March 2007

MCCLAREN THE UNWISE

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 media: "Gentlemen, if you want to write whatever you want to write, you can write it because that is all I am going to say. Thank you,"

I am really not sure why he dispensed with Max Clifford, who was working on his case last year, but I am sure the wily PR would not have tolerated or advised such a strategy. Publicists know that keeping open lines of communication with the media at the highest level is essential.

Steve surely can’t be surprised to discover that he is in the second most difficult job in Little Britain. As England manager you are only winning when the team is winning, so a healthy attitude and a phlegmatic stoicism are an absolute must. As Sven’s old assistant, McClaren must have witnessed the media pressure heaped on Eriksson and recognized it as all part of the game, so why employ such a petulant tactic now?

A fellow publicist thinks McClaren is a well-adjusted person and perfect to deal with the pressures of public life because he makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. In public relations, no matter what is thrown at you in times of crisis, a constant dialogue with the media is paramount. The media respect a public figure in the firing line, as long as its taken on the chin, and every new dawn is an opportunity to exploit. If a stream of carefully constructed sound, bytes are provided as a crutch this will always keep the heaving ship across a stormy passage. If the national team coach were designing cars, I am pretty certain he would create a machine that would not have a reverse gear. Make no mistake, the bloke needs outstanding PR council.

The national game generates unique passions and everybody, including a middle-aged PR blogger, has a POV and a favoured team formation so it is clearly impossible to achieve perfection. Therefore, foot-shooting is unquestionably an ill-advised sport. Where is the clever word-merchant, on hand to help the coach deal with the inevitable? Petulance further alienates football hacks and exhibits signs of weakness throwing spades out and inviting a spot of grave digging.

From a PR perspective, surely the joy of a tough job in public life consists of honing of one's energies, trying to create a dialogue with those feeding off the bad news and attempting to provide a surprising honest perspective as well as telegraph an enjoyment of the experience. To stop, or even to run, simply means you die.

The eternal mistake is to set up an attainable ideal, like a mirage the flawed job offers. McClaren needs someone in the shadows to point the finger of blame at key players who perform for their clubs but somehow fail to pull their fingers out for the national side. Various commentators and pundits are whispering it, but the manager is by his behaviour seems to be deflecting their criticisms.

A failure is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying to communicate and connect to the media that serves your best interests. Someone should whisper from on high Bertrand Russell’s maxim: "Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken."

USING THE LESSONS OF THE PR FOUNDING FATHERS

Mark Borkowski on using the lessons of the PR founding fathers to keep it real in the 21st Century

View enlarged image

PR WEEK POWERBOOK

I am informed by David Brain’s blog that PR Week have published their PowerBook, Evidently I am on a list of folk that have declared some strange peccadilloes. David's blog http://www.sixtysecondview.com has more information, when I can find the time to read the thing I will offer my point of view.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The food industry is an ingenious beast when it comes to persuading consumers to swallow information about the benefits of their foods. It’s a long-term investment for them to manufacture attitudes towards their product and they’ll go to any length to plug it, covertly or openly. Usually, stealth is the favoured action.

There’s a story in the news at the moment that illustrates this perfectly; an American university has been attempting to make the humble pizza a healthier option by baking it for longer at hotter temperatures. The university claims that they’re “not trying to make junk food more healthy” but are “providing hard scientific data so people who bake can improve the food they make”.

Even if this is the case and there is not some corporate giant of the pizza industry behind the study, this is the sort of research that Dominos, for example, will lap up with as much gusto as the American nation consumes pizza. They apparently eat 90 acres of pizza a day – that amounts to roughly 45 football fields-worth of pizza consumed each day. No doubt Dominos or one of their rivals will get a faceless representative to spin it out as a new health initiative for the company in the near future, whether or not they’ve actually applied the techniques described.

Here’s a good example of the core thinking of food companies, however it is presented in the press: I sat in a room a while back with a (now ex) food client, looking at the opposition with them and trying to further their cause. “If you want to clean up your image,” I innocently suggested, “why not announce you’re going to take out all trans fats and additives.” They looked at me as if I’d just landed from Mars (the planet, I should add, not the chocolate brand which used to claim it would help you work, rest and play).

