It’s often difficult to get publicity for charities but Nell McAndrew’s participation in Race for life 2008 saw to it that Britain’s largest women-only fundraising event in aid of cancer research had the paparazzi snapping.
The photocall in Regents Park saw participants including McAndrew running in just thongs, with risqué body parts covered by body painted shorts and running numbers.
Often we see celebrities being used in a clichéd manner to get brands in the papers, but this was a clever idea and it’s fantastic that a celebrity like Nell will do something like this for charity.
Posted by Mark Borkowski on February 28
6 STEPS TO REVIVE YOUR CAREER
She’s just another chav with a cheating boyfriend so I shouldn’t really give a **** but I find Cheryl Cole’s situation astounding.
Her ritual humiliation at finding out her partner Cashley Cole, had ended up with an old Premier Football team groupie has led her to loose lots of weight, go to Thailand, get a great tan, tip photographers that she’s there, surreptitiously pose for shots in revealing beach ware, get endless coverage, refuse to speak to her husband, get even more coverage, go to the Brits, steel the show in a classy dress. Hey presto - her lacklustre career is now back on track!
Expect to see The Daily Mail running Cheryl Cole’s new diet any time soon. She may have no private life left, but at least everyone knows her now. Job done.
Posted by Mark Borkowski on February 21
PAP PUBLICITY
It has been a surreal day. It started on the BBC Breakfast sofa where I rabbited on about Holy Moly's decision not to accept intrusive paparazzi pictures on their site. It's an interesting debate but I think the gesture is more of a heroic publicity stunt to garner more notoriety for Holy Moly, than taking any moral stance. The amount of coverage that this act has generated suggests thatit achieved its aims and has brought a massive amount of traffic to their site.
As soon as I returned to the office, I was sent his link -
My suspicion thinks this smells of a scam. If you really had all that music, why would you ever want to sell it?
Posted by Mark Borkowski on February 20
THE SKI LIFT POOCH
After the huge interest in the Chalford Donkey I am now drawn to this story http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7251195.stm
about a dog on the BBC web site. This pet dog is turning heads on the snow-covered slopes - by using a ski-lift.
Guinness, a four-year-old collie, leaps into the air and grabs hold of the lift with his teeth at the Glenshee Ski Centre, then hitches a ride. He then decides when to jump off, before running and skidding downhill.
He is owned by Graham McCabe, managing director of the ski centre, who said: "Guinness is slightly mad and very cheeky, but also extremely clever.
I believe the pooch has a big future; wonder if it needs a good publicist.
Posted by mark borkowski on February 19
MARK ON AL JAZEERA
Al Jazeera is the largest and most controversial Arabic News Channel in the Middle East, offering news coverage 24 hours a day from around the world.
Mark contributes to its round up of 2007 on Al Jazeera's media show The Listening Post
Madelaine McCann
Harry Potter
Posted by mark borkowski on February 19
TONY KAYE WINS A GRAMMY
I am so pleased for my great friend and client Tony Kaye – who has won a Grammy for
best short form video for his promo for Johnny Cash’s God’s Gonna Cut You Down.
It features a huge array of famous faces lipsyncing to the track frm the American V album
(produced by Rick Rubin) - the song was one of the last recorded songs of Johnny Cash. Take 3 minutes out and enjoy the wonderful film
Posted by mark borkowski on February 19
A CHANGING WORLD PUTS PUBLIC RELATIONS IN A SPIN
A changing world puts public relations in a spin.
Never mind Nick Davies's suggestion that overworked 'churnalists' are being hoodwinked by PRs, Mark Borkowski says flaks and hacks are both struggling to cope with the news cycle
So the media world is flipping over and over like a gigantic overdone pancake because of the ethical fix caused by publication of Nick Davies' book Flat Earth News. I have to declare an interest as I did spend an enjoyable couple of hours with Davies about two years ago in a down at heel coffee bar in central London when he was researching the thing. I made sure that I had a Fairtrade green tea rather than the frothy cappuccino that might have coloured his opinion of my views on the state of modern PR.
