The way in which Apple practices its PR is fascinating. They are intensely secretive, they often treat journalists with a measure of disdain normally afforded to people who man the local sewage works, they do very little PR in the commonest sense of the term and yet they still remain up there amongst the press’s lists of ‘must have’ products.

“Once you’ve got the ear of Apple, they’re great,” says Gizmodo. “Human, considerate, and helpful. But make a mistake or step on their toes and they shut off your drip. That’s their system–and it works brilliantly. If you want access to Apple, you can’t upset them. And since nothing gets attention like Apple products, it behooves those in the tech enthusiast press to stay in Apple’s good graces.”

Which makes it all the more remarkable that one of their product testers got drunk and lost the test model of the next iPhone iteration in a bar – you’d think they’d keep a better hold on their staff, given the tight rein they keep on everything else.

To read more about it, click here. Everything Gizmodo says about Apple’s PR is absolutely true and I agree with their certainty that the loss of the phone was not a stunt – it just doesn’t feel like an Apple thing to do. Bear in mind this tale I got from Guy Kawasaki: Apple, he says, are so secretive that they keep various part of the business in different buildings. If they could keep bits of it in different universes I’m sure they would.

There is a bigger question lurking in the wings of course, which is how will iAd, the much rumoured personalised mobile advertising platform supposedly due from Apple, change things for the company’s communications game? Don’t expect any news from Apple until they’re good and ready, though – not after the iPhone fiasco…

We’ve already had one hysterical moment, with David Cameron turning in a karaoke version of Obama when he rolled up his sleeves yesterday. He may have been trying to look hip, but looked more like the sort of embarrassing school teacher who apes trends remorselessly – two years after they’ve come off the boil. Unlike embarrassing teachers, Cameron made the news.

There’s also likely to be a lot of spoofing going on. Political comedy and spoofs need to be good if they’re going to work. In fact, they need to be funny and to the point. But, if the Lib Dems’ “Labservative” attempted satire is anything to go by, the signs are not good. You cannot crowbar something in and hope for the best. That is not, of course, going to stop anyone from trying.

As a consequence of all this, I have decided to bring back Stuntwatch for the duration of the General Election. Starting this Friday, I will be rounding up the best and the worst of the week’s electioneering stunts. It’s going to be a long, strange four weeks…

It is well past the time that someone came up with something new; startlingly, compellingly new and strange that we can all rail against and then learn to love. Instead, 2010 offers a year of slight tweaks, starting with the Apple brand in the shape of the rumoured iSlate – which, if it is more than mere rumour, will be a rather obvious cross between the iPhone and iMac.

There will also surely be more of the same from the performing poodles at Downing Street, searching for the perfect soundbite to distract from wrong-doings via the medium of Twitter and YouTube. An election will not change this quest – we have spent the last 35 years learning that it really is the case that the Government always gets in. With worrying certainty, the BNP will be attempting to build on their form at the election – and may do better than they deserve if, as I suspect, the expenses scandal makes a comeback for the campaign period.

From racism, we move to sexism and agism. One can only hope that the BBC will cease and desist in its attempts to refresh struggling brands in a way that suggests that the execs at the BBC are interested only in chasing ratings. Ironically, their attempts are usually at the expense of ratings – as happened with Alesha Dixon’s arrival on Strictly Come Dancing last year replacing the older, smarter but less obviously attractive Arlene Phillips.

This will be yet another X Factor year, too, a year of Tiger Woods remaining in the news as he attempts to salvage his brand, a year of uber-comedians like Michael Macintyre (how long is it since comedy was last pushed as the new rock and roll?), a year of Katie Price and Peter Andre maintaining their presence in the media (already two of Katie’s exes are rumoured to have been fighting on Celebrity Big Brother).

I can well imagine that someone will fill Jan Moir’s shoes as ‘most hated journalist’ after making off colour remarks about a dead celebrity this year. You never know, it might even be Jan Moir again.

Stephen Fry will doubtless be continuing his on-again-off-again affair with Twitter (he’s currently away for some months as he writes a book – a better get-out than reacting to accusations of tediousness as he did last year); brands like Coca Cola will surely continue to try and hijack social media for their own ends; stars will attempt to ride the notoriety of other stars a la Sacha Baron Cohen, as Bruno, descending on Eminem at an awards ceremony – a stunt which had to be retrofitted as prearranged after the rapper appeared to take serious umbrage.

