March

Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Apple, YouTube, Versace & Dumbo

Borkowski Weekly Media Trends

We have neglected Brexit and crafted some hot trends from this week's news cycle; from Apple's pursuit for world domination to Dumbo's flop - don't miss the Borkowski grand wizards' (couldn't resist a Brexit jibe) take on the wider world...
 

HAS APPLE'S AMBITIOUS LANDGRAB BEEN SUCCESSFUL?

Apple this week launched a raft of new products including a credit card and a streaming service. Media response to this launch has been mixed but, as in life, Apple’s media profile is too big to fail. Previous product launches have been critically panned (remember when your chargers and earphones suddenly became obsolete) but such is Apple’s domination of the market and the cult-like-loyalty of their customers, that they always land on their feet. The credit card doesn’t have the most competitive interest rates, but Monzo has shown us that bank cards can work as a fashion accessory and – as with its electronics – Apple’s undeniable gift for aesthetics could work to their advantage.

The streaming service is more ambitious and more likely to fail. Netflix and Prime have built such megalithic structures (as the BBC quake in their boots) the streaming giants aren’t likely going down without a fight. The mixed success of their original shows has shown that it’s not something that even a monster media company can master overnight.

YOUTUBE HOUSE

YouTube created a pop-up this week providing curated samples of their work and merchandise in sectors including food, gaming, fitness and music. A media giant expanding into live events isn’t new; Spotify and Soundcloud to name a couple, have run pop-ups at music festivals we work with. They initially arose during the wellness boom; just at the moment we realised the limitless potential of new media, we also realised that spending all day on screens might not be totally wise. This, combined with the sudden upsurge in popularity of any kind of immersive or experiential live event, created an obvious avenue for media giants to expand into.

What’s good about this one is that it looks, on the surface, like quite a successful attempt to translate what was appealing about YouTube as a digital product, into the live events space. It will be interesting to see their next steps.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT HOTEL

A stunt that you know is fun just from the PR Examples headline: Trivial Pursuit opens the first hotel to accept knowledge as payment. Another display of a brand moving into the experiential entertainment sector has seen Hasbro set up a whole (quite nice looking) hotel in Russia where guests pay for things by answering Trivial Pursuit questions.

It’s been covered widely by the media internationally but had a weirdly muted response in the UK with a Google news search mainly revealing approving nods from industry trades like AdWeek and The Drum…maybe it’s a stunt for purists!

THE RETURN OF THE VERSACE SAFETY PIN DRESS

Sustainability is all the rage in the fashion world, and it was amusing this week to see that even media fodder can be recycled successfully. Liz Hurley’s infamous Versace safety-pin dress, first seen at the premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral, made its grand return as Liz wore it on the cover of this month’s Harper’s Bazaar a full twenty-five years on.

Coming in the wake of Four Weddings’ modestly received Comic Relief “sequel” the dress has made more of a splash; while not emitting the shockwaves it did on its first appearance it certainly sent a healthy ripple of nostalgia throughout the British media when the cover was revealed.

NOT EXACTLY A FLYING START FOR DUMBO

Is Disney’s live action remake bubble about to burst? The initial success of Jungle Book provoked a flurry of productions from the family entertainment behemoth, but diminishing returns are already evident; Beauty and the Beast was okay-ish, Dumbo is apparently rubbish (early reviews have been shocking), Aladdin looks, if possible, even worse: basically a lot hinges on The Lion King – the most promising looking of the upcoming projects (but is that only because its trailer is literally a shot-for-shot remake of the original?); if that’s not as good as we hope then a reputational crisis looms.
 

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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Dumbledore, Fireman Sam, Janet Jackson, Billie Eilish & Theresa's Mayday

Borkowski Weekly Media Trends

Here's out latest line-up of trending topics in this week's media; from kids classics to musicians old-and-new, to Theresa's 'us-and-them' Hail Mary and a new commercial arm for the Murdoch empire.
 

TOUGH WEEK FOR CHILDREN'S CLASSICS
This week has been a stark illustration of the highwire act it takes for a children’s classic to remain relevant and politically correct in today’s hypersensitive society.

Firstly, there was an example of trying too hard to retrofit a woke undercurrent to a franchise which wasn’t massively criticised for being out-of-touch anyway.