I tried to drive home to him that the world of public relations had changed in a way that journalism had failed to truly comprehend. PRs have not got better but more pragmatic, morphing into something unrecognizable to many hacks.
The publicity campaign for his book has been extraordinary; rarely has a tome about the fourth estate caused so much debate and, as a PR, I pray this has resulted in sales. I think Davies might be intimating in the book that information supplied to journalists by us PRs is dodgy. I suspect this suggestion of an unhealthy merging of gate-keeping and poaching might itself be a device to generate more ink and boost sales. If so, I applaud the mischief – it has made the publication an event. Usually a book is lazily promoted by a shallow survey disguised as a story – one of the issues he highlights in the book.
Colin Byrne's excellent (Byrne Baby Byrne) blog on the Davies book was right on the money. "Of course some PRs do send out vacuous rubbish and bogus surveys dressed up as a story. Of course some political PRs do try and manipulate the news. And of course some journalists are bone idle and recycle rubbish as news. But on the whole most journalists and PRs are being better trained for their jobs and are trying to do them to the best of their abilities. Interesting to see that the 'holier than thou' Guardian occasionally lets its eye for a good puff or a shapely figure get the better of news values. Witness its report on Martha Lane Fox's and Brent Hoberman's new internet business venture. The Times gives it a sober short report. The Guardian does the same but accompanies the story with a near page deep colour photo of Martha looking foxy (groan) in what looks like a black rubber dress!"
With resources under pressure in the new world of "churnalism" I do think there are PRs who take advantage. I see a generation of publicists who think smart and don't feel the need to work hard. This breed is quick to take advantage of the overworked journalist who is time poor and looks for the easy route when standing up a story. Many journalists have been sucked in. Diverted by the idea that PR is all about the world of fighting flak, they have found themselves consumed by the PR industry and made an extension of it rather than a necessary foil.
In this declining press market, promotional stunts and giveaways can now make bigger news than the key story of the day. Witness the Mail on Sunday pulling off the greatest coup of last year not with a breaking, agenda-setting story but a PR and marketing exercise in the circulation war – the cover mount of a Prince CD. When I represented Prince a decade ago he was one of the Mail on Sunday's main targets for a turnover story, someone they would have loved to have nailed and tried to on numerous occasions. But 10 years is an age in PR and journalism.
It's significant that many very good modern PRs – or media strategists – are former editors. Stuart Higgins (ex-editor of The Sun), Ian Monk (a former Daily Mail executive and deputy editor of the Daily Express) and Phil Hall (former editor of the News of the World) have all upped the stakes after swapping codes. Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall years ago?
I have just handed the manuscript of my book, The Fame Formula, to my publishers. It's a seven-year journey on understanding these changes we are seeing, what is inside the dark souls of some publicists and how strategies have been changed to try to gain the upper hand. The industry has morphed into something different to the previous notion of PR. Technology has changed the business. Five years from now, PRs will be describing the media tools of today, such as email, as archaic. I recently told an audience at Westminster University that a generation of PRs will die if they do not keep up with technological changes.
Have PRs got any better at their jobs? Let's face it, agencies are multiplying like a virulent strain of the bubonic plague. It's deadly because they will do the work at any cost – something which will devalue the craft. The hard truths are that you don't have to have any knowledge of the workings of the media to open up a PR shop – just subscribe to Gorkana and Media Disk and you can track down any journalist you like. It's like handing a chimp a Kalashnikov AKS-74U assault rifle. I am not sure if anybody cares because we never have time to put the vehicle in neutral.
The American PR man Michael Levine told me that in this crowded market only the most determined PR companies will survive. "The new game is not easy and the game is not fair. But with enough burning rage the game is winnable." Not just journalists but PR clients themselves are struggling to understand the role of modern public relations. As Levine says: "PRs [have to] spend time justifying the work to a marketing man who thinks PR is a form of direct marketing or sale promotion."
