Archive for December, 2006

As the showgirl who recovered from breast cancer returns to the British stage tomorrow, writers, performers and campaigners applaud the most triumphant of comebacks

MARK BORKOWSKI, PR CONSULTANT

I think she certainly is a modern, popular, cultural icon. To a certain extent she is a pop entertainment phenomenon that transgresses a generation and sexuality. She’s a doyen to the gay culture and she’s someone that young girls look up to.

She’s wholesome, she’s fresh, she pushes sexual boundaries to a certain level and never crosses them. She’s never vulgar and has a high sense of kitsch and style and, in a way, she has pushed the envelope to a new area where people are trying to catch up with her.

She has reinvented herself in every generation. She started off as a soap star and has grown from there. She works her publicity extremely well in the sense that she’s never in your face and knows where the shadows are to retire to. She plays the media very well, she feels in control of it and her people are in control of it.

She chooses her moments with a huge amount of style. She is not someone who has used her private life. She chooses her marketplace to sell her image very well. There is a huge amount of sympathy for anyone who has been struck down with cancer.

It’s an evil disease and she beat it. I think she’s a great example to lots of people who have been in that situation. Someone in the public life is as vulnerable as anybody I suppose and I think there is a huge amount of sympathy. I also think there is a huge amount of sympathy because she doesn’t seem to be particularly lucky in love either.

Her management handle her publicity very tastefully. They don’t over-egg it and have called for privacy through the difficult time and they have achieved it.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/music/features/article2112572.ece
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Post Christmas PETA have created a publicity stunt in the States to make global headlines. People were ticketed today in downtown Chattanooga for wearing fur, leather or wool.

Two PETA members wearing provocative police costumes acted as fashion police handing out citations while holding placards reading “Animal Skins Are a Fashion Felony”. PETA says it wants “shoppers to go faux and make fur, leather and wool a thing of Christmas past.”

PETA have staged so many publicity stunts they deserve a huge pat on the back. The charity’s activists have dressed up as chickens, rats, carrots, rabbits, priests, even Santa Claus to make a point. My favourite PETA stunt saw Pamela Anderson the TV babe unveil a poster for the animal rights group during a visit to Vienna. The poster showed the actor clad in a bikini made of three lettuce leaves. It read “Turn over a new leaf: Try vegetarian.” Another high was when they used a former Penthouse model to promote vegetarianism by wrestling in a vat of tofu in cities across America.

Charlie Drake made most of his money in the autumn of his career in seaside shows and pantomimes. His luck held until the Christmas of 1974, when he was starring in Jack and the Beanstalk at Bradford.

As a publicity stunt, he auditioned local girls for one of the parts and Sue Moody, a 22-year-old housewife, was chosen. Three days before the show opened, Equity phoned to say that as Moody was not a member she must leave the theatre at once. Drake would not remove her and was fined £760, which he refused to pay.

Equity temporarily banned him from working in provincial theatres. The ban cost him £60,000 that year in lost earnings, but had a far more disastrous effect on Drake’s long-term career. Unable to play in the provinces Drake faded from public view for 18 months.

Cultural engineering proved to be an exciting craft for the Hollywood studio publicists who created endless stories to promote actors and actresses alike. It was reported that Jayne Mansfield made everything in her house pink. She had a pink heart shaped bath installed in her bathroom, along with a pink outdoor pool. She had a bespoke pink heart shaped bed in her bedroom in which she posed regularly for photographs. It was also reported that Peter Sellers of “Dr Strangelove” and “Being There” fame, would only sleep in a bed that faced in the East West position.

Lupe Velez insisted that all her photoshoots took place in her bedroom with full view of her polar bear skin rug which stood at the foot of her life size statue of the Madonna and Saints. She was especially proud of her 8 ft bed with its rainbow shaped head board, decorated in gold, silver and black lacquer. Unfortunately the publicity for this woman occurred in another age, where celebrity was no where near as powerful as it is today. When Lupe committed suicide, the famous bed only sold for $35.00. The great Harry Reichenbach created the myth that Mae West claimed she did her best work in bed, where she regularly entertained in her golden shell shaped vessel. It was reported that one of her sexual marathons lasted fifteen hours, and all her interviews took place while she was in bed.

Sarah Bernhardt, the famous silent movie actress of the 1900’s was given a quirky habit of always sleeping in a satin lined, rosewood coffin. She had suffered from TB when she was a child and wasn’t expected to live, so her parents had the coffin made for her. She survived the disease but kept the coffin and in later life had many a sexual tryst inside it. Having had over 1000 lovers in the coffin, she was eventually buried in it. As Jim Moran once famously said “there’s nothing more dismal than a fact”.

In an eventful year for the media, we have seen boardroom battles and shock resignations; public acclaim and private fear. We ask a dozen industry insiders to select the real successes and failures of the last 12 months

Mark Borkowski
Founder, Borkowski PR

The success of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat is a cracker. It takes a British comedian to show Hollywood how to promote a movie properly.

Heather Mills and Paul McCartney are both turkeys. You could tell more about the machinations and the battles between them by the PR advisers who came in and out of her life and changed her strategy.

Also, the gaffe in the royal household, when Camilla repeated Diana’s mistake [by accidentally exposing her ankle coming out of a mosque in Lahore]. When it comes to choosing between fashion and political correctness there’s only one decision in Pakistan and it is a sari and trousers.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,1978306,00.html

Welcome to the real world. No matter what anybody thinks about media intrusion, never underestimate its intent and determination. The fourth estate has might which has no peripheries.