There’s a long tradition of these sorts of play offs and continuations of brands. The father of PR, Edward Bernays, promoted Lucky Strike cigarettes to fat-conscious women with the tag line “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet”, largely supported by the medical profession, without anyone knowing it was his client, the American Tobacco Company, behind it. It was inspired PR but had a long-term deleterious effect on thousands of people.

If PR is used effectively, a corporation can spin out its brand forever. The fact is that no one knows exactly what goes into foods – thanks to PR companies following in the tradition of Bernays. Given the rise and rise of health consciousness, however, the corporations are now playing a waiting game.

With the rise of grassroots organisations like Farmers Markets, the public have been alerted to better tasting, more sustainable food supplies and wants to know what the multinationals are putting in their foods. So what’s a good PR company to do to help? All too often, they put conscience aside and spin for all they’re worth until nobody knows the exact facts and figures. When they are found out, they employ delaying tactics to prevent too much immediate backlash.

All such confusion and subterfuge is a definite ploy to make sure they’re still around to become brand leaders in a brave new health conscious world. The fact that nobody knows all the detail is a PR victory.

All the same, most claims are rumbled eventually. A case in point is the recently reported one in which two New Zealand schoolgirls humbled GlaxoSmithKline after their science experiment, which aimed to prove that cheaper brands were less healthy, actually proved that the multinational’s claim that Ribena contained masses more Vitamin C than orange juice was bunkum. Whilst it is true that blackcurrants contain four times as much of the vitamin than oranges, the girls discovered that Ribena didn’t.

A GlaxoSmithKline representative, true to the traditions mentioned above, has said that this only affected some products in Australia and New Zealand and that they have conducted “thorough laboratory testing of vitamin C levels in Ribena in all other markets. This testing has confirmed that Ribena drinks in all other markets, including the UK, contain the stated levels of vitamin C, as described on product labels.”

No mention of who conducted the tests or what the details of the testing were. Time for more schoolchildren to get testing, I’d say. And not just on Ribena.

WIMPEY & WOODROW

Listening to the Today Programme yesterday morning, I was depressed to hear the story in Business News about the merger of George Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow.

The reason was not so much the merger itself, but the bland and faceless media-trained voice of Peter Redfern, chief executive of Wimpey. It was deeply upsetting to hear him, at 7.20am, droning on in an emotionless voice about land banks and lack of housing and how the merged companies would be very compatible.

In the drive to create an environment where there are no Ratner moments, where the message slips down as smoothly as ice cream on a hot day (and offers equally little nutrition), all the personality has been lost from the public face of corporations. With someone like Richard Branson, whilst what he says always has a measure of control, you know you’re getting the real deal – a genuine businessman who says what he means and doesn’t bury everything under a lather of deeply ingrained, corporately trained soft soap.

With more and more well-versed media trainees being taken on to act as mouthpieces for major corporations, there’s just no real personality to big business any more. The representatives are drilled to be automatons and it must be incredibly tough for journalists to catch a good story. Information, in the hands of these Midwich Cuckoo-like mouthpieces, becomes as slick as a fish and is impossible to get an interesting angle on. Which is surely what the businesses want, but in terms of the populace at large gaining understanding of what’s going on, it’s a disaster.

Simply, the bigger the institution, the further we get away from the real story. Will these houses last? What, in the end, will be the legacy of all the huge corporate concerns whose slick operators slip off the hook with ever more ease? Will the houses they are promising to build last? What will the legacy of these bloated corporate concerns be, in a world where everything seems to be disposable? These are the sort of curve ball questions people like Peter Redfern are trained to deflect with corporate techno-babble. But people are beginning to see through the lather, it’s become so obviously slick.

Given that, there are people prepared to stand up to the blank face of the corporations and they are achieving some small victories, such as the residents of Bournville preventing Tesco from selling alcohol in its new Birmingham store. They may have won the right to keep the suburb alcohol free, but that hasn’t stopped Tesco from saying that they will probably re-apply in the future.

It is becoming impossible to slay Goliath these days, no matter how many Davids you have lining up with slings.

I LOVE MY STAFF THE BEST PR FOLK IN LONDON

I need to send out a big thank you to the team from Borkowski who handled the PS3 launch at Virgin Megastores so brilliantly.

The team turned up at Oxford Street on Wednesday at 11am to get things underway and worked through to midnight, then turned up on Thursday morning at 5.30am and worked right through to 2am on Friday morning, making sure that everything was right, that the press got the stories and pictures they needed and that everyone was happy.

