Mark’s comments in The Daily Mail – the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
Daily Mail
The duchess is following in the footsteps of other celebrities with the appearance – other keynote speakers have previously included former first lady Michelle Obama.
In 2020, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex joined New York-based Harry Walker Agency, which represents the Obamas and the Clintons.
PR expert Mark Borkowski told The Sun the pair will ‘clean up’. They plan to be available for talks on social issues including racial justice, gender equality, the environment and mental health, according to the LA Times.
‘I’m surprised they haven’t done this sooner. It will be one of the great income generators for them. The speaker’s circuit is a natural safe space for them to plunder,’ he added.
[Full article – link below]
the Palace plan to sideline Harry and Andrew, writes ROBERT HARDMAN | Daily Mail Online
Liz prepares for life after No10: Truss steps out in shades amid row over her £115k-a-year ‘golden goodbye’ – but experts say she is unlikely to ‘make millions’ with a book deal or on after-dinner circuit
MailOnline
A casual-looking Liz Truss headed to Chequers in black Ray-Ban sunglasses today as one of the UK’s leading brand experts predicted her earning power when she leaves No 10 will be far worse than her predecessors because her 44 days as Prime Minister were a ‘gigantic car crash she has engineered’.
The outgoing Tory leader is off to the PM’s country home with her husband Hugh O’Leary for her last weekend in power as the row over her proposed £19,000 payoff plus an allowance of up to £115,000-a-year for life rumbles on.
As she prepares for life after No 10, PR guru Mark Borkowski predicted she will not make millions because she is already a byword for ‘failure’ not helped by her ‘lacking personality’ and being a ‘poor communicator’. Reality TV, toe-curling adverts or being a panto villain are now her best options to make cash, he said.
He said: ‘This is a gigantic car crash which she has engineered. She cannot make millions after this mess’.
Ten days ago Boris Johnson, who personal wealth was hit by divorce in 2020, earned a reported $150,000 for a short speech in the US. He is expected to earn £3million-a-year from book deals and events and has just bought a mansion in South London for a seven-figure sum.
Tony Blair, Britain’s richest former PM, is estimated to be worth £100million, with Theresa May reportedly charging £110,000-a-speech taking her personal wealth to £10million. Gordon Brown is said to be worth £15million and David Cameron £38million, bolstered by the fortune of his independently wealthy wife Samantha.
But Mr Borkowski told MailOnline today that Liz Truss will not make millions from lucrative book deals, speaking tours and business lunches like her predecessors.
A career in reality TV or lectures and literature on ‘lessons of failure’ are the most likely routes available to Britain’s shortest serving Prime Minister in history. Advertising products while lampooning her own disastrous premiership would also be on the table.
‘I believe as time passes we might see Truss as a personality popping up in surprising places. But what is her brand? I’m sure she’d be a booking for I’m A Celeb. There is always pantomime’, Mr Borkowski said.
‘The issue is she lacks personality. She is poor communicator. Sadly the failure stats are not in her favour. However reinvention could come by some surprising channels. I could see a quirky ad campaign. She might have the stuff for self-deprecation – only time will tell. There are huge lessons in failure more potent than success which she could leverage’.
[continued…]Meghan’s Latest Podcast Backlash Hints at Way She Could Boost Her Show
Newsweek
Meghan Markle’s Archetypes podcast can be “very negative” and would benefit from “balancing the narrative,” a public relations expert told Newsweek.
On the latest episode of her Spotify show, the Duchess of Sussex described feeling “objectified” when she was a briefcase girl on the game show Deal or No Deal from 2006 to 2007. The episode, titled “Breaking Down the Bimbo,” included an interview with Paris Hilton.
In response, actress Claudia Jordan, who performed the same role on Deal, posted an Instagram story presenting an alternative perspective, although she characterized herself as someone who generally defends Markle against public vitriol.
The saga left Roz Sheldon, managing partner of U.K.-based PR firm Igniyte, feeling that Markle could have included another viewpoint on the podcast, she said.
Sheldon told Newsweek: “The podcast is very negative. If they’d had Claudia Jordan there as well, it would have been quite interesting. It’s about balancing the narrative.”
Markle on the Bimbo Trope and Deal or No Deal
Markle told Archetypes that she was told to “suck it in” by the woman running the show and that the briefcase girls were given spray tan vouchers.
She said, “I ended up quitting the show. Like I said, I was thankful for the job but not for how it made me feel, which was not smart.
She continued: “And by the way, I was surrounded by smart women on that stage with me, but that wasn’t the focus of why we were there, and I would end up leaving with this pit in my stomach, knowing that I was so much more than what was being objectified on the stage.
“I didn’t like feeling forced to be all looks and little substance. And that’s how it felt for me at the time, being reduced to this specific archetype,” she said.
Later in the episode, she spoke more generally about the bimbo stereotype outside her experience on the game show. “When I hear the word bimbo, I have a very negative connotation to it.
“I don’t see that as an aspirational thing for a woman. I want our daughters to aspire to be…I want my Lily to want to be educated and want to be smart and to pride herself on those things,” she said.
What Jordan Said About Markle, Deal or No Deal
In her Instagram Stories post, Jordan wrote: “For clarity—yes getting a modelling gig on a game show isn’t necessarily about your intellect, but every show the executive producers picked five models with the most outgoing and fun personalities to place mics on, who they knew would engage with the contestants.
“And Deal or No Deal never treated us like bimbos. We got so many opportunities because of that show,” Jordan said.
The former Real Housewives of Atlanta star continued: “It was a step on the ladder I’ve been ascending on for 25 years that paid all my bills, put me in front of 13 million people a night, and led to me getting on Celebrity Apprentice, Celebrity Apprentice All Stars, a breast cancer awareness campaign, guest hosting Extra, getting into People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful issue, and so much more.”
Jordan was careful to point out she is not generally against Markle, who suggested in 2020 that she had been the most trolled person in the world in 2019.
She wrote: “Lord knows I’ve been defending this woman in the media for years. And I still will, but I just didn’t want any misunderstanding about the climate and environment on the Deal or No Deal set.”
How Media Backlash Could Affect Markle’s Podcast
Sheldon said that she believed Markle had good intentions with her podcast but that Archetypes lacked a balancing voice to present the other side of the story.
In the case of the podcast’s latest episode, she said, many women would agree with Jordan on doing the game show.
Sheldon said: “I think actually a lot of women would think it was smart. They saw an opportunity and made the most of it. So there is another view which Claudia Jordan is obviously expressing.
“There’s two sides to the story, so you’re always going to get that alternative or backlash. Looking at the podcast topics, they tend to push the negative themes to some extent.
“From a reputation point of view, we’d probably say potentially balancing it out a little bit, maybe bringing in some of the positives a little bit. It’s backed by [a] charity, so the intentions are good,” Sheldon said.
Whether Markle takes Sheldon’s advice or not, it’s likely she will continue to face criticism from segments of the media.
Mark Borkowski, a PR consultant and author of Improperganda, told Newsweek: “The history of mainstream media when it comes to female members of the royal family—and it started with Princess Margaret and it moved through the gears to Diana, to Fergie and even Kate Middleton at the time when she was courting and now through to Meghan—is pretty misogynistic.”
