Today could and should signal a new and better way forward for the Cooperative Bank. But to move forward now they must ignore the battering and negative comment from the media and create captivating narratives mined from their history and based on their true and original core values. As they take this latest hit, the…
So, everyone, panic over. Our liftime’s answer to the Irish Potato Famine or the sacking of Rome is at an end. I refer, of course, to the great blackberry blackout. At the time of writing, my emails are now fully functional once again after a mere 3 days, 23 hours and 45 minutes. Given that…
Can I ask a dumb question – is it safe to build a nuclear power station on a known fault line and then leave it there for 40 years? The Japanese authorities are only finding out now, and yet the full horror of the situation remains shrouded and shadowed. As the Fukushima reactor appears to…
At long last the question of how much of our daily news originates from PR pixies is to be answered. A new website, churnalism.com, has been launched and its mission is to expose the extent to which articles have been lifted from press releases. I welcome the site – it’s not something good publicists should…
The Media Guardian published an article of mine in yesterday’s Media comment looking at the rise of Google’s SideWiki and what it will mean for the future of PR. To read the published version, click here. For the unexpurgated version, please keep reading! Given the amount of fear other Google innovations, like their library project,…
Bearing in mind what I wrote in yesterday’s post about transparency and trust, it doesn’t really help that there are still PR firms out there who will go to any lengths to be popular. Seventy Seven PR recently put up an adhoc poll to find out which PR firm people admire the most. A nice…
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…
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…
Every new head of a public institution leaps up to sit at the head of the table humming a new tune and Sir Paul Stephenson is no exception. The new ‘super-cop’ who is taking on the poisoned Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police chalice, spat in so publicly by the bumbling Sir Ian Blair, has given…
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…