It’s hard to tell if it’s his PR doing it or if – and this is perfectly possible – he’s so plugged in to the web that he’s acting on his own. His digital promotional skills are pretty strongly evident – just look at his YouTube channel and the large following it has. His online fan club shows his social media prowess of to very flattering effect.

His response was to the effect that he’s a big fan of Malcolm Hardee and that he approves mightily of the satirical awards, even if they come at his expense. And, most perfectly, the email states that: “Yes. I care about money. But I do kind of hate myself for it.”

It’s a great counter-play no matter whether it was he or his PR who made it – someone has moved very quickly to counter any accusations of being po-faced, before the story had a chance to take hold. I suspect that it was Burnham himself who stepped up. Despite a minor – and extremely brief – slip, he is a very modern entertainer, one who matches onstage brilliance with online dexterity. He has got it all and when a crisis looms he just seems the type to step forward, front and centre.

There’s a proliferation of websites emerging at the moment, offering emergency PR advice for Edinburgh, but what use are these with ten days of the Festival left to play with? A show or act needing to get reviews needs help from an experienced publicist. Of course people need to start somewhere, but recognition for Liz Smith will hopefully highlight the need for both beginner publicists and producers and acts to seek out the x factor brought by experience if they are going to make any of their incursions into digital or traditional media work and work well.

**

As the true scale of the disaster brought about by the worst flooding in Pakistan’s history becomes clear, it’s good to see that the British tabloids are supporting the humanitarian aid relief by giving acres of coverage – to the aftermath of the first episode of X Factor. Good to know they have their priorities in such well-oiled working order and are so keenly supporting the disaster zone that is the early rounds of Simon Cowell’s show.

In the brave new world run to the tune of the ten minute news cycle, where traditional media has been reduced to merely commenting on and affirming stories that are broken on Twitter and in the blogosphere, almost at the speed of thought, and where advertising budgets have been slashed down to the stump, what else is there but PR?

I’ll be discussing Captivating Narrative and how compelling and effective stories can be utilised to unite social media, traditional media and word of mouth into one powerful, viral jet-stream of information to promote brands, stars or anything one wants to apply them to and how truth plays second fiddle to manufactured fiction.

Captivating Narrative is the next step up from the public conversation that brands must maintain in the internet age if they are to survive. Brands and stars live or die on the way they are perceived and if they can control their own narrative and make it fascinating, they are far more likely to survive. A compelling story draws people in and spreads more easily by word of mouth. They can apply to anything!

I’ll be dissecting the image and reputation of some of the biggest brands and names going, as well as looking at the people who manipulate them. The show examines brands and personalities as diverse as Toyota, Al Qaeda, Paris Hilton, Somali Pirates, the England football team, Tony Hayward Joseph Goebbels and Asda.

To book tickets, click here.

We sat down for a cup of coffee and I asked her what she was working on. She told me that this was her second Edinburgh and that she was working on three shows for a producer who was going places. Alarm bells went off in my head at this, so I quizzed her a little about her circumstances.

It turns out that, after the 13 hour coach journey up to the Festival, she was bunked down in a flat procured by the producer, which she was sharing with two other people, and that she was earning £100 a week for the entire four week run of the Festival.

This struck me as deeply exploitative – a producer who wouldn’t even stump up the train fare had hooked an enthusiastic young publicist on the promise of greater things to work on if all went according to plan. She thought she had her foot in the door, but these are the sort of opportunities that wither and die as soon as a client makes it big – what actor, after all, would name check their British agent or publicist if they had the opportunity to work in America, where such names would be worthless currency?

I hope I’m wrong in her case, but I suspect not – I saw her the next day and the impossible demands she was getting to work with, on a budget of hope and water, were classic examples of the sort of demands the all-swallowing uber-producers of PR nightmares past might make.

There is too much hope around, and not enough recognition amongst fledgling entertainment publicists that if everything goes well, you will rarely get the credit, whilst if all goes poorly, you will be first in front of the firing squad.

These fledgling publicists need to learn, and learn quickly, that no matter what they do, nothing is big enough or can generate impact fast enough for an unrealistic and unsupportive client. I get a sense there are not many clients running around the Festival with an appetite for brash, brave and iconoclastic campaigns.

Successful producers almost always demonstrate achievement by ruthlessly grabbing all they can at the expense of the little people. Young PR folk are the first to be trampled under foot. My advice to the young publicist in Edinburgh, and everyone starting out in entertainment PR, is to give the middle finger salute to anyone who can’t or won’t pay proper fees and to maintain dignity and integrity at all costs.

Whilst it’s great to see all these performers building themselves up into a state of anticipatory frenzy, I am left wondering why the Scottish media aren’t doing the same. I’m particularly puzzled as to why they are more excited about the Edinburgh Tattoo, and the musty smell of Empire that only comes with a collection of people charging around with cannons.

