Gallons of intellect, insight and idiocy are poured into election campaigns- all in search of a magic slogan that will catapult a candidate to victory. The amount of money sloshing around in the election market reflects the mythology that has been built around the campaign guru. The power of a phrase to win is often…
Cometh the PR crisis, cometh the troll. In the past week we’ve had an Easter bumper pack of public relations blunders for the twitterati to sink their teeth into. The mother of all has been the United Airlines fiasco which saw a passenger “re-accommodated” in a “de-planed situation” after he refused to be “auto-volunteered” off…
Each day Whatsapp and Messenger process around 60 billion messages. We’ve never been more communicative- and the burden for instant response has never been greater. It’s quaint then that the main news story of the week has been the delivery of a single letter. Since the declaration of Article 50 was signed by the PM…
La La Land –the new musical by Damien Chazelle that has got audiences feather stepping out of cinemas- opens with a traffic jam on a freeway ramp. For a glorious moment the honking drone of commuters is suspended for a sequence to rival great dance numbers from Top Hat to Thriller. What makes Chazelle’s film…
In PR we talk about reaching out and cutting through. We craft messaging that will engage that poised and docile mob we call ‘the public’. In 2016 –a year of Trump and Brexit, outrage and division- this pursuit has never seemed harder. The year will be remembered as one where the mighty fell, the great…
As we gaze on the latest stunt or cracking campaign for a new talking fridge we miss out on the darker side of the industry. Too often PR does not question the larger informational frameworks in which we communicate. That’s where Vladislav Surkov comes in. Surkov remains semi-invisible and anonymous, lurking in the shadows. He…
Spare a thought for Panama. They want to be known for their high levels of literacy, their traditional straw hats and their eclectic cuisine. Yet thanks to the famed leaked papers this country of less than four million continues to be synonymous with Dickie Roepers swigging their Crème de menthes on their untaxed island getaways….
Pokemon Go has entered the decline stage. This is the fad phase after the belles-lettre stage that sees a flurry of pretentious musing on how said fad is changing everything and the one before the stage where your parents get into it. Meteoric popularity followed by equally dramatic trailing off is nothing new. The Washington…
Ask a reasonably clever ten year old what a journalist is and she will say someone who reports what is happening. While this impression may become more nuanced as we develop a greater understanding of how news is broken and spun this basic understanding still underpins our view of what the media is. How is…
In PR we talk about reaching out and cutting through. We craft messaging that will engage that poised and docile mob we call ‘the public’. Well, if this morning’s result has shown us anything it’s that this pursuit is utter rubbish. Any illusion of commons threads that bind together our diverse country has given way…