He continued: “They’ve always recognized that glamorous women at the center of the royal family are box office. Diana proved that, and so did Fergie to a certain extent.
“For the MailOnline, it is a clickbait mechanism. It’s a global site that needs eyeballs and stories that capture their market from India to Brazil through to North America.
“For anybody who is in the spotlight, there’s an old Hollywood expression: ‘If God wants to curse you, he makes you famous,'” Borkowski said.
Meghan’s Latest Podcast Backlash Hints at Way She Could Boost Her Show (newsweek.com)
Why ‘non-dom’ status might not be worth it for UHNWs
Spear’s
The debate on how to balance the country’s books dominated the latter stages of the recent Tory leadership race – but it was April’s front-page revelations about the ‘non-dom’ status of Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, that some believe scuppered the chances of the former frontrunner. Luke Tryl, director of research agency More in Common, told the Times that revelations around Murty’s tax affairs had ‘crystallised’ Sunak’s popularity dive.
When her tax status hit the front pages, Murty quickly changed tack and agreed to pay UK tax on her foreign earnings – which included dividend payments from India-based tech company Infosys, founded by her father. But that may have been closing the stable door after the horse had bolted.
Others in the public eye have faced similar challenges regarding perceptions of their tax affairs. Alan Sugar faced calls to clarify his UK residency status in the summer after he was paid a £390 million dividend from his holding company. Nadhim Zahawi came under pressure concerning his tax affairs and the origins of £26 million of loans which were reportedly used to purchase properties across the UK.
Top tax advisers are in no doubt about the calculus that faces successful people in the public eye. ‘I just feel dreadfully sorry for Mrs Sunak – she hasn’t done anything wrong in tax terms’, Wedlake Bell’s Camilla Wallace tells Spear’s.
‘They should have had advisers around them saying, “Look, of course you can claim the remittance basis legally, it’s your right. But actually, if this gets out in the press, how would you feel?” They should have said that immediately when he became chancellor: “How would you feel if your wife’s non-dom status was on the front page of the Daily Mail?”’
‘I wouldn’t have said they handled it particularly well,’ says Mark Davies, who specialises in advising UHNWs on complex tax structures. ‘I think attitudes, the public’s attitude towards tax avoidance, has changed.’ Davies, who founded his own tax advisory firm, Mark Davies & Associates, says that questions over fairness around what the wealthy pay are now frequently brought up in the media. ‘It ended up with Mrs Sunak being sort of bullied into saying that she’s going to give up claiming a perfectly legal tax relief.’
Mark Bridges, who splits his time as a peer and as a specialist on trusts and succession at Farrer & Co, says that although Murty was ‘100 per cent entitled’ to her non-dom status, ‘she did absolutely the right thing to abandon it’. The nature of political scandal has changed, he says: ‘You go back to the bad old days – it wasn’t tax, it was sex. Any time they were caught doing something they shouldn’t with somebody they shouldn’t, they had to resign – that’s all changed.’ Bridges says that as the private lives of politicians have become a ‘non-issue’, the focus has turned ‘towards their tax compliance.’
PR legend and crisis management guru Mark Borkowski believes UHNWs are facing more scrutiny than ever, given cost-of-living challenges and a wider polarisation in society. ‘If you’re a high-net-worth individual… who’s decided to choose whatever vehicle they have to pay less tax, that doesn’t ring well when people are heating up their baked beans under a candle,’ he says. ‘And if you’re an individual in the public eye, you are rapidly going to be a bigger target than ever, because we’re going into a very profound age of have and have-nots.’
Bridges says the rules around non-doms have changed ‘very fundamentally’ and ‘with that, there’s been a public perception perhaps that there’s something funny, fishy’.Still, Borkowski believes that ‘from a PR perspective, without being too obvious’, UHNWs can ‘leverage’ their positive contributions to society. Non-doms contribute relatively highly to the UK coffers, Davies notes. ‘The average non-dom [is] paying something like £80,000 towards tax… And that’s roughly 25 times the average amount that the British taxpayer pays.’
While the public may forgive certain mistakes, Borkowski says: ‘What they won’t forgive is deliberate obfuscation and a continual narrative where the person doesn’t seem to be changing or hasn’t tried to.’ He reminds clients to take ownership of missteps. ‘Never blame, take total responsibility for your affairs. That’s the key thing. Do not hide behind someone, and do not blame your accountant or your private wealth adviser or whatever. You are in control.’
Meanwhile, Davies says UHNWs should steer well clear of overly complex arrangements that might draw suspicion down the line. A good rule of thumb, he says, is: ‘If you cannot understand it, you probably shouldn’t do it.’ For Bridges, clients should ‘keep well away from what I would call “clever-dick tax schemes”. Keep it simple, and don’t try to push the boundaries on this year’s clever scheme.’
Why ‘non-dom’ status might not be worth it for UHNWs – Spear’s Magazine (spearswms.com)
Mark’s post on Channel4
Mark’s post on LinkedIn
To those outside the UK bubble, Channel 4 might seem like a bit of an oddity. Established as a public broadcaster that platforms voices underrepresented by the more establishment BBC, it has evolved into an eccentric mix of respected hard news, edgy and critically lauded comedy and drama, and the most inconsequentially silly reality and light-entertainment Alan Partridge ever deleted from his Dictaphone.
This week Channel4 has dominated headlines by focusing on the latter element of its output and seizing the initiative from ITV and Channel 5 as the silliest billy in UK television by announcing a series of shows that also function perfectly as publicity stunts.
The first was a show in which an audience decides (presumably with some kind of debate format) whether Jimmy Carr should destroy a painting by Adolf Hitler (and then other subsequent controversial artworks) live on air. The title, the format and everything about the show is the kind of clickbait that feels like it was generated by a pop culture AI Bot and that’s exactly what the media and social networks picked up on, what will probably attract a decent amount of viewers (for the first 10 mins of the first episode at any rate) and, more importantly, reignite the channel’s reputation for anarchic experimentalism that pushes the boundaries of taste.
Then came the announcement that every PR, Marketing and Advertising company’s favourite example of a TikTok-er to use in a pitch (2020-present), Mr Francis Bourgeois, has shaken off his cancellation for failing to support the RMT strikes and landed a celebrity trainspotting show with Channel 4. Depending on whether C4 have missed his peak popularity and how Bourgeois fairs as a presenter, this could grow into the kind of mindless, feel-good candyfloss telly that lasts and connects the ol’ dog of a channel with that illusive younger audience.
Royal Family puts Martin Bashir interview aside to embrace BBC and social media, but told to be wary of TikTok
iNews
For Radio 1’s teenage listeners, the Newsbeat reporters introduced as William and Kate might have sounded a little plummier than the bulletin’s regular contributors.
But the Prince and Princess of Wales’s message that mental health must move up the nation’s priority list resonated with the pop station’s audience and marked a new evolution in the couple’s engagement with the media.
The Queen’s death has given the core Royal Family members an opportunity to “reset” relations with a voracious media and explore new methods of communicating directly with the wider public, insiders say.
King Charles is enjoying a honeymoon period with newspapers which once ridiculed his environmental passions, aided by the Queen Consort’s down-to-earth style and, some say, an unpopular new Prime Minister soaking up public discontent.