Basically they worked like Trojans, sorting out all the interviews and photo calls, contacting the press, manning the doors, putting up branding, running across town to the Piccadilly store to man a PA midway through Thursday, liaising with the crowd, directing the press to Virgin Megastores and Sony reps, making sure the first guy in the queue got together with GMTV for an interview as soon as he had his shiny new PS3 in his hands and supporting all the launches at Virgin Megastores across the country, plus a hell of a lot more.

You can see from all the press in the last few days that they did an exemplary job – all the photo calls ran like clockwork, even when Sony threw in a generous surprise, giving away 46-inch flat-screen Sony Bravia TVs worth £2,000 to the first 100 people in the queue and an ´excellent amount of coverage was generated. The fact that Virgin’s events manager was on holiday puts the Borkowski team’s collective efforts on behalf of the client into sharp relief – their blood, sweat and tears went into PS3’s Virgin launch!

Sony said they gave away the TVs “to repay the patience and loyalty of all the people who have waited the extra few months for the European launch” of the PS3. For the same virtues, all I can offer my team right now, given that they’re still in the office making sure the media have all the information they need for Saturday’s papers, is a huge shout of “Thanks!”

The PR business can be a tough game, but with a team like this, even the most complicated launch can turn out to be a triumph.

DANIELLE LLOYD CLEAVAGE AND THE INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED CONCEPTS.- (GEEKS VS TOTTY)

Despite having been a social pariah not so long ago, thanks to her role in the racist bullying on Celebrity Big Brother in January, Danielle Lloyd seems to be making something of a career statement - in the pages of the tabloids at least - despite headlines mere weeks ago suggesting that she’d never work in this country again after Shilpa-gate.

The red tops were out for blood initially, but since then, the Daily Star has discovered that, whenever they’ve published pictures of Danielle in various stages of undress, sales of the paper have rocketed to lads.

It’s hardly a eureka moment – lads will invariably be lads - but the Sun and the Daily Mirror seem to have taken it as such and, naturally, have welcomed Lloyd back into the fold with open column inches. The venom is still there by the sac-ful when it comes to Jade Goody, but Danielle Lloyd is coming home.

It’s interesting to note the differences in approach from the various tabloids – today’s Sun crows about Danielle snogging two footballers in a club whilst her ex, Teddy Sheringham, froths impotently in the background (all this under a picture of Lloyd’s redoubtable bust and a typically ebullient headline about a pair of strikers), whilst the Daily Mirror’s 3am girls insist that it was Sheringham himself who was taunting Lloyd by openly flirting with a “hat trick” of women.

What does all this tell us? Well, largely that the Sun will always back a woman with beautiful breasts, whilst Teddy Sheringham quite clearly has some good friends at the Mirror. It also suggests that the lads who have helped effect Lloyd’s return from celebrity purgatory have a lower set of standards than lads of the same age 40 years ago.

Take a look at today’s Guardian and the report on NASA grounding its ideas factory – otherwise known as the Institute for Advanced Concepts. This is the institute that concentrated on “grand visions and big ideas that might inspire new technologies” and gave the world a wealth of daring and challenging ideas like the space elevator and the possibility of meaningful human presence on the surface of the moon and Mars, but it’s been brought down to earth with a bump thanks to lack of money.

This is hardly a surprise in an age when boys want to be footballers - who invariably pull the best-looking girls - rather than astronauts or, worse, scientists, who spend most of their time locked in darkened labs pulling protons.

It’s a sad indictment of society when Danielle Lloyd’s sexual shenanigans appear to be more important to the general populace than the ability to further our experience and the tabloids would rather prop up their readership with pictures of a pretty, dim model and endlessly spun-out stories of her exploits, instead of daring their readers to hope for a better future.

MORE COMMENT ON HEATHER MILLS ATTEMPTS TO RESURRECT HER BRAND

The interview is from the BBC5 Live Drive-time show

Click here to download mp3

HEATHER MILLS: BATTLE WEARY BUT NOT BEATEN

Heather Mills may be suffering the slings, arrows and accusations of outrageous fortune hunting on all fronts at the moment, thanks to her divorce from Sir Paul McCartney, but she is, despite it all, keeping up a media-savvy brand development which would suggest that she’ll last a lot longer in the public eye than many might hope or expect. She clearly has a keen eye for headlines and the world of celebrity.

