Posts Tagged ‘spin’

Most people in the country are worrying about the leadership of the country under the new coalition, and their concerns for the nation run to a number of issues, from what will happen with capital gains tax, what will happen with inheritance tax, will there or won’t there be cuts in public services, will the economy survive and will we have a stable government?

Not me. I have perceived a new threat. I am wondering nervously what the reaction will be when the nation wakes up and realises that they have, in David Cameron, an ex-PR man as Prime Minister. An ex-PR man, moreover, of whom Jeff Randall – quoted in the Mirror – said: “In my experience, he never gave a straight answer when dissemblance was a plausible alternative.” Read the rest of this entry »

Most people in the country are worrying about the leadership of the country under the new coalition, and their concerns for the nation run to a number of issues, from what will happen with capital gains tax, what will happen with inheritance tax, will there or won’t there be cuts in public services, will the economy survive and will we have a stable government?

Not me. I have perceived a new threat. I am wondering nervously what the reaction will be when the nation wakes up and realises that they have, in David Cameron, an ex-PR man as Prime Minister. Read the rest of this entry »

The failure of anyone to take meaningful control of the country in the wake of the General Election says a great deal about the hype that the media work up as a cappuccino froth of sound bites. It felt like going to a bad movie – the trailer was exceptional but the movie itself is overlong and a terrible letdown.

We may have had debates, but the analogue TV hype didn’t change voters’ hearts. We may have seen an upsurge of the digital agenda, but Twitter and the new transparency still doesn’t reach the soul of the country, doesn’t reach the grassroots. The election has forced us to question the people pulling the strings. Read the rest of this entry »

There have been weeks and weeks of phony electioneering and, finally, this morning Gordon Brown has told the world what we already knew – the election will be on 6th May.

From the negative electioneering of mashed up, satirical posters, to the dusting down of the old Saatchi creative team – to deliver up what Cameron’s mob hope to be a coup de gras to Labour (as was done under Thatcher) – its been a long and spectacularly phoney war; one that has, alarmingly, only focused on the media process. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you overdosed on the X Factor? Are the opinions of the judges getting you down? Have you felt like venting your feelings about the loss of your favourite contestant? Did Danyl’s departure in the semi-finals really get your goat? Did Lucie losing out to Jedward rile you to the point of despair? Or are you simply sick of the whole ‘poptastic’ shebang?

If the answer to any of these questions is “YES”, Borkowski has a couple of tasty slices of satirical goodness to ease your rage, two fine diversions from a toxic weekend of TV carnage. In a burst of pre-Christmas generosity, we present The Exterminating Factor, a neat-but-twisted X rated game that allows the player an opportunity to vent their destructive feelings. All within the bounds of legality and common sense, of course – we are in no way suggesting that the game’s scenario should be re-enacted in real life.

You see, this twisted little game allows the player to shoot virtual nails into the disembodied heads of Simon Cowell, Danni Minogue, Cheryl Cole and Louis Walsh – and what would there be on TV worth being ranted and fulminated about if The Exterminator Factor were taken too seriously and acted upon in real life?

Better just to play the game and feel that shiver of nervous satisfaction as the first virtual nail strikes and two smaller judges’ heads burst from Simon Cowell’s smiling face. Or gasp as the dimpled smile of a tiny Cheryl Cole disappears forever in a hail of virtual nails.

Based on the gaming classic Asteroids, The Exterminating Factor is the perfect way of letting loose all your pent up frustrations at the 21st Century’s premier talent contest cum soap opera. Click on the picture to access the game.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Borkowski also presents a sharp, satirical poem for all the pacifists and non-gamers out there who are tired of celebrity for the sake of celebrity; of popularity contests masquerading as talent contests; who cannot bear to see the world and its wife doing everything in its power to be famous.

The Sleb’s Prayer, by the remarkable poet Adam Horovitz, features music based on a sample by great 60s garage rock band, The Groupies. The track has been wrapped up in Mel Rodiq’s stunning video in the style of magazines like Heat and OK. You can see it below.

I was asked to comment on the fallout from Tiger Woods’s bad week in the press by the Guardian last week – the resulting article appears in today’s Media section and online under the headline In Need of a Tigerish Attorney. I took a critical look at the way he and his lawyer, Mark NeJame, are handling the story. Here’s an excerpt:

“Tiger Woods’s nasty bump on the head after his car’s tussle with a fire hydrant has rendered the golfer mostly speechless. It’s all very well that he’s admitted “transgressions” and muttered an apology, but at the heart of the press release he put out is a cry for silence and privacy. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the Orlando attorney Mark NeJame, who has made his name defending drug offenders and people accused of murder, is the man behind this strategy. The ‘Johnnie Cochran of Central Florida’ has thrown his weight behind the Tiger Woods brand at the formerly squeaky-clean golfer’s darkest hour.

“Attorneys are the new breed of tough image protector – PR spin technicians are losing out to hard-nosed lawyers. But will NeJame’s strategy help his client to regain his flawless veneer of celebrity? Woods’s ignominy is fast becoming one of 2009’s top trending topics and has exposed the media-shy golfer to the dark side of ‘improperganda’.”

To read the full article, click here.

I was also asked for my opinion on the Tiger Woods affair and whether or not he can rebuild his brand’s reputation by Channel 4 News – to read the article, click here.

Celebrity death is best done young, or youngish, whilst all the characteristics that enamour the public to them remain intact. It’s not great for the celebrity in question, perhaps, but certain brand-builders love a good image that’s been soused in aspic and preserved for an eternity of milking.

Take Michael Jackson, whose death has seen the worst elements of him shorn away, with only the adulation left; there’s now a competition to design a fitting memorial for him. And of the entries, there’s not one but three suggestions to build a Jackson-shaped island off Dubai, next to the other man made islands. The proposals would, of course, all have theme-parks on them – a home for Neverland ranch, if the new owner feels the need to sell it.

