Channel 4’s valiant efforts at major sports broadcasting have met two very particular challenges this week, each testing their capacity to cope with the full burden of an excitable, demanding and very very large public. It’s a classic David/Goliath situation. Channel 4, having spent a good deal of promotional budget painting itself as the rising…
The bank holiday would not be complete with out a silly season story. This year we were spoiled with the legend of the itinerant Essex lion. Mysteriously, an escaped lion was spotted on the loose in Essex, instilling panic as it roamed the grassland of St Osyth. The big game media hunters turned up in…
The success of Innocent and Red Bull beverage brands inspired a slew of wannabe drink entrepreneurs ten years ago . Many of the hopefuls wandered through my doors looking for PR. One afternoon, two well healed young men stepped into my office bristling with an array of technicolour bottles, full of herbal fizz. A turbo…
The past few years have seen huge debate in the PR industry around the radical reshaping of public relations. Why, asked the naysayers, would a Celeb employ a PR in an age where they can use Twitter to break stories, correct rumours, build their brand and offer coveted insights into their lives? DIY was the…
The media this week has been awash with commentary on the vast gap in the British cultural landscape between August 2011 and August 2012. This time last year, we were transfixed by images of rioters smashing windows and burning buildings. Now, we are overwhelmed by Olympic spirit, and it is the athletes stealing victory and…
Picture the scene: mad lefty Irishman Danny Boyle speaks to a panel of landed prime ministers, landed wannabe prime ministers, bureaucrats, eurocrats and Seb Coe, a menswear salesman pretending to be a Lord. His proposal? That, as the eyes of the world rest on London and a thousand dignitaries deliberate where to put their cash,…
This post originally appeared yesterday on The Huffington Post. Bradley Wiggins’ success in the Tour de France was testament to the willpower, training and raw talent of an individual. His stellar status in the media- whilst certainly not hindered by his victory – has more to do with his suitability as a new kind of…
The latest draconian sponsorship enforcement measures for London 2012 were spread across the tabloids yesterday. Allegedly, the angelic schoolkids selected for Danny Boyle’s green and pleasant opening ceremony will be forced by sponsor Adidas to either wear their trainers, or trainers with no branding visible. Meanwhile, reports have come in of police guards forced to…
After a period of quivering, the Barclay’s house of cards finally crumbled this week, with Marcus Agius’s remarkable u-turn and Bob Diamond’s final resignation. The whole confusion points to something of a head in the sand culture among senior leadership, with mistakes perhaps ignored and accountability certainly a convoluted issue. Barclays’ has certainly had a…
The tremendous response this week to the launch of Viva Forever! The Musical(manhandled by my esteemed colleague Dee McCourt and her team of pixies) probably came as a surprise to many in the higher echelons of the arts and media world. Yet the tremendous outpourings on twitter, not to mention the reams of coverage and…