There is an extraordinary level of ambivalence from the Scottish media, particularly the BBC and the Scotsman, to the Fringe Festival. Its three-week run is a huge economic success for the city, but where are the BBC cameras and where is the love? Why are the media not moving in to cover the Fringe in the same manner as Glastonbury is covered?

Is it because of all the English people coming up for the Fringe? Is it because it isn’t seen as relevant to little old ladies living in Orkney?

If the Scottish media do not embrace the Fringe, what chance does it have? In a time when the traditional media is failing, surely it makes sense to reach out to the Fringe and embrace it rather than push it away as if it’s producing a bad smell. The international media is not as present – and cannot afford to be in the current climate – but surely that is the perfect excuse for the Scottish media to move in and exploit the internet to promote Scotland in a more varied and forward-thinking light than it does by only venerating the Edinburgh Tattoo.

“Twitter users will get the chance to communicate with departed showbiz stars this Halloween — in the world’s first online séance,” proclaims the paper. “Tweeters can choose which of their deceased idols they want to talk to, pick a question — then follow the ‘Tweance’ in real time using the social networking site.”

The ‘Tweance’ has been cooked up by Angels Fancy Dress, doubtless keen to move some spooky costumes this October. Mundane considerations aside, they clearly have an almost psychic understanding of the way the web works and, more importantly, the way people engage with social networking sites; they have drawn in all the triggers needed for a publicity windfall – celebrity, the chance to communicate with dead celebrities and the opportunity for millions to nominate who will be spoken to and to see all the answers coming out in real time.

They’ve brought in “top psychic” Jayne Wallace, who has already “contacted the spirit of Jade Goody in a séance organised by The Sun” – she “will quiz four late stars nominated by Twitterers between 10am and 12pm on Friday October 30”.

Whatever you think of psychics and the possibilities of contacting the dead, there is no escaping the fact that there are plenty of people out there who believe – and no doubt that they will be following this Tweance religiously as well as nominating their favourite dead celebrities and sending in questions. This could go right round the world.

What excites me most about this is the way that Twitter is being used to break new ground. I ran the first ever Twithibition, an exhibition of great publicity stunts at the Edinburgh Fringe, in the summer. This Tweance is the next step towards making Twitter the communication channel of choice for the world, a place where things can happen instantly and effect real change whilst you watch. It’s thrilling.

All I need to decide now is whom to nominate…

Trawling Edinburgh Festival for the sites of my old publicity stunts, celebrated in the #Twithibition I have just launched, has been a contemplative experience. The stunts celebrated 25 years of mischief, but that was then. What is now? I thought it worth considering how the Festival has evolved as I trekked around the city putting up posters.

I have been going to Edinburgh for years and there is always much that is astonishing, vibrant and beautiful on offer at the Festival – of this year’s crop, Sian Williams’ one-woman show for The Kosh at the Gilded Balloon and Shed Simove at Belushi’s are two to look out for. Sian Williams is the same age as Madonna and considerably sexier; she is compelling to watch. Shed, inventor of the Clitoris Allsorts, is like Trevor Baylis on crack.

But despite the amazing things that are, as ever, on offer, it’s clear that Edinburgh is at a crossroads. Arguably, some City grandees are not able to organise a piss up in a distillery. Princess Street has been dug up just as the Festival started. What planning genius came up with that one? Producers report resources have been pulled away from the Festival; the Assembly Rooms, mid-renovation, was a building site in week one, with one of its auditoria unfit for purpose – the council should be shot for not readying it for the Fringe. The insanity of moving the Film Festival to June is nearly as bad as serially under-funding the International Festival.

I believe that the blame for all this lies at the door of the city fathers, who appear to be unconsciously frittering the spectacle of Edinburgh away, dissipating the energy that has, for many years, seen journalists fighting tooth and nail to get up there every August to run up their expense account and discover the latest bright young things on the international arts scene. Even the bright young things are being discouraged from coming, as student accommodation gets ever more expensive in the city.

Venue controllers bemoan the lack of media attention outside of Scotland. Spreading out the festival over five weeks is a mistake; they should be condensing it to three! Considering it is the largest Festival of its type in the world, the coverage Edinburgh gets, outside a few broadsheets, is pitiful, with little or nothing in the news pages. The fledgling Manchester Festival seemed to get it right, but Edinburgh has slipped – it’s not seen as one of the greatest shows on Earth any more.

Tellingly, the BBC sent fewer staff to cover Edinburgh than went to T in the Park. Even the Scotsman is only using six reviewers. In a tenuous economic climate, it is foolhardy of the Edinburgh council to disregard the impact, and undermine the vitality, of the Festival and the revenues it brings.