Noel Edmonds new friend Liz Davies was exposed to the full heat of the paparazzi yesterday? She was forced off the road twice attempting to pick her children up from her mother’s house. Then arriving home she found two photographers in full combat camouflage and balaclavas up tress surrounding her property. This is the 21st century and fame even when its not sought is a corrosive acid

Trivial Pursuit is in the news; it seems that its questions are getting easier. The great parlour game has become a victim of the dumbing down of culture. Borkowski won the account to promote the game back in the early 1990’s and we retained the job for five years. Much fun was had by one and all. We came up with a concept to get the media interest where each year the annual edition was launched by a party that made national news. We researched all the new questions and bizarre items in the annual edition, and brought them all together, along with the people to eat food, drink and listen to music and entertainment ….. all determined by answers to questions. One year we had the Andrews Sisters, an Elephant and Valerie Singleton all in a Fish and Chip shop in Lisson Grove. Oh happy memories.

Handling Noel Edmonds isn’t easy, but on occasions there are some insane moments. The man has hit the headlines again this week, with lots of speculation on his new girlfriend. Both The Mail and The Express ran huge features this morning. Unfortunately the Express “piece” was illustrated by a picture of NE with his new love. Unfortunately the picture was one taken in the summer outside San Lorenzo, which also ran prominently on the front page. it is not a picture of his new love, Liz Davies. I have had a lot of calls this morning from some red faced Express folk. Mmm… oh dear indeed accurate fact checking is obviously in vogue!

Marty Weiser, the Hollywood publicist, was famous for his inspired premiere party for Mel Brooks’ cult film Blazing Saddles, which starred Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little. Mel Brooks took a risk when he allowed Weiser to stage this stupendous publicity stunt in a disused Drive In movie theatre.

In keeping with the film, which was a pastiche on the old Westerns, Weiser insisted everyone turn up not in cars, but on horseback. The evening itself proved to be fraught for Weiser as nobody turned up on time and the movie producers began to berate him for it being a stupid idea, believing no one would be there. However, after a few minutes, a horizon full of people appeared on horseback and trotted into the drive in. They had been shepherded and given a police escort because of causing traffic chaos, so arrived late but en masse. The stunt was a massive success and gained worldwide publicity.

Truly inspirational ideas these days get binned because of the supposed risk factor when so much money is involved. That’s why it was good to see the two live penguins ice skating at the Rockerfella Plaza in New York for the premiere of “Happy Feet”.

Weiser inspired many publicists in the 1960’s and 1970’s, but general information on these stuntsters is rare. I have been sent some material which includes information on a man called Freddie Gove, who was a mad prankster who invented crazy ideas and events to promote his clients. One of his first creations was a robotic shark that he made to promote Speilberg’s “Jaws”. He apparently pitched a man who could unravel Rubic’s cubes with his feet for a Rubic’s Cube launch.

Gove was a man with extreme genius, but also with a definite personality disorder which was revealed perhaps in his “extreme” promotional toys. To promote the first “Star Wars” movie, he invented a plug in lightsabre that actually had an electric charge. For the Freddie Krueger sequels, he designed a prototype Freddie Krueger glove, equipped with real razors for fingers. Unfortunately at the time, these were relegated to the dustbin of lunacy by the movie producers and distribution companies who he tried to sell them to, which seems incredible nowadays, as if the prototypes were available today, they would be priceless.

“Yesterday the Liberal Democrats cemented their reputation as a party struggling to be taken seriously after Lembit Opik, MP announced that he had split with his television weather forecaster fiancee and was dating one half of the kitsch pop duo the Cheeky Girls.” The Guardian, 18/12/06.
The Borkowski poet in residence considers what Tony Blair might make of this, given his current desire to bury bad news…

I’m sure I can learn from Lembit
and resurrect my career.
I must just date a celebrity
and I’ll be in the clear.

Of course I’m a leader of men
and if I’m to ditch Cherie
I must find a celeb the whole world loves
who’s not been on reality TV.

A Cheeky Girl’s perfect for a Lib Dem
as they’ll never amount to much
but a genuine saviour needs more grace and favour;
a Labour leader needs a gold-plated crutch.

I’m sure I can learn from Lembit
and turn my misfortunes around.
I need to date a celebrity
who cares about the fate of the pound.

I need a celeb with a tough constitution
who’ll stand up to accusations of sleaze.
It’s a shame Diana died when she did;
she’d have handled my needs with great ease

and I think we can discount Britney Spears
as too lowbrow to do me much good.
Paris Hilton’s too man-ish, Penny Cruz far too Spanish
and Winona Ryder’s just misunderstood.

Yes, I’m sure I can learn from Lembit
and stave off political shame.
I must just date a celebrity
and play the Heat magazine game

but there are no celebrity women
who are quite as strong as my wife.
She’s Lady Macbeth crossed with a letterbox.
She keeps Gordon at bay with a knife.

But I’m in trouble and she can’t help any more.
I must take on my opponents and deck ‘em.
There’s just one solution to avoiding persecution.
I must marry David Beckham.

I'M SURE I CAN LEARN FROM LEMBIT Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Mark Borkowski, a PR and marketing expert, said the public still warmed to well-made reality shows despite claims the format was exhausted from the Scotsman –

“You can criticise, but at the end of the day the advertisers rub their hands with glee because they’ve got a clear identity of an audience and there is no shortage of people who want to sponsor it,” he said.

“It’s event TV, everybody is talking about it and it’s one thing that ITV have got right. And, to a certain extent, so has the BBC with shows like Strictly Come Dancing.”

http://news.scotsman.com/music.cfm?id=1875942006
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