Old enmities are being set aside under the media “reset”. Prince William gave the BBC a lashing over the deceptions employed by Martin Bashir to win the confidence of his mother, Diana, and demanded that the notorious Panorama interview never be shown again.
But the new Prince of Wales’s team still want to harness the power and reach of the national broadcaster.
The Newsbeat “takeover”, which followed an earlier BBC documentary in which William urged men to open up about their mental health, was considered a success. The BBC eagerly signed up as William’s partner for his Earthshot climate crisis challenge.
Although recorded before his accession to the throne, King Charles’s starring role in The Repair Show this month, where he will celebrate heritage craft skills on one of the BBC’s most popular programmes, is a perfect fit for Buckingham Palace.
Social media, a novelty for the royals when the Queen posted her first tweet in 2014, is now a central element in their communications strategy. The late monarch herself was no slouch when it came to technology, conducting meetings by Zoom during Covid and later when she was no longer well enough to attend in person.
The then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge indicated a push to boost their social media presence over the summer, when they advertised for a full-time “digital lead” based at Kensington Palace.
An expert in YouTube and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) engagement was sought to lead the “overall strategy and management of The Duke and Duchess’ official social media channels; driving compelling, creative and strategic social media content to communicate Their Royal Highnesses’ work to a wide range of audiences”.
The strategy is being coordinated by Lee Thompson, a global communications whizz hired from US media giant NBC, where he was credited with helping grow CNBC’s YouTube audience by 600 per cent, as the Cambridge’s new PR chief.
“They’ve brought in good advisers,” said Mark Borkowski, a PR expert. “The royals are in a battle to stay relevant so they have to use social media.”
“During the Queen’s reign, the royals stuck to the traditional media they knew. Social media allows the next generation to create content they can control through their own channels. But it has to look authentic not generic,” Borkowski said.
It can look as if William and Kate are “playing catch up” with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the media management guru said. “When Harry talks about mental health, he makes it sound very personal.”
Unlike his brother, William made an oblique reference to the death of his mother and focused on the wider public policy response when he spoke on Newsbeat.
Although they remain estranged, Harry and Meghan provided the impetus for the Cambridges’ revitalised media strategy.
Royal expert Katie Nicholl revealed in her book, The New Royals, that Meghan Markle’s “honed skills” and presentational polish at a 2018 event appearance by the one-time “Fab Four” was key in making Prince William and Kate realise they needed to “up their game”.
Kensington Palace purred when a clip of the Princess of Wales speaking to new mothers during a visit to Royal Surrey County Hospital went viral. Interrupted by a child’s coughing fit, Kate scrunched her nose and asked soothingly if the toddler was ok. The spontaneous moment was called “lovely” on Twitter.
William, who called on social media companies to ensure that vulnerable individuals are protected after the Molly Russell inquest verdict, is aware that the couple’s own children will grow up as digital natives in an online world demanding constant self-promotion.
Could Princess Charlotte use TikTok to share her daily news? “You would have concerns over the Royal Family getting too involved with a Chinese-owned company and the level of control it might want,” Borkowski warned.
There are limits to the Royal Family’s dance with popular media. “The media operation is a lot more sophisticated than it was 60 years ago. The move forward is by adapting to their mistakes and learning from failures,” Borkowski said.
“But I wouldn’t want to see King Charles chatting on The One Show.”
My thoughts on the Royal Family’s renewal of their communication strategy.
Mark’s LinkedIn post
Royals embrace BBC and social media in fresh communications strategy, but are warned off TikTok https://lnkd.in/e2HDsxqc
The strategy is being coordinated by Lee Thompson, a global communications whizz hired from US media giant NBC, where he was credited with helping grow CNBC’s YouTube audience by 600 per cent, as the Cambridge’s new PR chief.
“They’ve brought in good advisers,” said Mark Borkowski, a PR expert. “The royals are in a battle to stay relevant so they have to use social media.”
“During the Queen’s reign, the royals stuck to the traditional media they knew. Social media allows the next generation to create content they can control through their own channels. But it has to look authentic not generic,” Borkowski said.
TV’s toughest show or are the celeb contestants not tough enough? Experts says showbiz SAS: Who Dares Wins recruits might underestimate how gruelling show is after SIX ‘were forced to drop out’
Daily Mail Online
PR experts have said that the celebrities taking part in SAS: Who Dares Wins might be underestimating just how gruelling the show is after a spate of contestants including rugby player Gareth Thomas, Towie star James Argent and The Wanted‘s frontman Siva Kaneswaran were all reportedly forced to pull out of the reality quasi-military training show on medical grounds.
The fifth series, which is currently being filmed in Thailand and due to be broadcast in the UK next year, is thought to have been plunged into chaos after six stars quit with serious injuries.
Three of the famous cast members – Kaneswaran, former Liverpool footballer Jermaine Pennant and Paralympic cyclist Jon-Allan Butterworth – were all reportedly rushed to hospital on the same day after they passed out while marching in the tropical heat while carrying heavy bags under the instruction of the SAS team led by ex-US Navy Recon Marine Rudy Reyes.
And former Love Island star Montana Brown was said to be left in tears after dislocating her kneecap, Thomas was left in agony after pulling a hamstring and Argent – who agreed to take part after losing 14 stone following his lifesaving gastric surgery – contracted trench foot and jungle rot. Insiders claimed that medics discharged the six stars from the programme after they fell ill.
Other contestants in the upcoming series include pop star Gareth Gates, former pin-up Melinda Messenger and Boris Johnson’s ex-Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
Speaking to MailOnline today, experts said that Channel 4 bosses will likely ‘stop and think about the legal and reputational implications’ of the injuries, and that ‘negative publicity’ has come at a ‘bad time’ for the broadcaster as Liz Truss’s Government reviews the case for selling it off. They also suggested that the celebrities who were forced to quit the show ‘may not have fully understood’ how physically and mentally demanding the series is – adding: ‘It’s not like Strictly Come Dancing’.
Rochelle White said: ‘I think that this show is one of the hardest shows for reality TV stars. It’s physically and mentally tough. I think that there could be an element of contestants not fully understanding what is needed and expected.
‘Before the show had reality TV stars, it used real people and some of those people had previous experience in something similar. This show isn’t like a Strictly or Dancing on Ice, it’s a lot harder.
‘I feel that there could be pressure to take part and do it and last as long as possible to show how tough they are. But if you haven’t trained like that before or been in that situation it’s a lot to deal with and handle.
‘Looking at the line-up for this year, I feel that some could have gone on the show to boost their brand and maybe pivot how they’re seen, not fully taking into consideration what they’ve signed up for.’
Mark Borkowski added: ‘This is all about due care. The Middletons of the world have these big ideas about what it would be like to put people through difficult challenges in the real world, and in this case it’s clear that it’s not gone to plan. It’s led to a number of serious injuries and I would think it will have caused Channel 4 bosses to stop and think about the legal and reputational implications of what’s happened.
‘Who knows if they’ve received proper training. There could be budgetary concerns and people in television can tend to just rush ideas through, even when they’re not well-formed or even bad. In this case they’re stress-testing the idea that a regular person can become an Army or SAS man on the hoof. This is an idea conflicting badly with the real world.
‘I think this has come at a bad time for Channel 4 too, who don’t want to be getting negative publicity about their programmes at a time where people are talking openly about selling them off. They will want to keep their heads down and hope this blows over. But in the meantime, they should be seriously rethinking how far they want to push people just to entertain their customers. They ought to be making safe, regular programming.’