As global warming seems to be blurring the seasons, I am left wondering if someone hasn’t simply decided to replace nature’s seasons with commercial seasons; a cycle that allows us to put the world in some sort of order, however facile. If I’m right – and not just jaundiced – then the commercial seasons are driven by Simon Cowell, movies, fashion and human frailty. Technology changes the way things work at a ferocious rate – we need something to hide behind, especially as the bodies of soldiers continue to come back in bodybags and we lose control of the things we understand.

But this patina of formula also destroys innovation, so unless someone breaks through it and brings something new – as well as a furious amount of energy – to the mix, we are doomed to another stifling year of more of the same…

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.

I think the Supreme Being will be pulling cosmic hairs out of his signature big white beard with frustration. This sort of reactionary fundamentalism is plain silly. The Catholic Church is missing a trick. They need to embrace the myriad of platforms available and use them. If the church was to think creatively about what could be achieved by hooking up to the gaming universe, mobiles and social networking sites, it might just become relevant.

I am not suggesting a repeat of some of the stunts that have emanated from the odd funky priest – sermons in txt or text voting for hymn choices. No, I propose something much more immersive; to use church buildings and communities as the springboard for a major digital rethink.

Get the game play right for a religiously themed Xbox game and think about the potential of communicating with groups of gamers. What about apps on Facebook and iPhone? There’s a whole generation out there that any religion that wants to try can only reach by becoming digital missionaries.

The Vatican needs to grasp vitality and stop proffering a hair shirt!

Disney never sued Paul Krassner, who conceived the satirical Orgy poster in the wake of Walt Disney’s death, never ordered that the poster be suppressed – although they did take umbrage at a full, commercial run. They were surely aware that the poster actually added to the viability of their brand, to the longevity of the icons Disney created, and that to suppress it entirely would be to suppress the desire of the people who were amused and/or titillated by it to interact with the brand in the future. They were aware that adults need the freedom to play with a brand for future iterations of the brand to reach the audience it is intended for – in Disney’s case, the children.

This is where Morris dancing is failing. Its form has changed little in the last 90 years, since Cecil Sharp saved it by recording Morris dances in The Country Dance Book and setting up, with others, the organisation that is now known as the English Folk Dance and Song Society. Here is an extremely rigid organisation noted for its unwillingness to allow change, being stuck in a mould where participants are perceived as beard-wearing, real ale-loving people over 55 who are prone to shout “Judas” at musicians who defy the sternly stratified traditions. As playful as the Morris may seem, its inability to change or accommodate new ideas is precisely what is neutering it. Where Disney allows satire to breed and change to come, the Morris train-spotters are protectionist and will not allow other traditions to infiltrate and strengthen the brand. Simply, they have no sense of fun and thus no entry level for newcomers.

The same is true of many brands in today’s market – they allow for no undercurrent of anarchy that allows for change and strengthens tradition. Morris men and PR companies, account managers and advertising executives alike pander to their clients’ fears of change and job loss and falling market share and so stay static, which means that they are far less likely to survive. They are selling a process, a structure, an unbending way of doing things that hasn’t changed for years.

Companies like Apple, with the iPhone, and Facebook do it differently – they survive by allowing others in to create new things within the bounds of their platforms. They allow creators in to play. Even Fox TV, a huge structure, part of the behemoth that is the Murdoch media empire, allows a certain amount of fun to be had at their expense by their biggest brand, The Simpsons.

This is a year when everyone must give up the idea of being comfortable, when brands, PR and even Morris men must bring in new people via new ideas, new ways of doing things that are transparent and exciting and engaging for a wide spectrum of consumers and traditions. Those who will survive will eschew process in favour of an open mind. Allowing people to play with brands is the big mantra of the coming months – it is necessary now for us to get away from the fiefdoms of the past and allow fluidity for the 24/7 credit crunch agenda.

It has been speculated that there will only be worldwide peace in the face of an alien invasion; the credit crunch is the beginning of that invasion as far as brands and PR are concerned. Now all we need to ask ourselves is “have we the ability to allow this change to happen?” If not, then we will find ourselves on an endless Escher staircase of ever-diminishing returns.

The Realist