We’ve more-or-less accepted that Albus Dumbledore – a character as canonically asexual as the paper on which he was conceived – was gay. But, in trying to hammer home how okay she is with that, the world’s most famous literary figure J.K Rowling decided to retro-reveal the sexual nature of his relationship with the dark wizard Grindelwald.

This was a miscalculation on several fronts: firstly, since Dumbledore’s outing, we kind of knew this already, all explicit confirmation does is rob that original relationship of any nuance or openness to interpretation. Secondly, acknowledging that gay people have the right to a sex life isn’t exactly going to get you a medal for inclusivity, and thinking that it will borders on patronising.

For a different tactic we head to Pontypandy, where Fireman Sam was accused in the Telegraph by senior fire officer Alex Johnson of putting young women off the fire brigade with its lack of gender diversity, backed up by the London Fire Brigade’s #FireFightingSexism campaign.

Mattel who own the Fireman Sam brand were quick to backtrack with promises of evolution to keep the show relevant, but Fireman Sam creator David Jones was less conciliatory, claiming there was “nothing he would change” about the show – although having sold the brand 15 years ago he’s free from the constraints of trying to keep everyone happy.

These two are just the latest classic family brands to get sucked into debates about the social responsibility of fiction – our old client Beano Studios and Thomas the Tank Engine are others who have had to adapt quickly and smartly.

There’s a middle ground here between Rowling’s over reaching and Jones’ flat refusal to engage with a changing world; finding it is going to be a challenge for heritage family entertainment brands for years to come.  
 
JANET JACKSON'S GLASTASTROPHE
Howler of the week by a long way goes to Janet Jackson. At a time when anyone bearing that surname would do well to lie low – at least as low as you can when being announced as a sub-headliner for Glastonbury -- JJ decided to seek out the limelight by literally promoting herself to headliner in a crudely photoshopped poster which relegated The Killers.

This was a pointless endeavour as her name was already in the top line of music’s most prestigious poster billing, and as a result of that she will not be short of either an audience or publicity opportunities when she rocks up in Somerset. But deeper than that it seems to show a lack of understanding as to just how big a deal Glastonbury is and the depth in which its fans study its line-up, and also a perhaps a lack of respect towards her fellow musicians.

Foot: meet bullet.

 
IS BILLIE EILISH A MUSIC INDUSTRY PLANT?

We all love a rags-to-riches tale. Consumers are actively drawn to it, which is why it’s been a publicity tool of choice since the dawn of time. (Just ask Simon Cowell).

As it becomes easier and more accessible to make music, there is an unhealthy expectation that every artist has a captivating origin story. When the internet gets a whiff that someone may have had a leg-up or there’s a shred on inauthenticity, they pounce, usually screaming conspiracy!

In Billie Eilish’s case, she has been widely labelled a ‘music industry plant’. This has come to fruition after it was ‘discovered’ that her brother Finneas O’Connell had written/co-written her earlier work and, slightly more vaguely, she had family members who are actors/involved in the music industry to some extent. SHE’S A PUPPET! – it’s the only logical outcome…

The distinction really boils down to how you define an industry plant.
Here’s the thing. The music industry is full of people who’ve had a helping hand(s) (as is most of the entertainment business). It’s the quality of the output that will stand the test of time and determine her legacy. We’ll find out when her hotly anticipated debut lands next week.


THERESA'S MAYDAY PLUMS DEPTHS OF POLITICAL RHETORIC

‘Nothing has changed’

How our leaders communicate with their people is always a source of interest to any communications specialist and this week was no exception.

With a wave of populist rhetoric sweeping presidential lecterns like never before, it was interesting to see the high-water mark of the ‘promise simple answers, blame other people and it’s never my fault’ style of political rhetoric emanate from Downing Street. The days are now gone when the world looks to Britain for stiff upper lips and cool heads, and our integrity is as dead as May’s options. At the moment of maximum panic, when the pressure was highest, she turned to the cheapest trick in the book.

 ‘I am on your side’ she said, directly to us, the people, and she has certainly caused an interesting reaction. At time of writing the petition to revoke Article 50 altogether approaches 3.5 million signatures. And for all those looking to see where the Independent Group are most likely to field candidates in any upcoming election, look no further than this map.

Interesting times are coming, let’s just hope that the rhetoric steps up to match the scale of events.
 

And finally...is Influencer Marketing the new Advertorial?