[continued..]
TV bosses see Bradley Walsh as ‘new Phillip Schofield’ as Chase host is loved by viewers
The Mirror
The Chase host Bradley Walsh may be about to pass ITV golden boy Phillip Schofield in popularity.
Versatile Bradley, 62, is a huge hit with viewers which makes him an attractive target for advertisers, especially following Phil’s recent fall from grace.
This Morning hosts Phil and Holly Willoughby faced widespread fury and calls for them to be fired after they were accused of queue-jumping to see the Queen lying in state last month.
The presenting duo have insisted they went to Westminster as part of the media and were there strictly to report the event.
Last week it was confirmed Phil, 60, has lost his £1million deal to advertise We Buy Any Car. The firm, which has started filming with TikTok star Mufasa, claims Phil’s five-year contract was to end in 2022, a decision taken prior to stories about him.
A source said: “As Phillip’s popularity wanes, television and advertising execs are looking at Bradley Walsh. He’s squeaky clean, popular with viewers and doesn’t have any of the baggage that Phillip has.”
Ex-Coronation Street star Bradley has earned more than £2.6million in the past year.
Bradley’s earnings surpassed that of Ant and Dec as he also has a property firm, Barnstormer Holdings Ltd, which has nearly £1.9m in total assets.
Bradley has gone from presenting the National Lottery on BBC1 in 1994 to shows such as Wheel of Fortune, Cash Trapped and Tonight at the London Palladium.
He played Danny Baldwin in Corrie for two years and starred in Doctor Who and the drama Law & Order: UK. As a singer Bradley has released two albums and he has also been taken by son Barney on TV road trips in Bradley and Barney Walsh: Breaking Dad.
Like Phil, he has worked with Holly, on the BBC game show Take Off with Bradley & Holly.
PR and celebrity expert Mark Borkowski said the presenter’s range makes him a powerful force.
He added: “He’s got a nose for what the ITV viewing public wants, and also he’s managed to avoid all the negativity that dogs Phillip Schofield. Anything he touches at the moment is gold.”
Mark said Bradley is loved by the media, the public and advertisers,
making him the perfect package.
He said: “I’ve always said the Holly and Phil queuegate would ultimately be judged whether or not advertisers felt they were a negative. For a commercial TV station if your public have an issue and advertisers have an issue then there is a quick exit stage right.”
Why do politicians use walk-on music?
BBC News
Like many a political leader before her Liz Truss turned to pop music to make a big entrance at her annual party conference.
It did not go down well with the band who created it – but why do politicians use music like this?
And what does their choice of walk-on track tell us about them?
There have been some bizarre choices over the years – Tony Blair once took to the stage to the angry sound of Seventies punks Sham 69.
At a time when the Labour Party was tearing itself apart, Sham’s terrace anthem “if the kids are united, they will never be divided” seemed relevant.
Very occasionally, the music takes on greater significance. Who could forget Theresa May strutting on stage to Abba’s Dancing Queen in 2018?
Hungover crowd
This was her comeback conference after the most disastrous speech in living memory, the previous year. She also wanted to show her human side.
But often it is generic, stadium-filling soft rock that echoes around the auditorium, as drowsy, hungover party members and MPs take their seats.
Or Fatboy Slim’s evergreen floor-filler Right Here, Right Now (more of him later), which can lend a sense of excitement to the most mundane of occasions.
Music is piped in to wake conference-goers up and get them in a positive mood, although it is a relatively recent arrival in British politics.
The political greats did not need a soundtrack – Sir Winston Churchill never walked on stage to the Glen Miller Orchestra or the Andrews Sisters.
‘Lonely walk’
But music is everywhere now, particularly in the corporate world.
“You need music because it is a lonely walk to that podium. Can you imagine if you didn’t have music?,” says PR guru and commentator Mark Borkowski.
Music is a small detail, but conference organisers still need to get it right, to avoid the impression of being shambolic or slapdash, he says.
Which brings us to Liz Truss.
The prime minister’s slogan this week is “Getting Britain Moving”. So – in a literal-minded move – she walked on stage to Moving On Up, by 1990s hitmakers M People.
She is unlikely to have had much input into this – the track was personally selected by her press secretary, apparently.
(Although she did give a possible clue to her musical tastes in her speech, telling the party faithful the “status quo is not option”.)
[continued..]
Holly Willoughby brazens out This Morning queue-jump row after crisis talks with ITV
iNews
There have been “crisis talks” with ITV bosses over the claim of queue-jumping that reduced Holly Willoughby to floods of tears and damaged her £10m brand.
The co-host of This Morning has refused to apologise for the row sparked by the allegation that she and co-presenter Phillip Schofield jumped the queue of mourners paying their respects to the Queen.
The darling of daytime TV has been shaken by the public anger directed towards herself and Schofield over the claim that the pair used “VIP access” to jump the Westminster Hall line and file past the Queen’s lying-in-state.
A blame game with ITV has resulted, after the claims spread on social media at the end of last week, accompanied by images of the masked pair solemnly walking past the coffin.
Willoughby and Schofield insist the story is false. They were at the Hall as “accredited journalists”, in a professional capacity as part of the world’s media to report on the event for a piece, which ran on Tuesday’s This Morning.
Like other journalists, they were led down the side of the hall to a media area at the rear and did not cut in the line or pause to pay their respects at the coffin. They said they were there on behalf of all the viewers unable to mourn the Queen in person.
Willoughby, who earns about £600,000 a year for This Morning, was said to be “absolutely devastated” and in tears over the backlash.
She is said to blame ITV bosses for not setting the story straight earlier in the day after the visit began to attract a furious reaction on social media.
Comparisons were immediately made with David Beckham’s refusal of an offer to jump the 13-hour line of mourners on the same day.
After Willoughby and Schofield begged their employers to intervene, ITV, possibly distracted by preparations for Monday’s state funeral, issued a short statement on Saturday defending the pair.
This Morning producers then published a more detailed Instagram post, explaining the presenters’ presence.
The statement read: “We asked Phillip and Holly to be part of a film for this Tuesday’s programme. They did not jump the queue, have VIP access or file past the Queen lying in state – but instead were there in a professional capacity as part of the world’s media to report on the event.”
If this was an attempt to shut the story down it failed. Memes and mockery continued to spread on social media.
Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby have said they did not jump the queue for the Queen’s lying-in-state (Photo: ITV)
Willoughby has brought in lawyers to defend her reputation from the “false narrative” placed on events and was even considering quitting This Morning, according to a Daily Mail report.
Those who repeated the “queue-jumping” claim say they have yet to receive any legal correspondence.
While supportive of its star presenters, some within ITV have questioned internally why they needed to enter Westminster Hall at all.
Willoughby and Schofield would not have been able to interview anyone and the only footage allowed was a camera feed used by all broadcasters. Alice Beer had previously reported from the queue for This Morning on Thursday.
A petition calling for Willoughby and Schofield to be sacked has garnered more than 40,000 signatures.
After “crisis talks”, a damage-limitation dialogue with ITV is ongoing, with Willoughby continuing on air this week and telling friends she does not wish to quit.
