Spin when you’re winning It could perhaps best be called The X Factor for spin doctors. To celebrate the launch of The Fame Formula, a rollicking history of the Hollywood PR machine by spinmeister Mark Borkowski, booksellers Borders has joined forces with the book’s publisher, Pan Macmillan, to launch a competition to win 15 months…
One of Maynard Nottage’s early clients was the Indian snake charmer and dancer, Arimand Banu. With her erotic and exotic dancing partnered by a cobra, audiences naturally took offence. Everywhere she went she exposed her breasts and let everyone see that she was not wearing any underwear. She proved too hot, even for Nottage…
A huge and gloomy list, outing PR spammers http://prspammers.pbwiki.com/ I am told that this wake was put together by Gina Trapani, editor of Lifehacker.com, but somehow I don’t think this will stem the flow. Trust me, idiots who take the corporate buck will always attempt to push their luck, sometimes with disastrous ends. Beware, as…
The resourcefulness of the tobacco giants in the 1900’s and their alacrity to find new audiences is sometimes astounding. In order to influence women in the pleasures of the tobacco leaf, way back at the turn of the 20th century, the large tobacco companies actually targeted the suffragette movement, encouraging them to smoke in public,…
These days it’s common place to see wags in provocative clothing, short skirts and low cut tops. They are just various no names who try to attract attention by means of their dress, and whose ends are usually as an MTV reality TV host. In 1922, an English publicist St. John Morton was involved in…
The rather good – AccessInterviews has noted that my Sunday Times A Day in The Life interview is up on Times Online
Encouraging news on the book front – http://pfdbooks.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/the-last-day/ PFD,my agents, have been trying to sell the international rights to the book at the London Book Fair. My book, The Fame Formula, hits the bookshops in August. The Fame Formula is an account of how Hollywood’s fixers, fakers and star makers shaped the publicity industry. It is a history of…
It’s so difficult editing my book, the Fame Formula, as the final deadline approaches for the August release date. It all seems so ominous. The main problem is having to leave out all the Jim Moran stunts. During the picture research for my book, Alex, the library ferret, has turned up even more Moran exploits. …
These commercials that appeared in days gone by are laughable by today’s standards, but I wonder which advertising campaigns that we take for granted today will be looked back upon with the same amount of derision? I dare say numerous products will carry health warnings in years to come, that we currently accept without question.
It doesn’t require a journey to Hollywood to notice the effects of the Oscar campaign, that great PR institution that rules the fortunes of the movie world. The Oscars were created as a way of promoting the movies, but they have become, in the hands of Henry Rogers, Warren Cowan and the endless array of…