Femail Magazine January 15th 2009 Rachel Porter asked a panel of experts to give their waspish views on Cheryl Cole, Dannii Minogue, Kelly Brook and Amanda Holden, on which of the four should be crowned the queen of reality TV. Mark Borkowski, PR guru and author of the Fame Formula, a history of the Hollywood…
That is the risk Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King seems prepared to take after leading his supermarket through the economic storm to record its best Christmas ever while most rivals struggled. With King tipped to return to his old stomping ground of Marks & Spencer to replace outgoing Sir Stuart Rose as chief executive, the…
The protagonists dress as if they were auditioning for jobs as cruise ship entertainers. The atmosphere has all the excitement of a wet Wednesday in Bognor; as for the pace of the game itself – well, put it like this: a bad game on a slow day makes the average funeral procession look like the…
How disappointing to read about Prince Harry’s use of racist language in the press over the weekend, not so much because it’s Harry – it’s no surprise, really, that he’s prone to calling people ‘Paki’ and ‘Raghead’ in fun, given that his idea of fun has seen him dressing in Nazi uniform for parties –…
Stunt of the week is the Benylin website and ad campaign advising people on how to take sickies and call in sick to work under the tag line ‘Take a Benilyn Day’ – click here to see what advice they offer. There’s been quite a hoo-ha in the media about the campaign, which is completely…
The Fame Formula – due out in paperback in April – got a good mention in The Hindu at the end of last year, in an article on the changing nature of publicity in the Bollywood movie industry. “Public relations specialist Dale Bhagwagar believes that public relation campaigns will soon be the way that many…
Yesterday, searching online, I rediscovered the pornographic Disney poster, The Disneyland Memorial Orgy, from 60s counterculture magazine The Realist and started to think about the ways in which brands operate in the 21st century. Looking at this poster, as well as at an article in the Telegraph suggesting that Morris dancing could die out in…
Ruby Warrington’s guide to what’s hot in 2009, printed in the Sunday Times’ prestigious Style magazine yesterday, is replete with a plethora of interesting things to watch out for this year. As she puts it: “A new year. A whole new set of values, a new generation of icons, new pin-ups to lust after, new…
2008 has crunched to a close and, this morning, large parts of Britain have woken to a clean sheet of snow, covering most of the names and ideas that haunted, plagued or invigorated us last year. Buried under that sheet are names, soundbites, happenings, ideas and all the briefly-gripping themes that cluttered up 2008. All…
Is there any modern communicators walking the corridors of the Vatican? Clearly, 21st century media advice is in short supply. Was the Holy Father made aware of the dangers in his end-of-year speech to senior Vatican staff? There has been some unfortunate fallout this morning, after his decree that “saving” humanity from homosexual or transsexual…