Yet given the chance to offer themselves up to the mercy of viewers, Willoughby and Schofield took the politicians’ route of merely apologising for the appearance of doing something wrong.
“We recognise it may have looked like something else and therefore totally understand the reaction. Please know that we would never have jumped the queue,” she said, presenting their report on the affair on Tuesday.
That may not be sufficient to appease ITV’s paymasters, said reputation manager Mark Borkowski.
“Lawyers can’t really help this situation. It’s not just whether she can get back onside with the viewers, advertisers may consider she has damaged her brand and This Morning,” he told i. “If people don’t believe you, you are in real trouble. It looks like she will try and brazen it out.”
Willoughby will struggle to repair the damage to her “girl-next-door” reputation unless she gives a full apology for the row which now threatens her future as one of ITV’s star names.
Likeability and relatability have been key assets for “brand Willoughby”, a £10m business which stretches from fashion to children’s books and beauty product endorsements to her own wellness website.
She is suffering from a “toxicity” surrounding This Morning, Mr Borkowski added.
Former presenter Eamonn Holmes, who has made no secret of his feud with Schofield after he and his wife Ruth Langsford were axed from presenting This Morning, gleefully joined the “Queuegate” backlash, on GB News.
Willoughby, 41, who launched her career in 2000 on children’s channel CITV, remains a valuable asset for the commercial broadcaster.
On primetime, she has presented Dancing On Ice (alongside Schofield) and I’m a Celebrity… when Ant McPartlin was indisposed.
Her image as an accessible style icon, wearing outfits, often from Zara, Warehouse and Oasis, paired with higher-end accessories, made her a hit with the largely female daytime TV audience.
She signed brand ambassador deals with M&S and Garnier Nutrisse hair colour while her own Wylde Moon lifestyle brand sells products ranging from £65 candles to £495 earrings.
Well aware of her worth, Willoughby fought a legal battle to free herself from management company YMU, which wanted 15 per cent of her future salary on contracts it had arranged and launched her own all-female firm, Roxy management.
She has received offers to become “the face of prime-time BBC One” and co-presented Freeze The Fear with Wim Hof, a new entertainment show on ITV’s biggest rival, this spring.
Now the star, who earns around £500,000 from product endorsements, is being advised to bring her hugely successful 13-year stint on This Morning to a close on her own terms.
“Her ratings are solid but the future of the show is the new presenting team of Dermot O’Leary and Alison Hammond. They all know it,” said a TV insider.
Willoughby is considered too accomplished a presenter to let “Queuegate” fatally harm her career. Regular This Morning viewers are not as agitated over the row as social media commentators, insiders say.
“Holly is very good at what she does, she’s a nice person and she has a large, loyal female following,” said Mr Borkowski.
He urged Willoughby and ITV, which declined to comment, to smooth over any ill feeling over the row. c
“She attracts a lot of clickbait and Holly would face even more scrutiny at the BBC. She is perfect for a commercial broadcaster, they should focus on defining her prime-time role.”
Holly Willoughby brazens out This Morning queue-jump row after crisis talks with ITV (inews.co.uk)
United Kingdom in ‘uncharted waters’ with new King Charles III
CJME
A British PR agent and author believes the United Kingdom is now heading into “uncharted waters” with King Charles III as the head of the British monarchy.
Mark Borkowski said it has been an extraordinary 10 days of mourning, with pomp, pageantry and ceremony — and everyone is trying to put things into perspective.
“This is the end of an extraordinary reign from a remarkable woman — 70 years — who earned the respect not only of the nation but of the world because of her generosity, her sense of duty (and) values,” he said.
Unfortunately, he said, some of those values have dissipated or eroded over the years with a younger generation who can’t relate to the same experiences that shaped Queen Elizabeth II.
“Of course, we’re going into uncharted waters now with a King who obviously has been (serving) the longest apprenticeship for a royal,” Borkowski added.
Now, Borkowski said with a “disruption in the force,” and King Charles at the helm, everyone who was used to having Queen Elizabeth as their constant can’t rely on that anymore.
Even members of the Commonwealth, he argued, may be rethinking their relationship or bonds with the British Monarchy.
“They don’t have the same allegiances that they had with the woman who … earned their respect,” he said. “I think we’re going into uncertain times.”
That said, Borkowski emphasized the Royal Family has had a lot of experience reinventing itself and protecting itself over hundreds of years.
“From (Queen) Victoria through, many of the traditions that now exist in this funeral were created for (Elizabeth) and re-energized and re-invented,” he said.
Queen Elizabeth, he recalled, was a modest women, the “antithesis of what society has become” with so many people trying to become celebrities or Internet personalities.
“This woman was very humble and let her actions speak for her, a woman of very few words. And this all is founded on sound tradition and founded on values that have been passed down and re-edited and reconfirmed for a younger generation,” he said.
Borkowski said the world is now very different than what it was when the Queen came to power in 1952, but the Royal Family should be protected by King Charles with wisdom and lessons hopefully passed down by his mother.
“Whether the plans and the strategy will actually work is what we will now see over the coming years,” Borkowski said.
United Kingdom in ‘uncharted waters’ with new King Charles III | 980 CJME
As the Carolean era begins, what next for brand Britain?
Campaign
Until last Thursday, what did the royal family and the Kardashians have in common? Well, for one, both households were run by matriarchs who acted as instinctive managers of the family brand.
For 70 years, Elizabeth II ran the royal institution with the acumen of a savvy chief executive, tasked with the challenge of representing Britain overseas, as it faced a considerable decline in its global influence. As such, brand Britain became inextricably linked to Her Majesty.
The Queen’s death has ignited discussions on colonial rule, with King Charles III facing a beckoning call for the royal family to openly acknowledge its murky past. Meanwhile, he is bracing himself for a Commonwealth crisis – it didn’t take long for the prime ministers of Barbuda and Antigua to announce they would call for a referendum on their countries becoming republics within three years.
Synonymous with pomp and grandeur, as Charles takes to the throne, the royal institution will be interrogated from all corners, as it finds its footing in a modern world that is becoming increasingly anti-monarchist.
As mourners flock to London ahead of Monday’s state funeral, the eye of the world is fixed on the UK, as the country braces itself for a surge in domestic and international tourism. Right now, Britain’s “ultimate brand ambassador” lies in state at Westminster Hall, as an estimated 750,000 people line up to pay their respects, when there is only capacity for 350,000.
Campaign asks adland to what extent does the institution’s appeal hinge on Elizabeth II? As the Carolean era begins, what next for brand Britain?
…
Mark Borkowski
Author and founder of the PR agency, Borkowski
If we look beyond the cynicism of the Twittersphere and instead take a moment to truly observe the mood of the nation, there are signs of hope everywhere.
After six days of intense scrutiny, the royal brand has emerged as an institution build on a sound rock of succession. It stands as a beacon that can lead an age of renewal and positivity. Few can doubt, as the crowds shake around Lambeth, patiently waiting to pay homage to the Queen, that something powerful is etched into the heart of the monarchy.
Can we all learn from this moment? Of course. Events of this magnitude always test the purpose of an organisation. Forward planning and provision to manage even the most monumental of crises requires constant attention. Many brands have fallen on stony ground because they have not focused on the very detail of survival.
As we emerge from this period of reflection we should see a bright future ahead; and for the royals, and brand Britain, a huge element of that ray of hope is owed to painstaking and minutely detailed forward planning.