And there’s no doubt that she’s good at targeting events that will engender sympathy in the long run. Take her appearance on Dancing With the Stars, which she is competing in to “inspire others with a disability”. The main criticism from the judges was directed at her arm movements during the foxtrot – this for a woman who lost a leg.

Of course there are a number of Beatle fanatics who are demanding a boycott of the show, but after Heather’s performance they are beginning to look a little unkind. There are even bets being taken on whether he prosthetic limb will fly off during the show, but the only thing Dancing With the Stars is likely to send flying is her post-divorce career.

Signs are good for Mills’ brand of animal welfare activism too, with much coverage being given to her recent invasion of a pig farm. Simply, Mills is carefully redeveloping her brand of celebrity-driven agit prop, based on the long-term interests that have sustained her for years, in the midst of the tabloid-engendered chaos. A quick scan of Google news results shows that she’s beginning to have some success.

The fire-fight surrounding the divorce, once Heather’s weathered it, will clearly prove useful for her. It will allow her a life beyond the acrimony, funded by the alimony, however much that turns out to be. She can’t fight Macca head-on but she can deliver up the headlines that will keep her in the public eye – eventually journalists will learn to love her for this, if nothing else.

MARK JOINS IN THE DEBATE ABOUT SWITCHING CODES

Mark joins in the debate about switching codes. Can entertainment publicists convince brands that they know something about content connection and stewardship?’

Click here to enlarge image

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Today's news was dominated by two stories. The first to be served up was a survey on how our busy lives are leading us to be able to cook only four different meals in our lifetime. Lack of time and long working hours mean we don't learn how to cook different dishes and plump for the good old favourites like Spaghetti Bolognese and Chile Con Carne.

I'm usually tough on surveys, unless it's part of a bigger campaign, as they are a lazy tool offered up by process-driven PR shops brimming with fluffy Muppets, but intriguingly this survey was commissioned by the PR company behind Lloyd Grossman sauces, who will doubtless be jumping for joy as they scan the coverage and see a one line mention for their client.

However, the debate generated by the survey actually promotes the idea that we should be working harder in an already time-compressed world to create real food rather than reaching for the readymade sauce crutch!

Surely that's a bit of an own goal, even if all publicity is good publicity? Perhaps they should have communicated something about how nutritional the sauce is or focused on the fact that it doesn't use processed ingredients.

Good old Lloyd has made a fortune for all the time he has saved us, God bless him, so I do hope that any of the more headline-hungry nationals in search of a hearty snack don't see all this attention as an excuse to take a deeper look into the brand. I'm sure Grossman's sauces can stand up to the microscope test, but I'm not so sure about the PR company's ability to keep his business under such circumstances.

Speaking of sauce, the other story of the day is Freddie Flintoff's drunken shenanigans with a pedalo boat during the Cricket World Cup. Flintoff was an heroic knight in shining armour when he helped slay the Aussies at the Ashes 18 months ago - I am sure there was a campaign to make him a sporting saint after that and I think I said at the time, national success is fine as long as you and the team can fulfil the potential shown.

The Ashes in Oz last year brought everybody down to earth and now we are back to the fun and games. Now the once-canonised Flintoff is taking the cannon-fire of disappointment. He is a fantastic cricketer but he seems to be steadily morphing into Ian Botham.

Surely the pedalo incident is just the sort of thing cricketers and footballers do. Creating mayhem and going on the rampage are surely reflective of what most lads do after a game? I have no wish to say such behaviour is good or bad; it's just, simply, what they do. At least Flintoff has shown he has a big personality off the cricket pitch as well as on.

Dumping the responsibility of an under-performing national team at the feet of a modern Corinthian is unfair. It's a burden that few can shoulder in this modern media age. Let's not forget the newspaper entourage that is covering the tournament in the West Indies. Surely they've got to pay for their supper, as well as file a big expenses claim, for nailing a story of this magnitude?

Many years ago, when I was on the Ian Botham Hannibal walk, I learned how important it was to file a story to stay on a trip. You filed the story, irrespective of facts, rather than be called back to Blighty for more mundane duties. The journalist who got hold of "Pedalo-gate" has probably booked an extra two weeks in the Caribbean to nail another misdemeanour. And top up his tan.

