Mark My Words Blog
Welcome to ‘Mark My Words,’ the digital sanctuary where insight meets intrigue, and commentary sparks contemplation.
Delve into the dynamic world of PR maverick Mark Borkowski as he unravels the threads of media, culture, and communication. Mark’s blog is a treasure trove of industry wisdom, offering a backstage pass to the inner workings of publicity and the ever-evolving landscape of modern media.
Whether it's Roald Dahl's or Mine, Let's Call a Shed a Shed
Sophie Dahl had the commentariat in a flap yesterday following her request on the Today programme for half a million quid to refurbish and move her much beloved Grandad’s near-collapsing old writing shed to a new home. Seems a lot for one old prefab, especially since mine was only valued at about £100. Clearly some people need to get their priorities straight. Allow me to explain. When I was a kid promoting Danny the Champion of the World, I got the chance to go and meet Mr Dahl in his legendary writing space. It was indeed pretty magical; here was…
Freedom of Information: The Changing Function of the Comms Industry
There was a great post by Kevin Bakhurst on the BBC editors’ blog the other day explaining the changes to the nature of the newsroom in the post-social media age. Bakhurst gives a pretty considered rundown of the challenges posed by social media, not least the fact it almost always has someone else be first with the scoop, as well as its benefits for newsgathering, research, and understanding the zeitgeist. It’s great to see journalists so honestly and humbly engaging with the great communications innovation of our time. However, I think what really needs to be assessed- not just by…
Red or Black: a [Bad] Publicity Factory Closed Down Too Soon?
As Simon Cowell’s ‘Red or Black?’ approaches its end, the viewing figures tell an interesting story. The nosedive from its inaugural 6.4m audience to 4.47m on Sunday was splashed gleefully all over the press and the show was proclaimed to be Cowell’s first failure (certainly not true: remember Rock Rivals? Battle of The Stars? Of course you don’t, but that’s because Simon knows his stuff about publicity). The show that was supposed to do for Saturday night entertainment what the X Factor did for the talent show format (read: play a quick and decisive round of ‘monopoly’) was looking like…
Absolutely Fatuous: The Ravages of Misdirected Satire
It’s pretty ironic that the proposed return of Absolutely Fabulous this Christmas has been getting so much attention. With the stars splashed all over the culture media and some big news stories, anyone familiar with the industry can spot the tell-tale signs of a hardworking publicist beavering away. Yet this presumably highly professional and efficient team is working unwittingly toward branding individuals working in PR as exactly the opposite. After all, this is the show which-arguably more than any other- has damaged the public perception of the PR industry. Of course, the real PR world would make a pretty poor…
New Lego Playset – UK Edition
Don’t you just love a great viral? I wonder if Lego are party to the black humour. Thank you www.thepoke.co.uk for the naughty creativity.
The lessons of 6 degrees of connectivity and brand advocacy marketing
Yahoo’s announcement last week that it plans to test Stanley Milgram’s influential ‘6 degrees of separation’ theory on Facebook shows that it has very little idea about the implications of social media for human interaction over the last few years. The experiment- in which anyone with a Facebook can participate- requires users to transmit targeted data to circles of friends, which is then monitored. Eventually, enough data should be collected that a more reliable verdict than Milgram’s frequently criticised original can be reached- we’ll know exactly how many contacts separate us from anyone else in the world. It’s easy to…
Hapless Jacqui Smith, PR Maniac and foot shooting expert
You almost feel like applauding; Jacqui Smith has done it again. Obviously deciding that, since she isn’t quite so busy with politics anymore, she may as well give The Sun something to do. It emerged yesterday that Smith recently borrowed two day-release lags from a charity run by Maureen Smith- a former political ally- to paint her house. Oh, and on the day in question these prisoners should have been doing maintenance work in the local community. Lapses in judgement don’t come bigger than this. Let’s all enjoy a brief canter down her lurid avenue of past scandals: the leaked…
Twitter: Building PR Order From the Chaos
As executives from Twitter, Facebook and Research in Motion (developer of Blackberry) prepare to meet Theresa May for a chat about possibly turning off operations during times of crisis (as if…), the former company has capitalised on the confusion with a publicity coup that places it streets ahead of the other two in terms of post-riots image. For those who’ve not seen the Guardian today, the paper has compiled a database of 2.5m riot-related tweets which overwhelmingly seem to absolve the company of the dubious ‘responsibility’ for the riots the government is trying to pin on them. Of course I’m…
Celebrity Big Brother PR coup or Voyeurs Wet Dream
While CBB goings-on may not be great news for John Bercow and his marriage, it looks as though Richard Desmond has scored a PR coup in bringing the franchise to his ailing channel. Thursday’s launch show (peak: 5.6m viewers) has been splashed all over the net as the show’s most watched non sporting programme ever, and Saturday’s highlight show reached 2.7m, a feat unmatched by the franchise in its old home since 2008. Strategically the show’s been placed well (in conjunction with hit US property ‘The Bachelor’), and casting decisions have in many cases been golden. There’s Sally of course,…
Husbands of Britain
Husbands of Britain: pity, pity, pity John Bercow. Already under fire from colleagues for somehow being both a bit of an old fart and palpably anti-Conservative in the Commons, his wife took her first steps into a full-blown publicity maelstrom when she entered the Big Brother house last night. Anyone who’s so much as walked past a newsstand or clicked on a news site today will have seen her inexplicably familiar cheeky grin staring at them from the pages of tabloid and broadsheet alike. No wonder- the proud labour supporter has hired almighty anti-Tory bugbear Max Clifford to handle her…
Five Hollywood Bad Boys who raised hell for their publicists
Gerard Depardieu’s recent aeronautical mishap may on one level have been an act of obstinate vandalism by a cantankerous old Frenchman, but on another it is a welcome example of an increasingly rare phenomenon. Time was, every overblown vagabond actor was creating merry hell for their publicists with acts of wholly gratuitous depravity. I was once employed by Richard Harris to help him promote a film at Cannes. I arrived at the Savoy suite he maintained 365 days a year to be greeted by the actor in his nightshirt. During our chat, he told me that the world of publicity…
The appeal of danger
The appeal of danger to the public (particularly the younger sections of it) is among the oldest weapons in the marketing and publicity arsenal. From James Dean’s motorbike to the guns-n-weed lifestyle of the 90’s gangster rapper, the outsider figure living life on the edge has always sparked media furore, and consumer brands have long been hopping on the bandwagon. Whether through a photographer capturing Lady Dior dangling from the girders of the Eiffel Tower or a funfair crier ushering families into the wall of death, marketeers rely on danger to shift units, fill seats and generally make hard cash.