If you needed a clue about the future application of influencer marketing, the announcement this week that News UK is launching The Fifth, a dedicated agency within their commercial division, says a lot. News UK have always had a keen eye on potential new revenue streams and have been quick to adopt and adapt to the tune of new financial opportunities.

Defining their offer to type and tone instead of the more traditional scale will be key to success because they already have the distribution channels and reach to create leverage. This is advertorial 3.0, but it also signals that understanding how to grab the attention of an audience and how they react is vital. The art of PR has an opportunity to shine here,,,.
 

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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Maitlis Side-Eye, Beckham Statue, Fashion's PR Crisis & Dave

Borkowski Weekly Media Trends

In a week dominated by laugh-to-hold-back-the-tears chaos in UK democracy and unspeakable tragedy in New Zealand, here’s a selection of the other media trends which grabbed our attention.
 

Maitlis Side-Eye

On Wednesday morning the nation awoke to the one spark of dry humour in a damp, dark and dismal week of Brexit purgatory; Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis delivering a thunderously withering side-eye to Labour’s Barry Gardiner after his failure to clarify his party’s up-to-date stance.

It was an outside broadcast for which Maitlis was wearing a duffel coat that made her look a little like a disgruntled Admiral, and she followed her death stare with a burst of furious stage-scribbling, all of which combined to crate a spate of memes and sub-memes which lasted almost the whole of Wednesday.

While the consensus was that she’d perfectly captured the mood of the nation, she didn’t receive universal critical acclaim – Corbynistas held the exchange up as an example of the BBC’s establishment contempt for the current Labour leadership.

We’re also not pretending that the side-eye was in any way strategic, but her general current interview demeanour of open exasperation at times spilling into outright hostility feels intentional, and we think ‘I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!’ is a good look for a BBC regularly accused of letting politicians on both sides off the hook for their incompetence.
 

Golden Trolls
 
On Tuesday David Beckham went for a meeting with a man he thought was the sculptor responsible for a statue of him soon to be unveiled in LA.

The statue was a comically grotesque misrepresentation of the famously handsome footballer, who (while just about staying within the boundaries of courtesy) couldn’t help but express his dissatisfaction with the likeness, only to discover that it was a prank perpetrated by his very very very good friend James Corden.

It’s not the edgiest stunt we’ve ever seen and won’t live long in the memory, but it garnered a gargantuan amount of media and social coverage and was quite a clever nod to the infamous (non-prank) Cristiano Ronaldo statue.

It’s done no harm to either Corden – as a reminder that there’s more to him than Carpool Karaoke and sycophantic cackling – or Beckham, who displayed a level of human decency not apparent in the allegations about his reaction to being overlooked for a Knighthood.


Is the Fashion world on the verge of a comms crisis?

After Burberry’s ‘Noose Hoodie’, Gucci's 'blackface jumpers' and Katy Perry and Prada’s ‘Gollywog’ shoes, the latest communications issue for a major fashion brand was ignited by Louis Vuitton’s roll-out of several Michael Jackson-inspired items as part of their Autumn/Winter 2019 collection, just over a week before the release of the devastating documentary Leaving Neverland.

The fashion giant first denied all knowledge of the documentary (a tenuous claim) before eventually pulling the items from the collection amid a spree of apologies and naval gazing. We admire their proactivity in trying to set the record straight; not the worst patch-up job ever, but there’s a time to stop digging and move on.

It also raises the question of how dynastic fashion empires get into these scrapes in the first place. Part of fashion is using design to raise issues, break taboos, and push social and creative boundaries, but this has to be done with common sense, conviction, authenticity and self-awareness. Perhaps the giants of the fashion world need to take more responsibility for the potential social impact of their creations before unleashing them on the public.

How does Dave go from talent to Superstar?

Why is the current zeitgeist hip-hop? In a word: disconnect. Grime and Drill have come to prominence in the UK for their communication of social struggles. 

Drill has turned heads with boastful, violent and aggressive lyrics when knife crime and gang violence is rife. Grime, and Hip-Hop in general aren’t as overtly aggressive, which is perhaps why those genres have such a powerful, mainstream audience.

Dave is a UK rapper who’s received widespread critical acclaim and released his debut LP last Friday – a concept album that details his family and personal identity with the unguarded catharsis of a therapy session. He has an undeniable raw gift, but failed to fully dominate the conversation. This is because Dave isn’t yet a symbol – he’s a normal 20-year-old, as is name suggests. He has talent in every vein but most often tweets about football and has pushed his album with fairly textbook promotion. In today’s world that’s not enough to evolve from talent to superstar: you simply must stand for something.