As the Carolean era begins, what next for brand Britain? | PR | Campaign Asia
Company brands should keep calm and carry on
The Financial Times
Center Parcs is one of many UK firms which have struggled to respond appropriately to the Queen’s death
As a mark of respect to her Majesty, Center Parcs security guards will escort vacationers off the premises on Monday. After a night in a tent in a layby, they can return once the bank holiday is over. No, they won’t. Center Parcs will lock families in their rooms during the Queen’s funeral. Toddlers can climb the walls of the woodland lodges, but only inside, certainly not outside. No, hold on. They can walk around the woods in solemn contemplation, gazing mournfully at the lamenting zip wire and the swimming pool fountains spraying at half-mast.
While the holiday park operator did not go quite this far, it was entertaining as a bystander — rather than a disappointed customer — to watch Center Parcs grapple with the Monday bank holiday marking Queen Elizabeth’s funeral. Its Twitter account flip-flopped, first telling holidaymakers they would need to leave for a day before the backlash triggered a retreat in which the company appeared to suggest vacationers would be barricaded in their kitchenettes.
This was an operational and public relations mess. Stephen Waddington, a PR adviser and former head of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, was incredulous: “You have to wonder, how many people did this go past?” Pointing to the lack of women on the board, he emphasised, “in most households, women are the most important decision makers on holidays”.
It’s an idiotic and confusing call but unlikely to cause long-term harm. It distressed rather than insulted customers, unlike the furore of Gerald Ratner’s 1991 speech in which the jeweller described his wares as “total crap”. Or the comment a decade later by David Shepherd, the brand director at Topman, the menswear group that the target customers were “hooligans”.
It is surprising that Center Parcs hadn’t planned for such an event. A 96-year-old queen couldn’t live forever. And yet it is not the only company to have faltered — partly because there is no such thing as a unified public sentiment. Every time I hear the Queen referred to as the nation’s grandmother, I reflect with irritation on how different she was from my own — a Mancunian sporting puffed sleeves and costume jewellery until she died.
Is the Queen’s memory served by the deferral of hospital operations or school closures? Commemorative assemblies would no doubt be just as respectful — or even more so — than families slumped at home watching television. Was Guinea Pig Awareness Week, cancelled out of respect, really in danger of eclipsing the royal family’s grief?
I’m not arguing for a bank holiday of fun and mass consumerism, but some companies seemed bafflingly eager to mark the occasion. Did adult emporium Ann Summers, Poundland, or a company selling amyl nitrate need to broadcast their condolences on social media? It is proof that virtue-signalling is not restricted to leftism. Mark Borkowski, a PR adviser, observes that “brands are hostage to social media” and have lost “confidence [about] communicating in a straightforward way”.
Companies do not need to respond to every news event. When Prince died in 2016, I was bemused to see Minnesota-based cereal maker Cheerios and 3M, the manufacturer, post sympathy to their resident musical star. Though they deleted their tributes, it did not feel as mercenary as Crocs, the footwear company, tweeting a Ziggy Stardust lightning flash on the death of David Bowie.
Sometimes social media statements can be an attempt to signal inclusivity but often prove merely vapid. Take Fifa’s Twitter post celebrating Pride month — which was swiftly exposed as hypocrisy since the football governing body had awarded the World Cup to Qatar, a country where same-sex relations are illegal.
If anything, the Queen’s most enduring example is that of dignified restraint. Or as one PR expert put it: “If you have a royal warrant then it’s fine to put something out there, but otherwise just shut . . . up.”
Company brands should keep calm and carry on | Financial Times (ft.com)
Class or crass? Brands walk a fine line in marking Queen’s death
The Guardian – 10th September 2022
Posts by Playmobil and Legoland Windsor provoked comment, as did the Queen Elizabeth II workout.
Content is king, in #marketingspeak at least, but many brands have discovered that the Queen is not content.
In the tumult of reaction to news of the Queen’s death, social media managers struggled to work out the best way to communicate to their customers.
Was it an opportunity to provide a sombre and respectful acknowledgement of her reign? Or was it just an opportunity?
Dale Vince, the founder of the electricity company Ecotricity and chairman of Forest Green Rovers, tweeted a picture of the Queen mocked up to be wearing a green hat and green club shirt, with the words “Thanks Liz”.
The post provoked hundreds of complaints in reply, to which he responded that he had met the Queen while collecting his OBE. “She was wearing a green dress and we talked about green energy and stuff,” he said. “It was a funny experience, and she had a good sense of humour – unlike some here.”
For commercial organisations, there is a fine line to walk between crass and class. Saying nothing may appear disrespectful, but as customers have become more sophisticated consumers of media, even well-intentioned messages can look like self-promotion.
Friday’s printed newspapers were almost entirely ad-free after advertisers pulled out on news of the Queen’s death, and there is little sign that many are keen to return in a hurry.
Public reaction provides a clue. Legoland Windsor announced it would close last Friday with a tweet of a picture of a Lego model that resembled the Queen, while Playmobil shared a black and white Instagram image of one its toy figures wearing a hat and clutching a handbag with the words “Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II 1926-2022”.
Both posts provoked a lot of attention. The Playmobil image was of a figure it had begun making several years ago named “Queen of England”, but its post was shared widely on social media as people assembled lists of tributes deemed to be cashing in.
Crossfit UK reposted a workout of the day called “Queen Elizabeth II”, originally created in June for the platinum jubilee, saying it was “only fitting that this workout should now be made into a tribute WOD to celebrate her life”.
“This is very very weird behaviour,” a poster said in response. “Unhinged stuff,” said another.
A message on the Ann Summers homepage with a picture of the Queen and the words “Thank you Your Majesty” was shared, with links and images to sex toys and other products below.
For other brands, their ordinariness or obscurity was enough to raise eyebrows.
Mark Borkowski, a PR consultant and author, described the Playmobil post as “a dumb-arse thing to do”.
“People should not judge the mood of the nation from social media. The metrics are coming out – what’s happening on Twitter, on Instagram, the latest TikToks – but the people who are feeling the greatest loss right now aren’t into that. So when they see all these people dancing around with clever ideas, they show how far away they are from the public.”
Brands should be waiting to see what the public reaction is to the Queen’s death before reacting, Borkowski said. “This is going to challenge people and show where the real geniuses exist,” he said. “The royal family came out with an immaculate piece of prose after the Meghan Markle broadcast – ‘some recollections may vary’. Brevity is a lost art.”
A few firms, “disruptive startups”, may find they can feed the outrage machine, Borkowski added. “But if you’re a brand with a wider audience, you have to be a lot more respectful.”
“I think this will resonate for some time because there’s no real good news on the horizon,” he added. “As we get deeper into strikes and power cuts and whatever, this is going to be a time that no one of any generation has experienced. This will plonk Charles front and centre.”
Class or crass? Brands walk a fine line in marking Queen’s death | Queen Elizabeth II | The Guardian
‘I’m puzzled why they are coming’
Daily Mail
‘I’m puzzled why they are coming’: Harry and Meghan are set to touch down in the UK on Sunday for European tour… after she launched new broadside at the royal family in interview that drew Mandela comparison
Comedian Jerry Sadowitz back doing voiceover work at Edinburgh Fringe
The National
Comedian Jerry Sadowitz is back doing voiceover work at Edinburgh Fringe
The controversial comedian has been signed to record the scene-setter for a performance by Mark Borkowski, a celebrity publicist whose previous clients have included Noel Edmonds, Graham Norton and Joan Rivers.
