Anabelle Croft (as expert witness?) and Penny Smith from GMTV. Are they all tennis fans? Guess so. […]
STUNTMANIA…
…Rules OK? From Batman to the Sun Bomber to Otis Ferry & the Chambermen, the newspapers are now gorging themselves on Stunt. This is the outcome of what must have been a feast of secret planning over what the rest of us thought was just the Silly Season. The invasion of the House of Commons, […]
CAN'T BUY ME LOVE
Tucked away in PR week is a sad little paragraph about Geoff Baker getting the sack from Sir Paul McCartney’s organisation MPL. The two have parted company after a solid association lasting 15 years, and as of now Baker is unemployed. ‘His behaviour has not reached the professional standards I had come to expect from […]
Command and control
The snap that came with a catch Mark Borkowski, a veteran publicist, said that it is now “the norm” for exclusive pictures to be released to the media with stipulations about how they are to be used. If the Royal Family is embracing the ways of celebrity PR, he is only surprised that it hasn’t […]
Batman
The history of direct action is a proud one, taking in the likes of Peter Tatchell, Greenpeace and Swampy. Many feature very brave individuals � think of those campaigners on their tiny inflatable boat heading out to tackle a huge tanker or whaler. And it does work. The bottom line is that here we are, […]
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
There was an old fashioned feeling to the Groucho last night, in which diminutive terpsichordist Wayne Sleep and Mexican-speaking beardo Rory McGrath very nearly came to blow, blows sorry. ‘I wouldn’t put my **** anywhere near your mouth’ shouted David at Goliath. How very nostalgic. And Gordon Ramsey was in the brasserie so the food […]
What's so funny?
What’s so funny? Mario Testino’s 20th-birthday portrait of Prince Harry with his brother and father shows the three royals sharing a joke. But is that all that’s going on? We ask the experts for their analysis Mark Borkowski PR expert Prince Harry’s official 20th-birthday photograph is the tried-and-tested, safe PR route favoured by the royal […]
‘This Morning’ this morning.
‘This Morning’ this morning. Invited on to ‘This Morning’ with the smart n savvy Lorraine Kelly and Philip Schofield. ‘All Human Life Is There’ the News of the World used to emblazon across its masthead. Well, Rupert Murdoch’s editors may have lowered their sights, but not the ITV pantechnicon that is This Morning. There’s more […]