A friendly journalist sent me this press release this afternoon which he received from a PR agent. Its content surely heralds a new phase of celebrity hell. The journalist commented that it was probably one of the most unpleasant press releases of all time, but that it contained some zen wisdom about our celebrity age. He is right. …
When you are up to your neck in crap and some one with a head cold spits at you what do you do – duck? Perhaps the worst but therefore the most lucrative account must be the Countrywide Financial (CFC). Mauled by the financial media for its questionable lending practices, announcing it will lay-off 12,000…
The creeping erosion of PR standards is highlighted again by some poor practice in a resultant picture caption in this morning’s Sun newspaper. Emblazeoned across the lovely Vicky Newton “bizarre” column is a promo snap of Girls Aloud all brandishing mobile phones. Clearly it was staged to promote the handset. The problem is the story…
Recently I commented on the work of what I thought was a minority of PRs – Veet Pain In The PR Neck Rogue PRs Disappointingly, it has provoked a steady stream of anecdotes from industry folk who seem obliged to tell me about other idiotic tales and poor professionalism in the business, all of which reflect…
An email sent this morning from a Bristol City fan in the Czech Republic put my scam radar on high alert. A pal pointed out an interesting post on the BBC 606 forum – a rather transparent attempt by a marketing or PR company to start a bit of a pie revolution in the lower…
According to Brand Republic the McCann’s have decided to bring in more PR muscle. I suggested in my blog that they needed a PR heavyweight, I am not sure that this is the outfit for the job. Hanover – according to their website is a corporate communications and public affairs outfit with 27 consultants and 40 high profile…
Can anyone provide me with an answer to the rather puzzling predicament that I have found myself in? Sitting in my friends request box on my Facebook site, I have 33 requests from various individuals that I have never met ALL asking me to be their friends. This ragbag of humans has one thing in…
The RAF is missing a fantastic PR opp. The Russian military are proving to be much cleverer on the PR front that the dusty Air Staff. Yesterday British fighter jets were scrambled to intercept eight Russian “Bear” reconnaissance aircraft in the second such incident in recent weeks. Four Tornado F3 planes took off from various…
Lets support the SourceWatch campaign to out the spinning of Wikipedia http://www.prwatch.org/node/6391 In the current issue it highlights the deeds of the dark forces of ” big PR” So far they have logged several attempts at spin into the respective SourceWatch profiles, including: * Chevron deleting the article on “Biodiesel” *Military contractor Raytheon deleting information…
Ben Goldacre of the www.guardian.co.uk neatly summarises why irrelevant surveys – a tool used by countless lazy PR companies are a useless device. Read on… http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/sep/01/1 I wish we could cut out the virulent cancer of incompetent PR execs.