We are living in a karaoke media culture – everything we see is a pale, recycled copy of something that’s gone before and, worse still, this sincere flattery of icons and iconography past is being actively encouraged. Miley Cyrus is heading off down the well-trodden path of over-sexualised image that has been presented 1000 times…
From the archives – an old post from Euro 2004, reflecting on another dismal tournament for the English football team. We heap too much expectation on a bunch of lads who will never be able to exorcise the ghosts of the 1966 World Cup. The hype and the ballyhoo is too heavy a burden for…
All brands in this new age require a long-term strategic overview of every potential threat. The corporate vicissitudes being thrown up by the 21st century means that communication and PR skills must be, of necessity, embedded in the captains of industry. After all they are the brand custodians. But looking at BP, and Tony Hayward…
Ever heard of the beer Bavaria? Me neither, until FIFA made sure that absolutely everyone got to hear about it after Bavaria sent a team of pretty young female ambush marketeers to Holland’s opening match of the World Cup using tickets bought in the name of (now ex-) ITV pundit Robbie Earle. One sacking, several…
Forty-eight hours can feel like an eternity when your brand is in the centrifugal force in the maelstrom of public ridicule. In poor old Robert Green’s case, the error he committed by fumbling a save and letting in a dismal equalising goal in the World Cup match against the USA will plague him for the…
Scathing and probing headlines are continuing to castrate and castigate BP’s hapless crisis PR endeavours, further to my blog of the other day. Disapproving chatter clutters the web and denunciatory journalists, bloggers and commentators continue to feed on the corporate leviathan’s swift downward trajectory. The latest casualty in the ongoing debate about the oil spill…
The Media Buying world is clearly in need of some PR help to drag it out of the 1980s. I found myself reading, jaw dropping to the table, this Media Week article by MediaCom’s Claudine Collins. It’s as if it had been ghosted by Charlie Brooker, Chris Morris and Helen Fielding – it reads like…
There was no blog yesterday because I was in the heart of Cornwall, the jewel in Britain’s tourism crown, talking PR with a group of Cornish business people in Rick Stein’s fabulous Fish and Chip shop in Falmouth. The last time I spent this much time in a chippy was with an elephant and the…
It’s a relief to see a little justice being meted out over Bhopal, only 20 or more years too late. The long-standing avoidance of justice is a major stain on the PR industry, bearing in mind how integral PR was in keeping the case out of the courts over the last 25 years. The Indian…
It may be stating the bleeding obvious, but we all know the media is changing rapidly – every few months, something comes along that fractures the old order more and more. The latest is the iPad, one more thing in a long line of technological advances that are making it easier for brand and public…