BYRNE BABY BYRNE

The venerable Colin Byrne has started a blog. The round robin email today outlined his trepidation.

“Today I lost my blogger virginity with the launch of my own blog –
www.byrnebabybyrne.com. Huge thanks to my colleagues James Warren and Rachel Hunter on this and to pals like David Brain for showing me how it can be done.
My first time – be gentle with me!”
Colin

ONE I WISH I HADN’T MADE EARLIER!

I think I am going, as Cypress Hill so memorably articulated, "insane in the membrane". The cause of this mental collapse is down to the fact that good old Blue Peter has joined the ever-growing and ever sorrier-looking list of TV folk who have been banged to rights for faking phone ins. What in blazes is going on?

How can so many formats be under such scrutiny? The press is becoming obsessed, as they feast on more and more scandals surrounding premium rate number quizzes.

Apparently, Blue Peter viewers had been asked to phone the show on a premium rate number last November for a chance to win a toy, with proceeds going towards a Unicef appeal. Shock horror, telephone operators had technical problems, which meant they could not get information to studio staff. As a result, a member of staff asked a child who was visiting the studio to phone the programme and give the answer on air. The child then won the competition.

I’m inclined to agree with the blogger ‘nationwide’, responding to the Grauniad’s Organ Grinder blog, which suggests that tarring and feathering Blue Peter for one gaff is a bit much, given all their good work. OK, perhaps they should have announced that the winner was going to be announced on the next show due to a technical hitch rather than go for instant gratification by roping in an unsuspecting child in the studio to claim the prize, but with all the money still going to UNICEF, a little more slack needs to be given

The BBC has quickly apologised and has publicly fronted up their sin. Richard Deverell, BBC children's programmes controller, said: "Whilst I am satisfied that there was no premeditated attempt to deceive or mislead viewers, the decision to put a child on air in this way was a serious error of judgement".

Cor blimey guv, here’s one I made on the spur of the moment without any sticky-backed plastic and it’s a bloody disaster!

Executives are running around like headless chickens trying to pick through the debris and trying to find a way out of this mess and salvage some trust. Of course, for the broadcaster, it's paramount to try and find a way back but I am not convinced that it actually is such a huge disaster.

OK, so Britain's TV industry has been embroiled in another controversy over phone-in quizzes and how viewers are charged. The likes of ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have all suspended some premium rate interactive services after problems emerged. But has the issue really permeated to the man on the street? Is the media feeding frenzy amplifying the story to a greater extent than actual public interest? The tabloids and broadsheets are having a field day spinning out the chaos; the pyrotechnics are sensational. The issue needs to be addressed, of course, but are the TV networks really corrupt? Surely it's just laziness, or complacency, blown out of all proportion.

Everyone in "TV land" knows that true and compelling interactivity with the viewing audience is the Holy Grail. Apart from voting out the odd sad celeb or wannabe from a reality format, we have yet to see a challenging, interactive and creative [format] that works. The suspension of these scams might make the various production companies exercise their creative muscles.

The great British public is very generous and happy to forgive if the appropriate and proper action is instigated; Blue Peter has, after all, weathered a number of storms, from Richard Bacon’s coke habit a few years ago to puppy substitution in the early 60s. Any chatter about brand damage is for habitués of overpriced media watering holes rather than down the local on a Saturday night.

God forbid, however, that anybody reinstates premium lines without a real solution in place. If the systems fail after re-launch, then there will be a need for a public execution and the public will back it. Arrogant TV money-men should not rush back until they have a proper solution connected to compelling content.

MORE ART ON THE STREETS PLEASE

Flyposting is a thing of the past. Thanks to Camden Council. Pete Strange, the oddly titled Boulevard Project Manager, Camden Council, managed to get Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) served on those heroic street guerrillas a couple of years ago that made our streets less interesting According to the Guardian at the time " Camden employed five council officers last year to deal with flyposting, which costs taxpayers in the borough around £250,000 per year."

Well I am glad to report art on the streets is back! I noticed these amazing posters turning up on sites all over North East London, titled OPERATION MAGIC KINGDOM they were generating attention of onlookers this lunchtime.

I found the artist manifesto on a blog http://www.cdtimes.co.uk/

"The 2007 operation surge to crack down on insurgent activity in Iraq has failed. The Pentagon tries one last tactic. 400,000 leaflets are dropped into the suburbs of Bagdad, the message reads 'Believe The Magic'. Children and parents maimed or injured by US forces will be given Disney vouchers worth $120.00.