Fabulous out take from Michael White's Guardian commentary
Fabulous out take from Michael White’s Guardian commentary this morning. Haunting Back catalogue material. “I always get uncomfortable when David Cameron talks about the sick society. He was a member of the Bullingdon Club with George Osborne and Boris Johnson and they used to go round trashing restaurants”
God save the queen
God save the queen cos tourists are money And our figurehead is not what she seems Oh God save history, God save your mad parade Oh lord God have mercy all crimes are paid When there’s no future how can there be sin We’re the flowers in the dustbin We’re the poison in your human machine We’re the future your future God save the queen we mean it man There is no future in England’s dreaming No future for you no future for me No future no future for you Let’s nor beat around the burning bush, if EMI wants…
After the Phone Hacking: Networking Sociably on the Social Networks
Back in February, I wrote an entry about the ‘lost art of the long lunch’, which lamented an unfortunate consequence of the modern, social media-dominated environment and its ten minute news cycle. With most conversations now conducted via mouthpiece or screen, and quickly at that, it strikes me that the generations of hacks cutting their teeth from the late 80s onwards lack the highly sensitive interpersonal skills of their forbears. The Fleet Street era of colossal expense accounts and booze-fuelled revelations couldn’t last, of course, but it had one thing going for it. When devious tactics were employed to extract…
After Amy: The Changing Nature of Fame
Lady Gaga was quoted yesterday as issuing a warning to the public on the death of Amy Winehouse: ‘It’s a lesson to the world,’ she said: ‘Don’t kill the superstar, take care of her soul.’ it’s worth considering just who did kill Amy Winehouse? The drug dealers? The hungry media? Her zealous fans? Or could it simply be that fame itself is toxic – or has become so. . My book, The Fame Formula, dealt with the forgotten entertainment icons killed by a similar process back in the early Hollywood era. These lessons have been burried under tons of newsprint…
Furthering the Tragedy: Norway and the News Agenda
The shooting rampage which claimed nearly 80 lives in Norway last Friday would have been tragic under any circumstances, but it is rendered continually more appalling by the calculated PR agenda of the sick, sad ‘fabulous nobody’ behind it. Yesterday’s decision by Judge Kim Heger to disallow both the public and the media from the Anders Behring Breivik hearing, is not only pertinent for the “investigation and security” but also from the standpoint of not providing Breivik with any further platform to skyrocket his notoriety. The fact that Breivik has a 1500 page manifesto is reminiscent of so many “artists…
PR verdict on Rupert Murdoch: Small, unfrightening, unimpressive
This week’s performance by Rupert and James Murdoch at a British parliamentary hearing raises some questions that News Corp. will struggle to answer, regardless of the outcome of the phone-hacking scandal. I find it difficult not to believe that in the days leading up to the inquiry that Murdoch senior and junior will have been briefed by some smart PR muscle, looking to convey the best appearance, while managing the rhetoric to create the best possible image for crisis management, watered down into a fairly obvious mix of sincerity and contrition. The dress code of white shirts and dark suits…
Murdoch in a spin cycle.
From the start, apologies and contrite statements fell out of the mouths of Rupert and James Murdoch, but father and son were at times incredibly shaky before the parliamentary committee. “The head honchos of News Corp looked somewhat ill-prepared, and with Rupert Murdoch struggling to answer some of the questions put to him, one began to feel sympathy for the octogenarian. Thoughts that this was a deliberate tactic seem ludicrous. I am not sure any crisis specialist would have suggested Rupert should play the befuddled role. “Rupert became stronger as the hearing reached its end, but the story that keeps…
Power PR: Matthew Freud and the Murdoch Empire
Many media commentators are speculating on who exactly has the most to lose from the precipitous events caused by the News of the World hacking scandal. The obvious casualties are the hundred journalists who have been pushed out into the cold. Murdoch has withdrawn from BSkyB bid. Other titles are in a definitive tailspin. Andy Coulson could be looking at some time in the slammer. Arguably, the incandescent political damage done by the phone hacking has savaged the Prime Minister’s brand. Any scandal that needs to propel a failing opposition leader into a favourable light requires emergency PR council. Alas,…