It’s now been a week since Flappy Birds, the infuriating iOS game, was taken down from the app store, and I’m still waiting to find out what it was a stunt for. For those unfamiliar, the game requires users to navigate a yellow, beaked blob with an insipid expression past a series of Super Mario…
Hats off to Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho – a true media operator. Where rivals babble incoherently about “games of two halves” or, at best, indulge in bland 1970s-style trash talk, Mourinho understands that the battles played out in the media can be just as important as those won or lost on the pitch. After he…
The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince is on our fair shores at the moment, reminding me of what a roller coaster it was to work with him 15 years ago. His set on Tuesday night at the Electric Ballroom in Camden may have seen only 1,000 fans in the comparatively…
So Scarlett Johansson has parted ways with Oxfam. The actress, who has served as an ambassador for the humanitarian group for eight years, quit yesterday over a “fundamental difference of opinion” (read: PR disaster waiting to happen). Johansson has recently signed as brand ambassador for the drinks-fizzinator (possibly not a real word) manufacturer Sodastream. It…
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Someone recently said to me “the more I read, the less I know”. Profound. In a world where technological advances were supposed to make life simpler, the reverse seems to reflect the truth. The world is more complex, undefined,…
I don’t usually do awards ceremonies. I’d generally rather be making a new campaign than remembering the last one. However, as the end of the year finds Borkowski towers in a reflective mood, I thought I’d put together a brief collection of 2013’s standout PR moments—the ones that made us gasp with astonishment, and the…
Previous Talks Thursday 15th May – Chinwag Psych at Museum of London Thursday 13th November – Vision Bristol 29th Oct – Search Love 21st November – London College of Communications – http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/london-college-of-communication/2013/12/03/pr-guest-lecture-review-mark-borkowski/ 16th January – Web Psychologist Interview – http://www.thewebpsychologist.com/podcast-episode-22-mark-borkowski/ 4th March – University of Greenwich
Oh, the wretched topic of death, such a frustrating interloper, especially at Christmas, damn you. Alas, there is no point in pretending that we improve with age. In his colossal autobiography, Ben Hecht expressed the ageing process thus: “the years diminish us, time rots our body, cools our blood, darkens our brain, and, like a…
Beyonce’s new iTunes record—the singer’s album broke a million sales in six days on Wednesday—should be a lesson not only to pop stars but to anyone with a message to get across. The singer released the album entirely without prior fanfare, tossing it onto iTunes with a casual insouciance. It was a masterclass in cutting…
The sorry tale of Nigella Lawson and Charles Saatchi should teach us some valuable lessons about the climate we operate in these days as businesses and brands. In this story we have a clear example of how a 24/7 news agenda fuels turbo charged and emotional reactions from the crowd – #teamnigella – and enough…