Posts Tagged ‘fame formula’

Season four of Mad Men starts in America tomorrow night, but I managed to get a sneak preview thanks to a friend and, watching it, I realised that most of America just doesn’t know how far back the PR industry’s influence stretches. Of course, if you’ve read my book The Fame Formula, you’d know that the history PR is a far richer seam to mine than that of the history of advertising – but this is largely undiscovered and unrecognised in America.

It’s not the opportunity to win a walk-on part in the series that I’m talking about, either – although that is a fine stunt to grab attention (who wouldn’t want to get dressed up in Madison Avenue finery and appear on screen with the intensely glam Mad Men and Women?). It’s more the homage to the great publicist Jim Moran in the actual episode that piqued my interest.

In the episode, a couple of actors are hired to fight over a ham to garner attention and are then seen being bribed to blow the stunt – it’s a fairly knockabout scene, especially when the cast try to stop the actors blowing the stunt. In real life, Jim Moran staged a row between to New York barkeepers to launch Pimms in America – he had them end up in court, rowing about the perfect ingredients for a Pimms and garnered a great deal of attention for the drink.

If Moran’s elegantly twisted wit and genius is being plundered by Mad Men already, it just goes to prove my point about PR being a richer seam to mine – they’ve run out of real stories from advertising. Is it not time. then, for a truer drama looking at the heart of the American dream? One that looks at the lives of the PR men?

The tale of the Barefoot Bandit in today’s Times (currently locked behind a paywall, otherwise I would of course have encouraged you to click here) is, on the surface, a ripping yarn, a boy’s own adventure. A seventeen-year-old escapes juvenile detention and goes on the run across America for two years: stealing cars and yachts and using them to cross America; caught in people’s houses, naked, before escaping into the woods; leaving semi-anonymous donations to animal charities. The Barefoot Bandit, so called because a footprint was found at the scene of one of his thefts, has now apparently topped it all by stealing a plane and crash-landing it in the Bahamas. Hmmm. Read the rest of this entry »

Ever heard of the beer Bavaria? Me neither, until FIFA made sure that absolutely everyone got to hear about it after Bavaria sent a team of pretty young female ambush marketeers to Holland’s opening match of the World Cup using tickets bought in the name of (now ex-) ITV pundit Robbie Earle.

One sacking, several arrests (ambush marketing being illegal in South Africa) and a barrel-full of free publicity for Bavaria later and the only clear winner is the beer company, although the attractive young ladies – already described as ‘blonde bombshells’ in tabloids and blogs – will probably enjoy their day in court. Read the rest of this entry »

A pal sent this snap to Borkowski Towers. I am excited and delighted to have discovered evidence of the person who bought my book – now, I wonder who she is?

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.
Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve had a dose of New Year cheer after yesterday’s blog – I’ve just learned that the episode of Eric Schwartzman’s wonderful weekly podcast On the Record, covering all the latest issues in the world of PR, in which I discussed The Fame Formula, is the second most popular download of last year. Most cheering of all, the interview was recorded in August 2008!

If you never heard the podcast, it’s still available by clicking here. It’s also well worth subscribing to the On the Record podcast – there’s always something interesting to listen to…

It’s been interesting to be following pre-Christmas sales on the internet for the last three or four days, for two reasons. One reason is personal – my book, The Fame Formula, has leapt up the Amazon sales chart by several thousand places in the last three days. The other reason is that I’ve been watching Rage Against the Machine’s 17 year old track, Killing in the Name Of, consistently outselling the X Factor winner’s song – an instantly forgettable motivational ballad from the Hannah Montana movie – thanks to the Facebook campaign set up by a couple bored with the ubiquity of Simon Cowell’s vision of music.

I have a theory that the two are connected, intellectually at the least. The Fame Formula is, under the surface, an antidote to fame, a prick in the bubble of modern celebrity. I am certain that the same sort of people who are downloading Killing in the Name Of are buying The Fame Formula simply because they are tired of prefabrication and relentless hype on a foundation of sand.

The Fame Formula examines the degredation of fame carefully and uses examples from history to expose the weak foundations that modern celebrity has been built on, where talent has been hoovered out leaving only a husk of toxic fame. The book celebrates the icons of the past who built, with the assistance of canny publicists, a lasting fame propogated by extraordinary talent; it also offers a view on how to achieve that today. It does not say the past is better – the aim of the book is (as it is with the Rage Against the Machine campaign) to offer alternatives for the future, using great moments from the past as a basis, a springboard.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if people wanting to overturn the Cowell vision of pop were buying the book to stock up on ideas. At last there seems to be a consensus of opinion agreeing with George Santayana, who said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” There seems to be a hunger for using the past to positively influence the future, at least in popular culture. If this is the case – and I hope it is – I’d say (with a little bias, admittedly) that The Fame Formula is a good place to start looking for ideas to adapt from.

If Rage Against the Machine’s refrain, “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me”, is the sound of Christmas this year, I hope people take courage from it and use social media and networking in ever more creative cultural (and social and political) interventions in the coming years. And if my book can help it happen, all the better.

I spoke on the BBC’s World Update yesterday about a 19 year old Wisconsin man who sold his name to an online Finnish electronics retailer via eBay. I discussed the pros and cons of this old idea – dating back to Jim Moran and Maynard Nottage, who both persuaded people to change their names to help promote clients in the early 20th century.

It may not be a wholly original stunt, but it is a clever and effective one for the internet age – it allows the Finnish company to get search engine optimisation in the run up to the festive season and keeps the newly unpronouncable man from Wisconsin in ready cash for a while. I think it’s a tremendous PR scam designed to get the public conversation going about the company in time for Christmas.

Here’s the MP3 version, if you’d like to hear more.

 

 Mark on BBC world update: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Our publicist which art in Chinawhite
shallowed be our names.
Thy quick-fix come,
thy stunts be run
in Heat as they are on Popbitch.
Give us this day our daily big-ups
and forgive us our coke deals
as we forgive those who report our coke deals to the press.
Lead us not into the Priory
and deliver us from journalists
for thine is the Twitter, the spin-cycle and the story
for fifteen months and forever.

Amen.

Adam Horovitz

Written after hearing that a chain of hotels frequented by celebrities, which are to be featured in a reality show, have asked to use The Fame Formula as a replacement for the Gideon’s Bible – something for the down-at-heel Z Lister to turn to for inspiration.

I gave an interview for Austrian radio last week on the nature of fame in the 21st Century. The podcast is available now but I am posting up the extract of my interview on this site.

Click here to listen to my comments on Fame on Austrian Radio or, to hear the full podcast, click here.