When Stormzy burst onto the scene, he became a symbol of the societal disconnect mentioned above, and used his platform to support Jeremy Corbyn. He furthered his political cause by calling a Theresa May a ‘paigon’ – slang that is becoming increasingly relevant today… Stormzy mixed politics with controversy, leveraging his brand and becoming a symbol for disaffected youth. Today, he champions independence through his ambitious personal label ‘Murky’.

The Stormzy brand was built before and after his debut studio album release in 2017. Dave, on the other hand, currently gives the impression of a man content with a modest level of fame. It will be interesting to see where the two of them are in five years. However, you heard it here first – Dave will win the mercury prize 2019.


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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Maitlis Side-Eye, Beckham Statue & Fashion's PR Crisis

Borkowski Weekly Media Trends

In a week dominated by laugh-to-hold-back-the-tears chaos in UK democracy and unspeakable tragedy in New Zealand, here’s a selection of the other media trends which grabbed our attention.
 

Maitlis Side-Eye

On Wednesday morning the nation awoke to the one spark of dry humour in a damp, dark and dismal week of Brexit purgatory; Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis delivering a thunderously withering side-eye to Labour’s Barry Gardiner after his failure to clarify his party’s up-to-date stance.

It was an outside broadcast for which Maitlis was wearing a duffel coat that made her look a little like a disgruntled Admiral, and she followed her death stare with a burst of furious stage-scribbling, all of which combined to crate a spate of memes and sub-memes which lasted almost the whole of Wednesday.

While the consensus was that she’d perfectly captured the mood of the nation, she didn’t receive universal critical acclaim – Corbynistas held the exchange up as an example of the BBC’s establishment contempt for the current Labour leadership.

We’re also not pretending that the side-eye was in any way strategic, but her general current interview demeanour of open exasperation at times spilling into outright hostility feels intentional, and we think ‘I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!’ is a good look for a BBC regularly accused of letting politicians on both sides off the hook for their incompetence.
 

Golden Trolls
 
On Tuesday David Beckham went for a meeting with a man he thought was the sculptor responsible for a statue of him soon to be unveiled in LA.

The statue was a comically grotesque misrepresentation of the famously handsome footballer, who (while just about staying within the boundaries of courtesy) couldn’t help but express his dissatisfaction with the likeness, only to discover that it was a prank perpetrated by his very very very good friend James Corden.

It’s not the edgiest stunt we’ve ever seen and won’t live long in the memory, but it garnered a gargantuan amount of media and social coverage and was quite a clever nod to the infamous (non-prank) Cristiano Ronaldo statue.

It’s done no harm to either Corden – as a reminder that there’s more to him than Carpool Karaoke and sycophantic cackling – or Beckham, who displayed a level of human decency not apparent in the allegations about his reaction to being overlooked for a Knighthood.


Is the Fashion world on the verge of a comms crisis?

After Burberry’s ‘Noose Hoodie’, Gucci's 'blackface jumpers' and Katy Perry and Prada’s ‘Gollywog’ shoes, the latest communications issue for a major fashion brand was ignited by Louis Vuitton’s roll-out of several Michael Jackson-inspired items as part of their Autumn/Winter 2019 collection, just over a week before the release of the devastating documentary Leaving Neverland.

The fashion giant first denied all knowledge of the documentary (a tenuous claim) before eventually pulling the items from the collection amid a spree of apologies and naval gazing. We admire their proactivity in trying to set the record straight; not the worst patch-up job ever, but there’s a time to stop digging and move on.

It also raises the question of how dynastic fashion empires get into these scrapes in the first place. Part of fashion is using design to raise issues, break taboos, and push social and creative boundaries, but this has to be done with common sense, conviction, authenticity and self-awareness. Perhaps the giants of the fashion world need to take more responsibility for the potential social impact of their creations before unleashing them on the public.

How does Dave go from talent to Superstar?

Why is the current zeitgeist hip-hop? In a word: disconnect. Grime and Drill have come to prominence in the UK for their communication of social struggles. 

