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.
A Festive Message
What a year it’s been! But now is not quite the time to reflect on that – now is the time to pause for breath, kick off your shoes and relax as the tsunami that is the festive season subsumes you entirely. Enjoy it! You might spend the next few days watching the new Wallace and Gromit and Doctor Who with your family, whilst rolling the fifteenth mince pie you’ve been offered lazily around your plate, debating whether or not you intend to eat it. Or you could be hiding somewhere, away from all festivities. However you choose to pass…
Grasping the New Communication Nettle
In previous recessions and downturns, many companies came to realise that the only way to steer themselves away of the maelstrom was to turn to the steadying ship of good PR. Perhaps Bill Gates’ aphorism – “If I’m down to my last buck, I’ll spend it on PR” – should be embraced as the mantra for the many brands that won’t be able to afford more expensive media alternatives to market their product. The dilemma facing many companies that are deliberating upon how to communicate in 2009 is being compounded by the cyclone of digital communication options. The Borkowski development…
The Next Big Forgettable Ephemera Thing
A fascinating article in yesterday’s Guardian, marking the rise and rise of TV merchandising, which started out by accident thanks to Mattel bringing out a range of toys to coincide with Conan the Barbarian that it couldn’t sell, forcing the company to create He Man and the Masters of the Universe and a plethora of toy and TV programme tie-ins aimed at milking parents through the power of the pre-teen nag. Now, unsurprisingly in the face of a looming recession, TV companies, format wranglers and production companies are desperate to make some dosh whilst they are ahead and still on…
Stuntwatch Week 2
Can you feel the noise? It’s Christmas and there’s no getting away from it, given the inordinate number of Christmas-themed stunts and stories floating inescapably through the ether at the moment. Stuntwatch dons its noise reduction headphones and returns for another look at what PR stunts, dull or delirious, are tickling the media this week. The Danish trivia board game BezzerWizzer is trying to bring home the bacon in Britain by announcing the results of a poll looking for ‘the nation’s biggest know it all’. Simon Cowell has been voted into the top spot, according to the Daily Record, beating…
Bad Santas
Three out-of-work, recession-hit Santas were employed by Borkowski for a simple photo shoot for the company’s Christmas card, due to take place this afternoon. Unfortunately, they got thoroughly drunk beforehand and are currently rampaging around the streets of London. Fortunately, we had a video camera on hand and have been following them as they shout, curse and conga their way through the centre of London, accosting passers by, gibbering, wailing and generally misbehaving. The sight of a pissed up, pissed off Santa sat on his haunches in the middle of London nursing a cigarette like his life depended upon it…
The new transparency
I was interested to read the latest Bare Feet Studios blog by Roxanne Darling on the need for transparency and new, big, clear thinking in advertising; it chimes in rather neatly with my views on the way PR should work in the coming years. “This post is part of my desire to both shine light on discrepancies in advertising and to attract people who want to use advertising as a genuine tool to build better customer relationships, products, and long-lasting brands,” she writes. She is clear-eyed on what has brought about this need for transparency; the internet. She is part…
To Celeb, Perchance to Dream
I hear that Channel 4 has signed bed shop Dreams to sponsor Celebrity Big Brother, which returns to our screens next month for the first time since 2007. Celebrity Big Brother was “rested” last year following the Shilpa Shetty racism row, so it will be interesting to find out if the show can still interact with the Great British unwashed, drive controversy and keep the sponsor away from the tagline “Bad Dreams”. The show has, in the past, had controversy embedded at its heart but Channel 4 are going to have to be more careful this time round whilst bearing…
Too Many Fingers in the Pie
I was sent a beautiful and astonishing graphical representation of the cost of the bailout of the American economy yesterday – one that made my jaw tap my laptop’s keys and type out an expressive gasp of consternation when I saw it. The pie chart in question, below, was posted on the voltagecreative.com blog and is an aesthetically-pleasing version of statistics drawn up by the economist Barry Ritholtz. Whilst one can question the way the dollar prices were adjusted for inflation, there is no denying that this statistic shows explicitly just how much the American economy has been propped up…
Arresting Change
Reading George Monbiot’s comment, in today’s Guardian, discussing the flurry of misinformation about climate change, I cannot help but think that the biggest global budgets, for corporations whose profit-making capabilities are threatened by the need for change, are thrown at secret briefs to the global PR giants, whose only remit is to sow confusion and thus stultify change. “We all create our own reality,” writes Monbiot, “and shut out the voices we do not want to hear. But there is no issue we are less willing to entertain than man-made climate change. Here, three worlds seem to exist in virtual…
Recession and the Shannon Matthews case
In the hoo-ha surrounding the Shannon Matthews case, I find myself wondering about her mother’s motivations behind kidnapping her own daughter. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, even among the most morally dubious of people, and given the amount of attention and sympathy – from most quarters anyway – that the McCaan’s received, it is, I believe, a reasonable supposition to think that someone as clearly desperate and needy as Karen Matthews might think: “I’d like a bit of that attention.” The case may not be the “verdict on our broken society” that David Cameron recently suggested, but there…