Borkowski’s show, False Teeth in a Pork Pie: How to Unleash Your Inner Crazy, is described as an “adventure” through his publicity career.
He is one of the many critics of the Pleasance Theatre’s decision to axe Sadowitz’s show following complaints about some of the content at his first show.
The theatre accused the comedian of “racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny” following a performance in which he showed his penis to an audience member.
In a statement, Sadowitz has said the Pleasance had misunderstood his act whilst various celebrities, including Piers Morgan, criticised the decision to drop him.
Borkowski said Sadowitz has always had an outrageous voice and that the decision to drop him was “ridiculous”.
He continued: “I felt for Jerry after this week so offered him a ‘tight five’ as my warm-up act.
“Sadly, he felt that my material was too dark for him to associate with but he did kindly agree to record the voiceover introduction.”
The American-Scots comedian could potentially face further cancellation before a national tour as the Whitehall Theatre in Dundee said it would contact the Pleasance for “more information” before making its decision on a scheduled performance.
Aberdeen’s Tivoli theatre confirmed Sadowitz would play there in October.
The Fringe’s biggest venue, Assembly, was critical of the decision to end Sadowitz’s Edinburgh run early.
Its co-founder Luke Johnson said the Pleasance “can get stuffed telling other venues to ban artists just because they lost their bottle”.
Why PR boss Mark Borkowski is taking a one-man show to the Edinburgh Fringe
The Drum
As one of the industry’s best-known PRs, Mark Borkowski has earned a reputation for telling a good tale. But his powers of persuasion will be tested to the limit by his next task: pulling off a one-man-show at the Edinburgh Fringe. Why put yourself through it? The publicist-turned-stand-up tells all…
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the height of its powers is a fantastical breeding ground for maverick creativity.
Convincing an audience that yours is the best of three-thousand options when they might cheerfully pick ‘none of the above’ takes a master of the craft.
And some of these masters have inspired my return to the Edinburgh stage with a new one-man show, a kind of Ted Talk on acid, where a series of unhinged anecdotes reveal the fundamental lessons of my life and career: ‘False Teeth in a Pork Pie: How to unleash your inner crazy’.
In once again traversing the labyrinthine corridors of the world’s biggest arts festival I’ve noticed that it is following a pattern that might be familiar to those of us fighting the good fight of agency life.
The Fringe built its reputation on the back of mavericks, whose quest for publicity inspired underwater performances, chainsaw jugglers, theatre on the back of a motorbike, vacuum cleaner operas, ghost hunts and a variety of near-fatal injuries (singed body hair, nails stuck into various body orifices, limbs crushed by cars).
Throughout this era, similarly-minded renegades were creating technicolor chaos in advertising. Tony Kaye features heavily in my show, and the peak of Edinburgh Fringe anarchy coincides fairly neatly with him creating a classic of psychedelic avant-garde cinema to punt car tyres.
Both in Edinburgh and in agency land, this was an era when experimentation was part of the orthodoxy and failure part of the creative process. You went to the Fringe with big ambitions and if the show didn’t work, you took lessons from it into your future work. It was the same for my agency then: clients bought into us, rather than a specific project, and together refined the creative by taking ambitious risks until we found the right formula.
But in both worlds times changed; the Edinburgh Fringe was becoming bigger, increasingly expensive and increasingly risky. And in agency land, clients were attempting to commodify creativity into a rigid process that guaranteed the results they wanted first time.
Nonetheless, Edinburgh remains a learning experience in terms of seeing what energizes a crowd. The fundamental spirit of the festival is the same though promotional methods have changed. For my show, I have tried to distill that spirit into a powerful ether. By way of promotion, what can I say? My show is littered with tall tales and outrageous incidents: the truth about Hollywood Divas and fading Carry On stars; why Donald Trump won the election; a Love Island home truth; tales from the circus; stories from a less politically correct age; F1 James Hunt’s parrot and what Spike Milligan thought about Swindon. It’s a heady mixture but so is the Fringe. The concoction is made to elicit creativity in receptive spirits.
When I went with Tony Kaye, listening to him talk about creativity and how Polish playwrights were the fulcrum of visual theatre in the 1980s, the link became clear to me. The Fringe festival brought out the very disruptive, energising and sometimes manic states of creative flow that drove Tony’s visual sensibility.
This kind of staging ground for ideas will interest anyone who wants to think outside the box to drive culture. The Fringe continues to provide the perfect venue for adventurous thinking, pioneering scriptwriting and striking visual juxtapositions. It’s not just about discovering the next ‘big star’, even more so it’s about seeing how people are using culture to create conversations in an environment free of prejudice and drunk on its own experimental ethos.
Empowered by what he found in Edinburgh, Tony Kaye would come to find Hollywood actually less suited to the expression of his genius than the ad world which nourished his talent. When he presented the edit of his first feature, American History X, he refused to be wrested from the tiller, causing a clash with his studio that threw his career as a director into jeopardy.
Tony’s attempts to regain control of the project are in themselves legendary stunts, including spending $100,000 of his own money calling out the Hollywood elite via full-page adverts in Variety, and turning up to a negotiation with his studio flanked by a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Buddhist monk.
Tony was still an unfiltered eccentric when I worked with him to try and salvage his career in Tinseltown. We did actually make some progress, but his spirit would not even be partially tamed and we ended up irreconcilably outraging a Hollywood legend via the medium of fancy dress (the full anecdote in all its offensive glory is in my show…)
Here’s the rub: in a rapidly professionalizing and corporatising world, Tony’s style of absolutist surrender to the maverick within will always cause issues. But at the same time – and once again this is equally true in Edinburgh and agency land –process-worship, and the obsession with playing the game only within the rules, structures and orthodoxies of the day, will kill progress.
My agency would be nothing without the Fringe and its anarchic spirit. From its inception, every year brought a show that pushed the boundaries of theatrical representation. Richard Demarco, whose theatre programming at the Fringe gave international debuts to now world-renowned performers, made the Fringe a workshop of ideas that would make the festival a hub of international exchange. It remains an invaluable resource for taking the pulse of culture and finding out what really works in our increasingly risk-averse era.
In an age where success is quantified by micro-analysing data, there’s room for each of us to unlock our inner Tony Kaye. It’s a mad method, but it’s one that nurtures great creative breakthroughs. That’s what my show hopes to do: argue for the value of casting aside pre-programmed conclusions and instead embracing serendipity. And the Fringe is the perfect place for meandering, following uncharted creative paths and even bumping into old friends.
If you want to know what moves people from their seats, just listen in to audience reactions at the pub after a show at the Fringe. The material you come away with will be infinitely more valuable than anything you get from a brainstorm in an air-conditioned meeting room in Soho, but it just might prove useful in one.
