This link arrived in my inbox today. http://www.webuser.co.uk/news/120293.html. I was astonished at the stupidity of this naïve PR stunt. “Celebrity Jodie Marsh is looking for a husband – and if you think you’re up to the job, you can apply online. Marsh, who in her own words is “very demanding”, is planning to hold auditions…
I noticed in today’s Guardian, Owen Gibson’s article about how adverts these days are attracting a record number of complaints. The advertising industry watchdog’s annual report is published today, and it lists stylised violence, same sex kisses and religious offence as some of the top ten most complained about adverts for last year. An advert…
I found this interesting nugget from Joe Eszterhas excellent book “The Devils Gude to Hollywood” PR folk take note! Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo: “The art of lying is the art of the practical. It ought never be indulged in for the pure pleasure of the thing, since over usage dulls the instrument, corrodes the character, and…
I am surrounded by blogs not unlike a plague of locusts. Attached to every email signature that arrives in my inbox from a fellow PR uber cheese, is another link to yet another wacky blog. Cleaning off this smelly, vacuous, verbal diarrhoea, I urge fellow travellers to focus on the issues at hand. This current…
In the first episode of the new Harry Enfield / Paul Whitehouse series, there’s a sketch in which an antique dealer is trying to exploit a rather stupid Notting Hill “yoga whore”. Sarcastically, the Enfield character suggests that the woman should take up a career in interior design. The woman replies: “Actually, I’ve just had…
The newspapers are crammed with every theory under the sun about the end of the royal romance. We always expect royal romances to be to be like fairy tales, but over the years they have morphed into fables that have been truly grim, with no happy endings. Surely the papers should be ecstatic that William…
As someone who has been involved part and parcel in the modernisation of PR under the influence of the Murdoch papers, the internet and 24/7 news and who has watched from the inside as celebrities took to selling their stories to the press in the same manner as a butcher sells sausages, I am inclined…
Once upon a time, there was little imaginative thinking when using outside space for publicity stunts. Brands were merely content to have a uniform message on thousands of Adshel sites all over the Capital. I firmly believe there is a fantastic opportunity to bring outdoor advertising to life. Yesterday, we created an action in Covent…
Beleaguered England manager, Steve McClaren, was caught throwing his toys out of the pram during a post-match conference following England’s unenthusiastic performance against the minnows of European football, Andorra. Instead of fielding an array of pointed questions from the assembled press corps, the England coach simply walked out of the post-match news conference, telling the…
Mark Borkowski on using the lessons of the PR founding fathers to keep it real in the 21st Century Click here to view enlarged image