There is, at least, good digital representation being developed to help build audiences – I am addicted to the iFringe app for iPhone – but the Festival needs to keep drawing in new talent and audiences and media. It can’t rest on past laurels as, to punters in their 20s, the Festival icons of 30 years ago are vastly distant and mostly irrelevant. Forget the past – the Festival needs to focus on what’s happening now. Stretching the Festivals out so that the Music, Film, Book and Fringe, etc, become ever more separated is preventing the sort of international coverage that Cannes enjoys from happening in Edinburgh. Something needs to change if the Festival is to remain relevant in another 30 years time.

To read the article as printed, click here.

To follow my #Twithibition, click here and search the site for #twithibition. For more information on the stunts recorded in the #Twithibition, click here.

He has no chance of that happening since the protestors came out and stoned his Edinburgh home. His is the high watermark of PR disasters; he is soaked through with the bad press. It is lapping at his shoulders. What he needs, of course, is a decent rescue package, of the sort that the sly old PR foxes, who I wrote about in The Fame Formula, would have concocted to salve his image. With that in mind, I have five solutions for him.

• The Reggie Perrin plan: Sir Fred could leave his clothes on the beach and disappear, becoming an urban legend akin to Lord Lucan. Unlike Lord Lucan, he would be expected to come back after a reasonable amount of time has passed, and other bankers are outed, so that he can resume his career as a pantomime villain after he’s had a decent rest.
• The Michael Jackson play: Another alternative for Sir Fred is to fly out to the King of Pop’s retreat in the Middle East and get advice from Jackson’s team of image specialists on how to make a comeback with reputation renewed. If he takes this option, expect a 50 date inspirational lecture series at the O2 Arena in 2010/11 under the title ‘Financial Disasters and how to survive them’ it may even sell out if anyone can afford to go. He could make a fortune by selling merchandise – £2.50 for a single rotten tomato perhaps?
• The Leonard Cohen plan: Alternatively, Sir Fred could renounce worldly matters, cast off his possessions and become a Buddhist monk. Ridding his soul of the weight of the seven cars, numerous houses and vast quantities of money to go and wallow in the richness of the universe would certainly help shred his karmic PR debt. One word of warning; Leonard Cohen tried it and didn’t give up the money. Instead, it was stolen by his accountant. To be tried only if Sir Fred’s intention is serious.
• The Charity play: If the ascetic life doesn’t tempt him, Sir Fred could always just set up a charitable trust to dispose of a large part of his income.
• The Tootsie plan: Finally, if all else fails, Sir Fred could find his way to a Swiss clinic, transform himself into a woman and, so disguised, come back and get a job at RBS. Once there, he/she could reinvigorate the failed bank in the same manner as he did between 2001 and 2006 and then, just as he/she is about to be awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, he/she should disrobe on the steps of Buckingham Palace, wipe off the makeup and declare that Fred the Shred is BACK (keeping fingers crossed that RBS doesn’t suddenly collapse again in the meantime) and fighting for the reputation of bankers everywhere.

But the biggest PR concern in the affair is the amount of money Goodwin is spending on the two slick and expensive PR people who are keeping his head below the parapet. They might not be able to prevent the angry brigade from throwing stones at one of his many houses, but they are still sucking up a hefty percentage of the money Goodwin has taken from the taxpayer in an attempt at keeping his name out of the press as much as possible.

It seems as if Goodwin is not prepared to take the knocks when things get rough, despite having been extremely keen to take all the pleasant handouts, all the fruits of good publicity, that came his way before the financial world came to a shuddering halt. He’s got a knighthood (for services to banking), a pension to die for and a list of awards – including Forbes’ Businessman of the Year and European Banker of the Year – to his name and yet he seems determined to hide and rest on these laurels.

If Goodwin is determined to keep the £700,000 a year pension he’s taken from the now part-nationalised RBS, he should carefully consider the amount he is spending on his PR budget. Despite their best efforts, his PR people cannot actually keep him out of the press. Two high-powered publicists command an annual fee that could keep a small charity ticking over nicely for a year. It would surely be better PR for him to drop his failing suppress agents than to continue paying them. Given the current state of affairs, he is powerless to stay out of the press, however much he pays his publicists.

And let’s not forget that Fred the Shred is merely the tip of the iceberg. If he, as the most obvious villain of the day, can have one of his homes attacked by Bank Bosses Are Criminals, then there are plenty of others who will suffer the same if nothing is done to create a PR strategy that actually addresses the grievances of the British public.

The lesser-known bankers – and the Government – are not Hollywood movie stars from the 1930s – all their dirty secrets are out and in the public eye. They do not need suppress agents to keep grim reality at bay; it’s far too late for that. What they need is a strong, constructive PR strategy that squarely addresses the grievances people are directing at them.

There needs to be a PR turnaround, from venture capitalists, from Sir Fred, from the Government too. No one can afford to replicate Goodwin’s strategy of hiding and hoping that the fuss will die down. If they don’t – and they keep throwing money at protecting themselves – the small acts of grievance such as the stoning of Goodwin’s Edinburgh home by Bank Bosses Are Criminals could turn, before too long, into full-scale ire and serious social unrest.