Mark on Fame on Film
A film, by Aaron Stone, featuring Mark Borkowski instructing a couple of wannabe celebrities on the perils of fame.
Name Changes, Wispa and More
An article in today’s Independent on brand name changes, comebacks and stunts, mentioning the Borkowski Wispa campaign and quoting me from a blog, originally published here. “We should really have learned from the past. Cadbury started making Wispa bars again two years ago after an online campaign by chocoholics supposedly nostalgic about their 1980s heyday….
Neal's Yard: You Ask They Sulk
Neal’s Yard have committed a grave PR error by backing out of the Guardian’s You Ask They Answer debate on homeopathic treatments and going into hiding. Twitter has been in a twirl about it all morning. In an age when there is a need for transparency in all things, Neal’s Yard have to fight to…
Griffin & Bowers: Publicity Predators
What do ex-pop star Dane Bowers and the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, have in common? They’re both publicity predators, prowling at the fringes of big news and ready to leap in and attach their teeth into the rump of a story that will get them attention. Griffin is all over the news at the moment,…
The Ongoing Expenses Scandal and What to do About it
Day fifteen of the Telegraph’s ongoing revelations about MP’s expenses rumbles into view with no end in sight and I’ve just recorded a piece for the Trevor Macdonald show on the affair – another in a long list of opinions given to the media. It may seem easy for a PR pundit to hand out…
Cannes Do Publicity
The frenzy of moviedom and publicity that is the Cannes Film Festival is upon us again. Publicity stunts play an enormous part in the festival, however much the BBC’s Victoria Lindrea may protest that this year “really is all about the films“. Certainly there’s a great selection of serious filmmakers showing at this year’s festival,…
The Art of Saying Sorry
I was asked by the Guardian to comment on the new trend in contrite adverts, from the Marks & Sparks ‘We Boobed’ campaign to the Evening Standard’s resetting of standards adverts. “Over the years the public have become sick and tired of being ripped off and misled and as a result we are now in…
Borkowski on The Susan Boyle Phenomenon
I was asked to comment in a dissection of the Susan Boyle phenomenon by Al Jazeera’s The Listening Post a couple of weeks ago – here’s the video…
Mark Borkowski and Max Clifford: The Video
Here is the webcast of the head to head between Max Clifford and myself at the London College of Communications last Tuesday, in nine handy bite-sized chunks. Apologies to anyone who logged in to Ustream in the hope of seeing the debate streamed live – Ustream crashed and prevented us from going ahead. Part One…
Nothing Sacred: from Carole Lombard to Jade Goody
I enjoyed the launch of the Fame Formula paperback at the Riverside Studios at Hammersmith on Wednesday night for many reasons: it’s a great venue, the people who came were interested and interesting, it was good to expound on the brilliance of publicist extraordinaire Russell Birdwell to an audience and it was marvellous to see…