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.
More from the Fame Formula juggernaut!
A busy day yesterday, starting off at the Groucho Club at eight in the morning. I was taking part in the Editorial Intelligence/HarperCollins panel. The discussion was: Does the Media Break More Celebrities than it Makes? I was joined by Clarence Mitchell, who represented the McCann family throughout their tribulations; Rachel Johnson, who writes for the Sunday Times and just happens to be Boris’ sister (“I won’t mention the B word,” she told the audience) and Mary Riddell, the assistant Editor at the Daily Telegraph. The chair was Peter York. It was a fascinating discussion – Mary Riddell was just…
BBC Radio or Comedy Farce?
I literally couldn’t believe my ears when I heard Les Ross of BBC Radio Midlands interviewing (if that’s what you could call it) the writer and broadcaster Hardeep Singh Kohli. It was far more akin to an Alan Partridge sketch than a BBC radio interview. Les Ross began with an inane question about whether Hardeep would describe himself as Asian British Scottish, British Scottish Asian and all the combinations thereafter, which Kohli cleverly averted saying that too much prominence on your origins is unnecessary these days. With puerile nervous laughter after every remark he made, Ross demonstrated a lack of…
Girls and Corpses…
Thanks to http://www.radiobarking.com/ for turning me on to some rather good magazines Girls and Corpses? “Well, if you’re like me –explains the author, writer Robert Steven “Corpsy” Rhine– you like two things: beautiful girls and rotting corpses. So, I thought, why not bring these two great tastes together in one magazine?” Ahem!? http://www.oddee.com/item_96476.aspx
Twitter Takes Flight
Twitter takes flight Twitter made global headlines when James Buck, a graduate journalist, was arrested in Egypt for taking photographs of an anti-government protest earlier this year. On his way to the police station, Buck used his mobile to send the message “arrested” to 48 followers on Twitter, which ignited a worldwide campaign to get him released. From that moment, the PR world woke up to the idea that microblogging (Twitter offers a text-based posting system of up to 140 characters in length) could wield a powerful global influence. Most recently, Twitter has been used by Barack Obama to show…
Palin Away
“I want you to get out in the real world and marry a rich man,” Joan Rivers told Big Brother contestant Emilia Arata earlier this year, when she took part in the show’s Celebrity Hijack. “If you’re smart, get a man with a heart condition, walk behind him, go ‘boo!’ and you’ll be set for life.” It remains to be seen whether or not Arata will take the acid-tongued comedian’s words to heart, but the advice has rung home for Sarah Palin, who has become part of the celebrity hijack of American politics that is the latest Presidential election. Not…
Hockey Mom on Twitter
I don’t believe it, Sarah Palin is on Twitter http://twitter.com/Sarah_Palin Frankly I am more interested in the fake Palin http://twitter.com/FakeSarahPalin
Kentucky Fried Stunt
My Google alert threw something interesting up this morning: KFC officials used an armored car to move a scrap of paper from one secure location to another on September 9 th, guarded by a former New York police detective. Why? Because on it, Col. Harland Sanders had scribbled his original recipe for quick-to-prepare chicken, a trade secret so heavily guarded that supposedly only three KFC executives have access to it at any one time, two that know the recipe and one who keeps the keys to the safe. They’re not allowed to travel on the same plane, car or train…
Anatomy of a showmance: Why Kelly Brook plus Danny Cipriani equals glamour
Take two young stars, add the perfect styling, and what do you get? An A-list couple By Sophie Morris Thursday, 11 September 2008 Mark Borkowski, founder of Borkowski PR and author of The Fame Formula “The picture strikes me as an experiment from their publicists and agents to see whether these two have the commercial potential of a relationship. What makes this shot valuable is that there is a price on both their heads as individuals, but together the price trebles. The body language means zit. All it says is that someone has carefully chosen a picture that can create…
Ritsaert Ten Cate: A Memorial
“The reproductions are ubiquitous. A real sunset is infinitely more difficult to experience, even when it blazes before us. “ Death can be really cruel: last week it robbed us of the comic, anarchic life-force that was Ken Campbell and then swiftly tore the unique, reassuring and incandescent presence of Ritsaert Ten Cate from the face of the earth. It is awful to realise that death is so ordinary, that it happens all the time and takes the extraordinary away as swiftly as the more mundane among us. And make no mistake, there was nothing ordinary about the Dutchman Ritsaert…
New Media Couple?