Mark Borkowski’s ‘False Teeth in a Pork Pie: How to unleash your inner crazy’ runs at the Edinburgh Fringe from 17-20 August, 12:00 at Assembly George Square Studio Two
Mark Borkowski says we should turn off tech and follow the example of his maverick acts
The Express
These days many of us are slaves to tech. We wake up, we check the news, we are recommended another article based on the one we’ve just read. We scroll social media, running a gauntlet of adverts specially selected for us. We react with Pavlovian regularity to message, email and diary notifications throughout the day, and whenever we experience something “real”, our digital selves boast about it later on.
Our entire lives have been commodified by big tech, scavenging our data and cobbling it together to create a Frankenstein image of us at which content, adverts, and even dangerous lies can be targeted in a way that maximises our engagement, strengthens our addiction, and keep us locked in a comfortable bubble where our views remain unchallenged and our horizons never expand.
As a result, so much of our existence nowadays is pre-programmed, predicted and driven by algorithms. And the bubble-world of lockdown we have inhabited for much of the past two years has only entrenched us deeper into this doom-scroll labyrinth.
But as the world re-opens and live experiences return, a couple of sanctuaries that might protect us from this ad-tech dystopia have also re-emerged.
One of the most powerful of these, when at its best, is the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The world’s biggest arts festival is a whirlwind of colour and creativity, but it’s also the dark, challenging, experimental underworld of live entertainment; one where many worldviews are catered for and where the great impresarios create almost as much outrage as shock.
It’s not perfect; despite accusations that it’s a socialist commune, the Edinburgh Fringe is actually capitalism manifest; a brutal marketplace of 3,000 shows vying desperately for an audience that doesn’t need them and owes them nothing.
And much like many other markets, it isn’t a level playing field; the deck is stacked to favour the biggest marketing budgets, the most prominent venues, the strongest web of industry connections, and the Fringe Society – the closest thing we might have to the “invisible hand” – is doing little to even the odds.
But in such unforgiving conditions mavericks thrive. Those who are brave, creative and foolhardy enough to stray from the beaten track of convention can stumble across game-changing innovation.
At its best – and this might just be one of those years – the Fringe is teeming with these characters.
In my 40 years as a publicist, I’ve become something of a magnet for mavericks; inventive, spontaneous, eccentric, with a slightly dangerous edge, they enhance our existence.
There was Archaos, the punk circus whose performers narrowly avoided arrest for sawing a car in half and driving half of it down the Royal Mile; Marcel Steiner who, among a plethora of stunts, erected the world’s smallest theatre on the back of a motorbike; Jim Rose, who taught me to hammer a nail up my nose and burn off most of my body hair without injury.
There was the world’s first underwater concert, a vacuum cleaner ‘ballet’, a ‘homo sapiens’ zoo exhibit and a highly unsuccessful cowpat flinging competition. Each of these improvisational experimentalists wrote themselves into Edinburgh Fringe legend by shunning the conventional and embracing their inner maverick.
I’m heading back to the Fringe this year to tell the best of these stories in a one-man TED Talk on Acid called False Teeth in a Pork Pie: How to unleash your inner crazy. The show, starting next Wednesday deals with my fantastical journey from a meat and pastry factory in Southwest England to a career in publicity that transported me to the trailblazing underworld of fringe arts, and on to the West End, Hollywood and into the world of brands and boardrooms.
Throughout this time, I’ve remained obsessed with the maverick, and if I were, to sum up what makes these characters so special it is that, unlike the rest of us in this tech-addled world, they are not pre-programmed.
This takes us back to my opening argument; a life dictated by algorithms and notifications is devoid of unpredictability and spontaneity. The maverick is someone who embraces these as a fundamental philosophy for life; in our sterilised digital world they are acoustic, unfiltered.
Of course, a completely unfiltered approach to life can land you in trouble. A vintage example is Tony Kaye.
Also an Edinburgh Fringe veteran, the renegade film director became a legend in ad land for his avant-garde masterpieces. He turned an advert for Dunlop tyres into a psychedelic, post-apocalyptic Western epic, Tested for the Unexpected, that ranks as one of the great 83-seconds in film history.
He was lured to Hollywood to make the film American History X but fell out spectacularly with the studio when a tussle for creative control of the project turned into an all-out brawl.
His maverick spirit was in full force throughout; he spent $100,000 of his own money calling out the Hollywood elite via full-page adverts in Variety, and then turned up to a negotiation flanked by a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Buddhist monk.
Tony was eventually offered a way back into Hollywood by none other than Marlon Brando.
They were going to embrace the nascent 21st century by making a series of DVD acting masterclasses, taught by Marlon, directed by Tony.
But they needed support, and Brando summoned Kaye to a gathering of Hollywood’s best and brightest and told everyone to come in character as someone other than themselves.
Suffice to say it went on to be one of the most notorious and offensive fancy dress parties in the history of the world and that particular project ended up sleeping with the fishes.
But it makes a great story (full version in my show) and it illustrates the kind of thinking that can wrest us from the grip of the algorithm, the philosophy that bursts into life every August in Edinburgh.
It’s astonishing to witness the lengths people will go to in their attempts to make their show stick out and it creates some truly unique spectacles. The media will tell you a lot about comedians you see on television and famous actors doing vanity projects, but underneath that shiny veneer, there’s a whole society of mavericks who have launched themselves out of their pre-programmed existence and created something truly special, something we can all experience if we tear ourselves away from our screens.
To book tickets for Mark Borkowski’s show from August 17 to 20 click here.
Airline restarts flights to Russia from Abu Dhabi in ‘risky move’ – ‘Could be a disaster!’
Daily Express
As the war in Ukraine drags into its sixth month, Russia is still largely isolated from the Western world politically, culturally and in terms of corporate boycotts. Many international brands are boycotting the country and airlines are still imposing flight bans as well as ongoing sanctions from the EU, UK and USA.
However, Wizz Air Abu Dhabi have announced their route to Moscow will restart with tickets on sale for flights from October 3.
Founded in December 2019, the subsidiary is 49 percent owned by Wizz Air with the majority 51 percent owned by state-owned ADQ.
Wizz Air has another subsidiary Wizz Air UK, originally established to mitigate the impact of Brexit.
Etihad, Emirates and FlyDubai are among the Middle Eastern airlines operating to Russia from the UAE.
Wizz Air Abu Dhabi launched its Moscow route in December 2021 before suspending it when Russia invaded Ukraine.
A spokesperson for Wizz Air Abu Dhabi said that the route was being restarted due to passenger demand.
They said: “Wizz Air Abu Dhabi is a national UAE carrier that operates in line with the UAE’s national regulations and policies.
“The airline is resuming its operation to Moscow to meet travel demand for passengers wishing to fly to and from Russia from the UAE capital.
“All UAE national airlines are currently operating direct flights to Russia.
“Wizz Air Hungary and Wizz Air UK are not currently operating flights to Russia.
“Flights to Russia from the UK and EU are currently banned.”
However, it is unclear if passengers will understand the nuanced difference.
Mark Borkowski, a crisis PR consultant, told CNN that although most corporate boycotts were “virtue signalling” the move by the airline could be a “disaster” and a “own goal”.
He said: “We now begin to see a number of brands beginning to check their resolve, and as events drag on the virtue-signalling will give way to commercial intent.
“I expect this decision will be viewed with great interest.
“It could be a disaster — however the bigger issue is fatigue.
“Certain commercial interests will prevail.
“Nevertheless it’s a risky move that could turn into a profound PR own goal.”