The U.S. led 'Operation Magic Kingdom' moves into Bagdad, adopting the UK's 'Winning Hearts And Minds' tactic by wearing masks portraying loveable and friendly Disney characters in a bid to gain the confidence of the Iraqi people. The rules of engagement have been changed to include 'try and be more fun before firing'.

'Operation Magic Kingdom' is hitting the streets of Shoreditch, London and beyond with a billboard and flyposter campaign.

One billboard under the bridge at the end of Old Street will show a different image for 3 consecutive weeks supported by the extensive flypostering of 2 designs around the area.

The leader of the C.N.P.D. was unavailable for comment but has previously opened a Terrorist Aware Gift shop in 2004 in time for the Christmas massive (Original story available by clicking here).

Believe the magic

More art on the streets please

STARBUCKS BREWS UP MUSIC LABEL

Starbucks brews up music label

Hear Music a 'natural next step' for the coffee behemoth and music retailer, says Starbucks boss. Sir Paul McCartney rumoured to be the first artist to sign to label

Rosie Swash :Guardian Unlimited

http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2032739,00.html

Coffee behemoth Starbucks announced today it is to extend its role from coffee shop and part-time music retailer to full-blown record label with the formation of a new company, Hear Music. The company has for the past few years been selling music in its stores by artists such as Ray Charles and Brazilian Sergio Mendes, while also signing distribution deals for previously unreleased Bob Dylan tracks and music by Canadian artist Alanis Morrisette.

Announcing the formation of Hear Music, the president of Starbucks Entertainment, Ken Lombard, said, "This announcement is a natural next step in our entertainment strategy. Hear Music will add tremendous value to the content offerings and distribution of great music Starbucks customers have come to expect."
Starbucks purchased the Hear Music brand name in 1999, when the label was a catalogue company; it evolved into a radio channel and began in-store CD sales and sales through iTunes and is now a complete record label that will manage new artists. Reports spread by Fox News, as yet unconfirmed, suggest Sir Paul McCartney may be one of the first acts to sign to the label.

Mark Borkowski, of PR firm Borkowski Services, thinks Starbucks' latest venture into the music industry will prove to be a double-edged sword for the coffee giants.

"On the one hand, this is a fantastic shield for Starbucks. It's the third time they've announced a new liaison with the music industry in the past few years, and their brand is historically tied to music by way of the traditional folksy, rootsy coffee-shop scene."

However, the PR man also thinks the dubious ethical value of the Starbucks brand will prove tricky to overcome. "Everybody is trying to get into music, and while Starbucks has a strong link in this area, it is also a passive one. so every now and then Starbucks need to make an announcement like this to reconnect their brand with music. Another problem they have is an ethical one; the negativity that surrounds the brand is their Achilles' heel."

The chain's development into a giant of the music-retail industry has been a controversial one. Dylan caused outrage when he signed a deal to sell material from his 1962 album Live at the Gaslight exclusively through Starbucks. The coffee franchise is a symbol of American capitalism for the anti-globalisation movement and the move did not sit easily with many fans of the notoriously anti-establishment Dylan.

Starbucks has 13,000 stores worldwide and nearly 45 million customers a week globally, making it one of the top 40 music retailers on the planet.

CASTAWAYS SEE SURVIVAL IN A FIERY SCOTS LONER

Scotsman - Edinburgh,Scotland,UK
PR expert Mark Borkowski said he believed the public appetite for such shows had not been sated. "The freak show was common in Barnum's time and circuses ...

http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=381032007

Castaways see survival in a fiery Scots loner
FERGUS SHEPPARD
MEDIA CORRESPONDENT
HE IS a self-professed loner whose favourite motto is the maxim of the notorious occultist Aleister Crowley - "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

Scot Jonathan Shearer last night emerged as an early star of the BBC's reality show Castaway as it returned to the screen after a seven-year break.

The 42-year-old RSPB officer, from Benbecula in the Western Isles, has swapped one remote home for another to join 12 other contestants dropped in a bay on Great Barrier Island in New Zealand.

For the next 12 weeks, they face deprivation, spartan living conditions and tasks designed to test group morale to breaking point - all, of course, on camera.