Pictures of Danny Cipriani with Kelly Brook adorn the papers today and I’ve had numerous calls from the media wondering whether Kelly and Danny are now the new golden couple. What are these pictures that are strewn over the papers today actually saying? Basically I think these pictures are saying here are two people and their management teams outing an idea that they might be a couple to evaluate their media worth. Clearly this is a marriage made in Coutts. It’s just about two photogenic brands, Cipriani and Brook who is already a genius at keeping her name in the…
The celebrity publicist who broke the rules
This article, on the betrayal of Heather Mills’ secrets by her publicist, was published, in edited form, in today’s Guardian. This, however, is the unedited version. Michele Elyzabeth’s kiss-and-tell all story about her working relationship with Heather Mills in The News of The World is probably the most heinous crime that any publicist can ever commit. For publicists, clients come and clients go. We live with the bitterness never letting slip the secrets we were entrusted with – those are the rules of the game. In my book, The Fame Formula, one very famous publicist sums up the frustration like…
The School of Night Launch The Fame Formula
The launch party for The Fame Formula last Friday, by the side of a steaming pool in the glorious Artspa at Lower Mills Estate near Cirencester, went, if you’ll forgive the pun, swimmingly. The much-missed Ken Campbell, who passed away a week ago, was supposed to have been at the launch to perform, but his School of Night came anyway and improvised gloriously on themes, topics and publicists in the book. They were challenged to write and perform instant sonnets about T.R. Zann and Harry Reichenbach, amongst many other things – here’s a video of one of the results of…
Ritsaert Ten Cate – RIP
Cruel times, only seven days after the death of Ken Campbell another somber bulletin echoes around a wet and miserable Sunday. The dismal tidings came, this morning, from Rose Fenton who called to tell me that Ritsaert Ten Cate has died. Ritsaert was the artist, inventor and director of the Mickery, an extraordinary centre of force in international theatre, he was a mild mannered man, who without question, was one of the most influential producers and presenters of contemporary theatre of the last 40 years. This extract from a speech he made at a huge producers conference indicates something about…
There is more to fame than Big Brother
Big Brother’s latest series ends tonight, bringing to a close another marathon session of ogling at a group of people desperate for fame but with nothing to recommend them but dysfunctional personalities, loud mouths and deep wells of (often misguided) self-belief. It really doesn’t have to be that way, as this entry to the Fame Formula competition, by a personable young man from Australia called Scott Johnson, shows. Here’s a guy who says “I don’t want to famous but I want [the] key issue I’m sponsoring to be famous, who is prepared to do a lot of hard graft on…
EA prove any publicity is good publicity
Hats off to Electronic Arts for having the balls to stage a marvellous publicity stunt. You know they are onto a winner when a stunt is branded “irresponsible” by MPs. The PR caper was to give away £20,000’s worth of fuel at a petrol station in north London as part of a promotion for a new video game Mercenaries 2. Of course, the stunt angered residents and local politicians for causing gridlock during the morning rush hour, but that’s was the aim. A £20,000 spend to get an average video game talked about in newspapers and forums is money well…
The Palin Factor
“Most people have this image in their heads of tobacco executives jet-setting around the world on private planes, eating foie gras as they count their money. Not me. I like to ride with the people. Know your clients. My people cram themselves into a tiny seat, pop a Xanex, and dream of the moment when they can stuff their face with fresh tobacco. If I can convince just one of these kids to pick up smoking, I’ve paid for my flight. Round trip.” Nick Naylor, Thank You For Smoking The hype surrounding the world’s sexiest politician – one Sarah Palin…
High diving stunts and carnival stuntsters
The extraordinary pictures that adorn both the broadsheets and tabloids of Darren Taylor belly-flopping into a tiny paddling pool to break the high diving record may be astonishing, but they would depress any of the old stuntsters. They grab the attention but what is more arresting is the pathetic crowd gathered to marvel as Taylor takes his death-defying plunge at the Denver water park. The history of attention-grabbing high divers is the stuff of legend and a carni publicist’s delight. Through most of the 19th century, small- and large-town America thrilled to the entertainment of travelling shows, which came in…
Fame Formula at The Space, Brighton
Came back from a talk about The Fame Formula at The Space, Brighton’s monthly arts and media event in Joogleberry Playhouse last night, on the slow train. The train was the only slow thing about the night, thankfully. There was a fantastic spirit at the event – about 250 people showed up and asked interested, interesting questions. There was no posturing whatsoever, just a really good vibe. Sold some books too, which is always a good feeling. It was great to have Miranda Sawyer travel down there to chair it, too. Wayne Emms, who runs The Space events, always gets…
Long unseen Ken Campbell video
Ken Campbell, who died on Sunday, August 31st 2008, was a great man and a real friend to The Fame Formula. Not only did he help me launch the book at the beginning of August, but much of his inspired work echoed the work of some of the great publicists detailed in the book; most notably Jim Moran, whose mission to turn cliched phrases (such as needle in a haystack and bull in a china shop) on their head was an inspiration to Ken. Like Moran, Ken often did things more for the thrill of doing them than the publicity…
Yet more emissions from the Fame Formula juggernaut!
The Sunday Telegraph published an excellent review of The Fame Formula by Jenny McCartney, alongside Look at Me by Peter Whittle, yesterday; a small chink of light in a day mostly coloured by the death of my old friend Ken Campbell, who helped me launch the book only a month ago. Jenny McCartney enjoys an insider’s view of how celebrity got where it is today In the past decade, the British hunger for celebrity has grown to frenzied proportions: the public now consumes its ready-made stars as quickly as a bag of crisps. Yet who is it that first shapes…