Drill has turned heads with boastful, violent and aggressive lyrics when knife crime and gang violence is rife. Grime, and Hip-Hop in general aren’t as overtly aggressive, which is perhaps why those genres have such a powerful, mainstream audience.

Dave is a UK rapper who’s received widespread critical acclaim and released his debut LP last Friday – a concept album that details his family and personal identity with the unguarded catharsis of a therapy session. He has an undeniable raw gift, but failed to fully dominate the conversation. This is because Dave isn’t yet a symbol – he’s a normal 20-year-old, as is name suggests. He has talent in every vein but most often tweets about football and has pushed his album with fairly textbook promotion. In today’s world that’s not enough to evolve from talent to superstar: you simply must stand for something.

When Stormzy burst onto the scene, he became a symbol of the societal disconnect mentioned above, and used his platform to support Jeremy Corbyn. He furthered his political cause by calling a Theresa May a ‘paigon’ – slang that is becoming increasingly relevant today… Stormzy mixed politics with controversy, leveraging his brand and becoming a symbol for disaffected youth. Today, he champions independence through his ambitious personal label ‘Murky’.

The Stormzy brand was built before and after his debut studio album release in 2017. Dave, on the other hand, currently gives the impression of a man content with a modest level of fame. It will be interesting to see where the two of them are in five years. However, you heard it here first – Dave will win the mercury prize 2019.


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Borkowski Weekly Media Trends | The Late Great Keith Flint, GMB's Superman Weatherman Alex Beresford & One's First Instagram

Borkowski Weekly Media Trends

With our founder Mark Borkowski already having weighed in on the explosive Finding Neverland, let's take a look at some of the other issues which got our gullets flapping this week, from the tragic to the inspiring to the historic(ish).
 

R.I.P Keith Flint 

We were incredibly sad to learn about the loss of Keith Flint, best known as dancer and vocalist of The ProdigyThere was a man who knew how to cultivate an aura: equal parts punk, raver, heathen cult leader and your mate from the pub; he made Dance rock and Rock dance, and music fans won’t forget him. RIP Firestarter.
 

Beresford goes down a storm
Alex Beresford the Good Morning Britain weatherman received a deluge of praise for interjecting on Wednesday morning into a debate about knife crime.

No less an authority than the chairman of the Police Federation of England & Wales had just suggested that the solution to the seeming spate of stabbings currently blighting the country and especially London was to build more prisons...

Beresford’s outraged disbelief at this ‘lock up all the yobbos’ mentality drove him to deliver an inspired rebuttal on the ineffectiveness of prison as a deterrent, concluding: “If you don't change the environment, you won't change anything and that's the key thing.”

The combination of intelligence, passion and integrity displayed by Beresford was hugely admirable and we also, on a more minor level, doff our caps to the producer who decided to turn his mic up for creating a fantastic piece of television.


Social Media Royalty

On Thursday the Queen posted on Instagram for the first time. Captioning a letter sent by 19th-century mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage to her great-great-grandfather Prince Albert. We got our top office Instagrammer to run the rule over her first offering:

“One can only suspect that the idea came about after the Queen had a pleasant cup of tea with her granddaughter-in- law. Perhaps Meghan was fondly remembering her former social media freedom; perhaps she was trying to filter a picture of Kate for the family album; or perhaps she was explaining the latest Kardashian family dramas. However it came about, it’s a way for the Queen to remain current and connect to the younger generations, and to show that anything a Kardashian can do, she can do better.

So would we double tap the Queen’s first Instagram post? Probably, but let’s take a closer look…

First the visuals; we are shown two images of the letter referred to in the text; it’s doesn’t initially grab you, as a visual platform it is slightly bland. Beige. However the handwriting is impeccable and reminds us what a dying artform it has become.

Second the words: educational and informative, a moderately long caption but if you read the whole post it’s fascinating and a wonderful story, some followers maybe slightly disappointed with the lack of hashtags, emojis and a #TBT to finish it off but you can’t fault the grammar. 

It might not #breaktheinternet or be as game-changing as her first TV Christmas Speech but it shows the Queen is up-to-speed with technology, has stories second to none and can namedrop with the best of them. And let’s not forget to mention what an absolute coup this was for The Science Museum, this is money-can’t-buy PR.
 
If the Queen fancies posting on International Women’s Day, can we suggest a variety of selfies followed by crown emojis, topped off with #GirlPower #Inspiration #THEDON.?”


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