Viewers of last night's opening 60-minute special saw Mr Shearer demonstrate alpha-male qualities as he arrived in the first group of contestants. He succeeded in lighting and safeguarding a fire for the group, which was given only one match to complete the task.

Before joining Castaway, Mr Shearer was generally dismissive of his fellow contestants, who include a would-be Tory MP, a former lap dancer and an occupational therapist. He said: "I have a strong dislike for the kind of deeply earnest, green, touchy-feely idiots whom I suspect you are going to populate your island with. They need me there to teach them how to live properly."

When the initial group of contestants realised a second party was coming ashore to join them, the RSPB officer expressed the uncharitable hope that they might die. As the boat loomed into view, the Scot condemned its occupants as "a bunch of people as useless and pointless as us".

He added: "I hate them all, they're not welcome and I hope they all die first, and when they die, we are going to eat them."

Mr Shearer regards himself as fiercely bright - he has three degrees, one in chemical engineering from Edinburgh University. His CV includes stints as a psychic, sewer digger and zookeeper.

The original Castaway series, broadcast in 2000, was set in the Hebridean island of Taransay and did much to popularise the TV format of people living in inhospitable places with not enough to eat but lots of time to row.

PR expert Mark Borkowski said he believed the public appetite for such shows had not been sated.

"The freak show was common in Barnum's time and circuses were popular in the Coliseum," he said. "This format has got the mixture of circus freak show, public humiliation and curiosity. As long as they have got casting right, we are still going to love it."

• Dancing On Ice will return tonight after it was cleared by the review into TV premium rate phone-ins, ITV said yesterday.

STAR OF TARANSAY
THE original series of Castaway, shown in 2000, followed 36 people as they lived on the Hebridean island of Taransay for a year.

It made a media celebrity out of Ben Fogle, a former picture editor for Tatler magazine. His blond good looks, kind way with animals and collection of woolly jumpers made him a national celebrity and pin-up.

After leaving the show, he became a presenter on BBC1's Countryfile and has worked on other shows including Animal Park, Cash in the Attic, Wild in Africa and One Man and His Dog.

Fogle took part in the Atlantic Rowing Race in 2005 with the Olympic gold-medal winner James Cracknell, setting off from La Gomera in the Canary Islands and rowing non-stop for 2,535 miles and 49 days until they reached the Caribbean. Fogle, 33, proposed to Marina, now his wife, after completing the crossing.

WHY PR IS SEEN AS SYNONYM FOR PROPAGANDA?

I notice that David Brain, President and CEO, Edelman Europe has passed comment on his blog about who he would prefer to be the talking head for the PR industry.

"No disrespect to Mark Borkowski or Max Clifford, but I’m so much more comfortable having the industry represented by a character who is as good on presentation and personality as he is on content on the big issues of the day."

Brain obviously was impressed by Colin Byrne's performance on Question Time last night. I revere and admire Colin, an operator that has a proven ability and track record, a true pro. Ahem.

Mr Brain feels that I am no more than a frivolous sound bite merchant, I suppose I should be pleased that I have passed the CEO’s radar, as I am not one to inhabit some of the darker corridors of power that he stalks. Perhaps this luminary would rather that I didn’t draw attention to some of the interesting work his company undertakes globally. The mighty John Stauber on the other hand does have an interesting take on Edelman. http://www.prwatch.org/node/3666

I was told this week by another PR spook that I should consider some of my principals. The twat concluded that if I was less principled I might make a lot more dough. OK hands up, I might not have always got it right in my choice of clients, but at least my articles in the broadsheets on the industry might prick the conscience of the grey suits. Rather than focusing on ethics, far too many of them enjoy fellating corporate dick to achieve profits for global media groups

THE POLITICS OF SPIN

Barack Obama’s presidential nomination campaign looked like it was steaming ahead perhaps a bit too smoothly. The headlines this weekend, “Obama ancestors owned slaves, a researcher found” http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/03/04/obama_ancestors_owned_slaves_a_researcher_finds/ suggest that some dark force had a reason to throw a spanner in the bandwagon. Pals of mine in the U.S. had suggested Obama would be an antidote to the political spin game and many thought he would escape the bondage of PR consultants. I rfeckon his initial success and a measure of his power has frightened certain quarters of Republican America, and this research has been used to undermine his campaign. His political credentials were never great, he is no Martin Luther King, but he does appear to be something different. Much of liberal America thought he would be a Capraesque figure with the ability to make a fairy tale ascension to the big job. I suggest that this spurt of publicity has been generated by those that fear him most. One would hope that there aren’t too many other skeletons in the cupboard or they’ll be used against him as well.