Stuntwatch Week One
It’s been a fascinating first week of the re-launched Stuntwatch. I first started keeping a weather eye on stunts back in 1997, long before blogging had a name, and have decided to re-launch now because of the sheer volume of PR flack currently hitting the media, from the good to the bad to the downright ugly. And, in the first week of watching alone, there have been a number of worthy news-grabbers, a few charming but failed attempts and one company who failed to make the impact they were hoping for in quite spectacular fashion. We’ve seen apes on the…
Christmas Axe Heroes
Christmas is fast approaching and the battle to be top game dog is at its most intense, with the R word hanging over most products and retailers. Confidence is key – keep the stores upbeat and they will support the product on the sales floor. And nothing bespeaks confidence quite as well as good promotional campaign in the run up to Christmas. Take Guitar Hero, for example; the awesome marketing power behind this much-loved computer game is undeniable and whilst one might argue that its latest incarnation, Guitar Hero World Tour, doesn’t really need to be plugged, hey, they went…
Stuntwatch for the Social Network generation
The 21st Century is a noisy old place to live, with millions of people going about their daily lives and thousands upon thousands of brands, celebrities, politicians, chancers and scoundrels trying to get some attention for whatever they are selling. And with the recession looming ever larger on the financial horizon, taking down long-standing brands like Woolies, the noise is only going to get louder and more persistent. With that in mind, I’ll be bringing you a regular update, starting this Friday, of all the stunts and wheezes that are competing in the media for your attention, the best and…
Richard & Judy: The Cable Crunch
The Independent reported yesterday on the decline in ratings of Richard and Judy since their move to cable and asked me to comment. Here’s an extract of the article, entitled Turning off Richard and Judy. “They have spent the best part of two decades as Britain’s most unlikely TV power couple. Now it seems the fortunes – and ratings – of the husband-and-wife team are dropping fast, despite once having A-list guests queue to appear with them and a lucrative book club that could make or break an author. “Since the couple’s move last month from Channel 4 to the…
The Power of Twitting
Twitter has demonstrated its awesome power of its network in the ugliest of circumstances; the massacre in Mumbai has brought the networking, information sharing website right to the forefront of news gathering as the tragedy was played out on millions of people’s mobile phones and inboxes second by second. CNN reported Twitter user “naomieve”’s response to the outpouring of information: “Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action.” This is correct to an extent – certainly, news of the attack spread via Twitter far quicker than the old media could…
The Heart of the Brand
Lists define PR – the industry loves and fears them. And when a researcher online takes and avid and assiduous look at brands and the dirt at their roots, there is nowhere to hide, as a list from the Multinational Monitor website proves. “2008 marks the 20th anniversary of Multinational Monitor’s annual list of the 10 Worst Corporations of the year,” they say at the start of their fascinating article, entitled The System Implodes: The 10 Worst Corporations of 2008. “In the 20 years that we’ve published our annual list, we’ve covered corporate villains, scoundrels, criminals and miscreants. We’ve reported…
The kiss-and-tell recession
There’s a new player in town attempting to break in to what Toby Young calls the celebritariat, the fame class. She is Sarah Symonds and she has had her moments in the spotlight before – an affair with Jeffrey Archer and an appearance on Oprah plugging her book Having An Affair? A Handbook For The Other Woman. In the book, she discussed “a friend” who was having an affair with a foul-mouthed celebrity chef. Now, she has revealed that the “friend” was in fact herself and that she had been having a long-term, on and off affair with Gordon Ramsay….
Two stunts with relish to go
I have been critical about Burger King’s PR efforts in the past, but their latest stunt, which started in Chicago and is currently working its way across America, is generating some interest from PR blogs. Burger King have been dropping wallets in the street for people to find. When opened, the wallets are found to contain a driver’s license made out to the Burger King corporation, a note saluting the finders for being good Samaritans, some cash (between $1 and $100) which they are instructed to keep, a Burger King gift voucher and a map showing the locations of Burger…
Jim Moran Lives On!
I’ve just been sent a copy of the free Belfast cultural paper, The Vacuum, which features an article on the great Jim Moran, citing The Fame Formula as the major reference. It’s good to see that, in the wake of the book’s publication, the word about some of the lost greats of the publicity world is spreading. Only nine years ago, Moran’s death was passed over unremarked in the British press; such people didn’t matter much outside America, it was presumed. But the major publicist-generated story of the day was the manufactured affair between Chris Evans and Geri Halliwell –…
John Sergeant retires hurt!
When I saw the news that John Sergeant had apparently fallen on his sword and retired gracefully with a bow from Strictly Come Dancing, I initially thought to myself ‘What a magnificent publicity coup!’ With a little time and distance from that first reading, I have changed my mind – I am no longer convinced that Sergeant left the show willingly and, whilst the publicity is excellent for him, it would probably have been better had he stayed the course. Or had been allowed to stay the course. Consider this; John Sergeant was clearly enjoying himself. His dancing was improving and he…