These are testing times for journalists and PRs alike. Davies has defended his book's glorification of a previous golden age of journalism. But really, who cares about the past? It's being on the money with the new idea that counts. The speed of the 24-hour news cycle has changed the rules and everything is only going to get quicker. The facts are that we all now work in a very different media universe. It's not better and it's not worse, it's the now and we better get on with it.
Mark Borkowski is a media commentator and head of www.borkowski.co.uk brand and entertainment publicists.
'The Fame Formula' is published by Macmillan in August. The book's blog can be found on www.markborkowski.com
Posted by Mark Borkowski on February 18
CHALFORD DONKEY PART 20
The media circus moved out of my village on Sunday. Without doubt the best take on the surreal turn of events came from Cole Moreton.
The aftermath seems to have divided the community; some suggest that it’s painted the village as full of eccentric geriatric freaks who can’t clamber up the hill, others have a lust to plunder the infamy. Don’t expect the resident film makers to pitch the ponderous “quiet after the storm” to Channel Four…
Posted by mark borkowski on February 12
CHALFORD DONKEY
I am compelled to write about an extraordinary event that has spiralled today concerning my own sleepy village in Gloucestershire. Someone once wrote "..if ever a place deserved the often over-used cliché, "undiscovered gem," Chalford is the place! " The village is located in a ridiculously lovely valley bounded by strikingly steep hillsides. It's an idyllic spot nestled on a hill called the Golden Valley—and has been ever since Queen Victoria rode the Great Western railway through the valley. It is an Alpine village with only one small road.
Houses are perched up on the hill because it was one of the centre's for the manufacture of broadcloth and its wealthy clothiers built many of the houses on the hill. It has a limited vehicle access so everyone has to walk up the hill to get to their homes. Before the car, there used to be a house at the bottom of the hill where the village donkey resided, whose job was solely to carry people’s shopping, wood, or whatever up the hill to the houses. This tradition lasted well into the 1950’s. Today a movement has started to bring back the donkey at its got the rest of the world in a twist about the prospect
Daily I buy all the daily newspapers from the Villages Store, seven days a week, and each day I walk down the hill and then lug the massive wad of papers back up the hill. Maybe not for much longer?
At 8.40am this morning, I was listening to The Today Programme and I heard that the residents of Chalford, centered around the community stores that have managed to keep the post office and village store open have launched an iniative to bring back the Chalford donkey. A community group newsletter petitioned for a village donkey as a means of transport, and has won the support of most of the homeowners.
What I love about this eccentric community that I live in is that they are thinking laterally about the issue and rather than asking to get roads put in which would disfigure and disrupt the area, they are going for an eco friendly option in reverting to mule power. Inundated with calls today , not about celebrity crises, not about rebranding, but about my village. The Daily Mail has offered to buy the community its donkey and wants to create a documentary on the subject. It just goes to show the speed of the media, and the impact of The Today Programme.
What I find really fascinating is that this sleepy part of Gloucestershire can suddenly become not just the place where I buy my news, but the news itself.
Posted by mark borkowski on February 12
JOURNO GAFFS
I often comment on the stupidity of PRs, but idiocy in media land is not only demonstrated by publicists, but also journalists. I was told two corking tales by a very well placed journalist friend of mine involving two astounding hack faux pas.
The first was about none other than Britney Spears; a story was filed which really sent sub editors into a spin. The story claimed that Britney had been involved in a binge drinking session while she was fourteen months pregnant. When the journalist was questioned, she either hadn’t grasped the rudiments of biology, or simply didn’t recognise her foolhardy mistake.
Another showbiz journalist – now a well known blogger – filed a review about the remarkable performance of a famous pop starlet’s gig, which had actually been cancelled. Moreover, on the evening the journalist was supposed to be reviewing this cancelled gig, they were actually having dinner with the pop starlet’s record company publicist.
Posted by Mark Borkowski on February 7
PROPAGANDA AND SECOND HAND NEWS
Two great opinion pieces in the Guardian today written by Peter Wilby on the subject of Alastair Campbell's Cudlipp memorial lecture last week
which neatly seg-ways into Nick Davies op ed rant to help push his book Flat Earth News. The opinion feature "Our media have become mass producers of distortion.