Let’s not forget the man who wrote the PR handbook for political spin, way back when was Edward Bernays. He clearly identified that it was possible to manipulate negativity to turn public opinion. It’s true that the public is getting frustrated by spin, but this make the spinners choose to work harder on an ever escalating scale. When Jessie Jackson was supported by black democrats in 1988, he scored high, but there was enough other information was leaked that counteracted the headlines, so belief in his brand was undercut by the very heartland of the black American lobby. It was described at the time as “telling people that what they think is true, is actually true” in other words it had the same effect as telling people that what they think is true, is not true. This cleverly played out to undermine momentun deliberately making real truth ununclear. When there is too much news around in any political race, everyone gets suspicious. I was once told that when talking about creating an explosive device, people tend to focus not on the explosive damage of the device , but why the bomb is being discussed. There are book shelves full of political spin but there are no significant text books, as those involved choose not to put their true experiences into words and therefore create a legacy for their work

PASSING OF IAN WOOLDRIDGE

This mornings Guardian obit of Ian “Woolers” Wooldridge is a work of art; penned by non other than the other sport writing legend Frank Keating. http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2027343,00.html. His first paragraph is an enchanting, “Ian Wooldridge, who has died aged 75, was an undisputed heavyweight champion of British sports writing. For his readers, with his perception, passion and wit, he bridged the chasm between those who are fervently knowledgeable about sports and those who are decidedly not. By his peers over almost four decades, he was considered just about the transcendent British operator. His clubbable urbanity and generosity lent lustre to his peripatetic trade, sometimes considered trivial, if not rather grubby”.

I met Wooldridge on a number of occasions the most notable was on Ian Botham’s Hannibal trek across the Alps to raise money for Leukaemia research. My job was to look after the travelling pack of scribblers who dissected each days events, as the flamboyant cricketer retraced Hannibal’s steps with a couple of Elephants It wasn’t the easiest job and as a young publicist I moaned about my lot to the doyen. One late night in a sensibly priced hotel bar in the South of France. he reminded me about how fortunate I was to be on the “adventure” and suggested that I should be more respectful of my exotic employment. ‘Woolers’ assured me that as I got older I would understand that every moment of life had to be savoured. Over a nightcap he mused about life's rich tapestry and recommended that to experience life’s true delights one had to value the passing of time and sense that there are never enough hours in a day.

HOUSE WRAP ON YOUTUBE

The house wrap for Lower Mill Estate has finally made its way onto Youtube. What a crazy day and perfect Valentine’s present.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=420arT31ZRw

I think the Mail article sums it all up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=435702&in_page_id=1770

It was the best fun I have had in an age, and it was joy to have a client that found a way to make this happen.

MARK TALKS ABOUT CHARLOTTE CHURCH PREGNANCY

Mark talks about the Charlotte Church pregnancy news on BBC Radio Wales
02 March 07

Listen Here

BATMOBILE TICKETED

I love old publicity stunts that turn up each year. The first sighting of a famous car being ticketed by a meter maid was way back in the 1960's when the 007 Aston Martin DB6 was actually pulled over in London.

Ahem, I am not sure if this was the really the first, so I am looking for the original that set the PR precedent. There are three basic variants on this stunt and I will award a bottle of Krug to the person who can prove superior knowledge of this feat of ingenuity.

JOHN STAUBER’S VIEW ON PUBLIC RELATIONS

John Stauber, is the founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, which sponsors PR Watch, he is one person I have huge amount of respect for. I have always taken note of his outpourings which are usually very insightful. Stauber has been around the block, since the 1960s. He has worked with public interest, consumer, family farm, environmental and community organizations at the local and national level in North America and has really made a difference I was so pleased to find this cool video on You Tube.

The PR universe is thought of as cool place to explore; this film illuminates some of its dark corners and exposes its unpleasant underbelly. Stauber usually teams up with Sheldon Rampton and their latest book, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq unravel the Bush administration’s “web of disinformation” around its handling of the war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NABvQnbfSEg