I watched some of the Super Bowl yesterday, still reflecting on the difference between British and American footballers in the wake of John Terry’s spectacular PR meltdown last week.

I think I’ve now spotted the one major difference between the two breeds of footballer on either side of the Atlantic: the British footballer, at the height of his game and money-earning potential, tends to be a rock-em-sock-em hedonist, in it only for the lifestyle, the thrill, the women, the ability to be so rich they can get away with it. American footballers, on the other hand, tend to be do-gooders. Most importantly, they are encouraged to be so.

Take the Walter Payton Man of the Year award for example; every year an American footballer is named Man of the Year for his charitable and voluntary work outside football. The winner’s prize, apart from the honour, is a $25,000 donation by the committee to the footballer’s favourite charity. All 31 runners-up can nominate a charity, each of whom will be given $1000. The PR value is enormous, in that it allows the public to sympathise with very highly paid sports personalities.

British footballers, bereft of any encouragement to be public spirited, tend not to appear at all charitable. The only example of a charitable player that springs to mind immediately is Niall Quinn, who used his testimonial match, on retiring from playing football at Sunderland, to raise over £1 million for charity, an act so surprising that it won him several awards, including an honorary MBE. Most lower rung footballers use such games to line their pockets against retirement. The higher paid they are, the less likely they are to be seen giving to anyone but their immediate circle.

I’d suggest that it is high time the FA consider the American awards-for-charitable-work PR model for British football, as the ongoing culture amongst players of wealth without responsibility, of sleaze and selfishness, is quite capable of killing the sport entirely in the eyes of the British public.

What a depressing week for lovers of football. What a sorry, sad, insane mess played out by fools and halfwits. Ordinarily, the focus would have been on the big game, Arsenal v. Chelsea. Instead, this weekend, our interest in the game will be for all the wrong reasons. So, instead, I have decided to focus on the American version of football, which reaches its colossal climax on Sunday. I hanker after the hype, showmanship and ballyhoo of the Super Bowl.

US and UK sport have always been different – from the amount of body armour the Americans wear to play what amounts to rugby to the way the world views the different sports on each side of the Atlantic. Whatever your view of American sport, however, there is no doubt they are well ahead of the game when it comes to using social media in cahoots with big sports events. Read the rest of this entry »

The question of whether or not John Terry should be stripped of the England captaincy after recent revelations is irrelevant. There are bigger issues at stake in the world of football. If we’re to learn one thing from the wretched saga surrounding Terry it’s that it is not his career and reputation that faces a meltdown – the reputation of football is on a fast track to the sewer and is in need of urgent PR.

Money is the acne on the face of football and with teenage afflictions comes teenage behaviour. Young men with that much loose power stuffed in their wallets are prone to go a little crazy and Terry is no exception. Money and hormones repress morals – every time, without exception.

Top-flight footballers are a breed apart thanks to the astonishing amounts of money they take home; the offspring of a bestial union between money and sport. They should not be held up as exemplars of any sort of moral code. And don’t forget that great footballers make great targets for super-agents who want to make their percentage, for wannabe WAGS with eyes on the dream ticket these players represent, for clubs who require their pound of flesh. Football is as much about milking the cash cows as it is about sport. If not more. Read the rest of this entry »

Given the current debate surrounding PR, PR spam and how to further the better practices of PR in the 21st Century, the news that 3am has fallen out with Peter Andre’s management, CAN Associates because CAN wanted to control every aspect of a minor story about Andre teaming up with a coffee emporium can’t have come at a worse time. 3am’s account makes for riveting reading. Click here to find out more.

PR is living in interesting times at the moment. As traditional marketing and advertising suffers a confidence slump, the best people in PR are carefully repositioning themselves and the PR industry into a lead practice that can take on all aspects of the modern, digitally savvy rapid-change media. But for every good and forward-thinking PR firm, there’s always one who wallows in the clichés of the industry, as CAN’s attempts to out-Kingsley Pat Kingsley have proved. Read the rest of this entry »

The more we hear from the endless Brangelina rumour mill and the less we hear from anyone officially representing the couple, the more likely it seems that there is some truth in the suggestion that their long romance with the tabloids and each other is over.

But in amongst the suggestions that they’re losing it because of lack of Oscar nominations, that Jolie is seeking comfort in the arms of Wyclef Jean and so on ad nauseam, why has there been so little concern about what happens to the family? Read the rest of this entry »

I hope you’ll forgive me a brief bask in the news that The Fame Formula has crept back up the Amazon charts and is currently at number 4 in the Film and Performing Arts Bestseller list, as well as moving slowly back into the running in the overall chart.

It certainly seems like the Fame Formula is finding a life of its own again – I’ve recently received a number of emails and tweets from people who like the book. I’m humbled by their praise – and intrigued by one tweet that insists that the book has more to say about the ad industry than most books actually about the ad industry.
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Over the years, my company has worked with a great many heritage brands – from Horlicks to Gordon’s Gin, Hovis, Selfridges, R White’s Lemonade and of course Wispa. I understand, as a consequence, that these sorts of brands – usually on the back of iconic advertising campaigns and careful PR that pushes all the least sickly nostalgia buttons – connect with the public deeply, right in the heart.
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The Independent requested my opinion on the hotting up of the Russell Brand and Katy Perry romance – and more particularly the way they are being aggressively pushed into a Brangelina-shaped hole. Or should that be RussKat, as the Independent puts it. To read more, click here…

Is PR spam the new chlamydia? Certainly it’s being fulminated about an awful lot as the latest social disease that may have infected us all, although we’re too often too ashamed to check out the symptoms.
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Speculation surrounds the departure of Jonathan Ross from the BBC after 13 years – did he jump or was he pushed?
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