“Being a scientologist, when you drive past an accident, it’s not like anyone else when you drive past. You know you have to do something about it because you know you’re the only one that can really help”.
This odd and chilling Pythonesque indoctrination video that was leaked on the web lit the touch paper to give permission to the web community to take up what the traditional media had failed to do – take apart Tom Cruise’s image and his chosen religion. It spurred a flurry of “indoctrination parodies” The latest forward is Clinton & Cruise: On the Campaign Trail
a cleverly observed and well edited piece which identifies that there is a growing tide of antagonism towards Cruise from the web which creates a real danger. It’s one in a series of videos that are made to look home spun but aren’t. Like water on stone, they are picking away at Tom. And below is the latest batch of those reacting to the original video.
It is clear that the web community is out to destroy Cruise’s finely tooled PR image as well as that of Scientology. A cluster of activity began after a German historian compared Cruise’s hyper intense oratory
to that of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist, and the weekly if not daily video offerings signpost the burgeoning anti cruise material. Undoubtedly this trend to belittle Cruise and Scientology has been heralded by the failure of the traditional media, previously neutered by L. Ron Hubbard’s legal muscle (or sheer immoral or illegal means) that the Scientos have employed to crush any unfavourable publicity.
Take for example Paulette Cooper, a U.S. author who is best known for activism against the Church of Scientology; she was the recipient of nineteen lawsuits filed by the Church. The situation culminated in the Church itself sending forged bomb threats purportedly from Cooper, using her typewriter and paper with her fingerprints on, to the US government. They were eventually uncovered by the FBI, but according to Hubbard, she had been “fair game”.
It seemed that any critic of the Church have, at some point, found themselves the targets of vicious silencing campaigns. Paul Barresi the celebrity sleuth was harassed repeatedly for claiming he’d slept with John Travolta (a scientologist) and Graham Berry, an LA based lawyer who found flyers all around his neighbourhood saying he was child molester. In the satirical world of television, the Scientologist’s “operating Thetans” were ridiculed in an episode of South Park in 2006. At that point Cruise put pressure on Sumner Redstone, the head of Viacom, which owns Comedy Central (home of South Park) to pull any repeats of that episode.
After resignations and indignation, the episode was pulled. In early January came the news that Cruise was going to sue the publishers of Andrew Morton’s unauthorised biography prior to its release. It claimed amongst other things, that Suri Cruise was sired using sperm from the late L. Ron Hubbard. Not surprisingly Cruise denies this and other claims and Scientology lawyers have drawn up a seven page document damning Morton and are seeking $113 million in compensation from Morton’s publishers, St Martin’s press.
Any great viral campaign needs three things – there has to be fantastic content that has virality, it has to be contagious and it needs time to develop. This campaign has all those facets. Without doubt, people have thought that Scientology is just a crazy club for rich Hollywood weirdos, but with this constant web exposure, that view is changing. Mensnewsdaily.com claims that secret documents have been popping up all over the place http://digg.com/odd_stuff/More_Scientology_Secret_DOX, and a hacker group called “anonymous” has already managed to shut the official Scientology website down for a 24 hour period and is hell bent on laying waste to the church’s entire organization.
The emphasis here is that celebrities are in fact fair game on the web. The existing spin machines are labouring in their clumsy attempts to halt this guerrilla activity. This campaign is a PR precedent and illustrates how bankrupt the celebrity wranglers are and how powerless they are to contain this reputation damaging creep. Countless carpet baggers are trying to peddle snake oil solutions to this type of campaign.
The hapless Hollywood spin community is naively buying this futile counsel. The key issue is that the organisations fail through their hubris to understand that these new consultancies do not provide the solutions to quashing these Tsunamis. Clearly this Cruise campaign suggests that celebrities have to consider their authenticity. My suspicion is that if this succeeds to destroy Cruise, the web community will move on to the next deserving candidate.