It’s astonishingly gauche, but somehow hardly surprising. I half expect one of the entries to win and then we’ll be able to see a Jackson-shaped landmass from space. What an alien visitor would make of this is another question.

An alien visitor’s reaction to the relentless plundering of Jackson’s brand in the months since his death would make for interesting reading, too. The family started it, with Jackson’s father launching a record label in the wake of his son’s death. The only way from here is to plunder more, until all the contrary mystery that Jackson maintained is gone.

Not that you have to be dead for your brand to be plundered: licensing firm CKX Inc recently bought an 80% stake in the image rights to the great boxer Muhammed Ali, paying around $50 million to use his name, image and likeness of the boxing champ, as he was at the height of his powers, as they see fit. Ali retains 20% of himself in the deal (more, I suspect, than is actually left of the iconic boxing champion in him) as well as taking the money upfront, a shrewd deal for a man who was so badly damaged by boxing, one which guarantees his survival in the collective consciousness.

The same plunder is happening with all sorts of iconic figures of the 20th century, from Marilyn Monroe to Elvis to Che Guevara. Their images have been in use for years, generating awesome amounts of money for the license holders and for the estates of the dead stars, but it will be interesting to see where new technology takes their images – we’ve already seen Laurence Olivier resurrected for theatre and film, but as the technology advances, so will the scope for looting the brands of dead stars. Whole films carried by computer-generated versions of James Dean? A new romcom starring Elvis and Marilyn with a supporting role for Che? The possibilities are terrifyingly endless.

What fun the brand looters could have with Peter Mandelson, who stood up at the Labour conference the other day and completed his resurrection. As Quentin Letts pointed out in the Mail: “There were self-puncturing jokes, swishes of kitten claw and a series of exaggerated waist swivels, arm gesticulations and eye flashes worthy of a Michael Jackson impersonator.”

It leaves me wondering what we would be left with if Mandelson were to shuffle, untimely, off this mortal coil. Preserve him in aspic now and we would have the new, pantomime Machiavelli, the glamorous manipulator, the ultimate in Lazarene politician-kind.

Simply, he is the current brand apotheosis of this type of politics and the standing ovation he received at the Labour conference is as good as any baptism in waves of spin. Now he is free to fight his way to the leadership of the Labour party. I wonder which way the Sun would turn if he was in charge?

That said, I doubt anyone would consider building an island in his honour, should he pass on suddenly. A scale model of the Millennium Dome in a model village somewhere, perhaps, but that’s about it. Which is more than can be said for Gordon Brown, mind you, who, despite a rousing speech at the conference yesterday, has yet to shake off Steve Bell’s branding of him as a rain-cloud. His only hope for long-term brand management is his wife…

Nick Clegg’s been getting a great deal of attention in the press at the Lib Dem conference this weekend. What I’ve taken away from Clegg’s conference manoeuvres, however, has not been the substance so much as the style in which it is presented.

But then it’s been a weekend of style over substance: 30-year-old Alesha Dixon, the winner of Strictly Come Dancing, who was brought in at the expense of the previous judge Arlene Phillips (66) to “give the show some youthful glamour” failed to win the wholehearted approval of the viewing public that the BBC were hoping for in the wake of the ageism row that erupted after Philips’ sacking.

She was, it seems, brought in to make the old men on the panel appear to be a little more sexy, although the official story is that she was brought in to speak with the voice of the viewer. Dixon’s failure to connect with the Strictly Come Dancing audiences this weekend – the show lost out badly to X Factor in its first week of competition – is surely a sign that there are plenty of people out there who value substance over good looks. It is also proof beyond doubt that the voice of the viewer is perfectly well-served by the BBC message boards.

Politics has, in the last 20 years, followed a similar pattern. Clegg became the head of the Lib Dems because he is clean-cut, looks good in a suit and is prepared to pose for the cameras at the pier with his wife or standing on Bournemouth beach, skimming stones on the sea. He has been brought in to be the acceptable face of the Lib Dems; their very own Alesha Dixon.

He got the job at the expense of Vince Cable, the balding, middle-aged Voice of Integrity™ who is, across the political spectrum, acknowledged as the man with the ideas and the substance to make a difference for the party. Spin dogma suggests that “the voters” want an attractive, personable head of the party, that it will make the Lib Dems more electable.

What it boils down to is that one really shouldn’t judge a book by its cover – and that it’s really time to make changes when the media start inspecting the dust jacket for signs of wear as well.

The Strictly Come Dancing results may indicate that the Lib Dems could have gambled on Cable and met the mood of the nation head on. Clegg has certainly been trying his hardest – he’s a decent politician, trying to provide substance – but the tax increases he’s been proposing will be a bitter pill for the public to swallow. Cable may be considered too old to be allowed to lead the party, but he’d surely be a more likely, trusted candidate to convince a sceptical public to accept these tax increases.

It’s against the norm for such things to happen, however. Every politician who takes a position of power has to be younger and more thrusting than the last – the pasty-faced old Etonian leaders of the opposition, Cameron and Osborne, are proof enough of this – and it may not stop until, finally, a good-looking and youthful celebrity is elected president of Britain, in a bizarre mockery of the American system, to distract from the underwhelming looks of the people who actually run the country.

Unless the Strictly Come Dancing audiences rise up and prevent it happening, of course. An armchair revolutionary is much more powerful now, thanks to the internet.

Style is just no substitute for integrity and brand authority and that seems, after this weekend, to have been made a little clearer to the world at large. We’ll have to wait and see if anything comes of this realisation, however.

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.

Maybe I’ve reached a midlife crisis of confidence in the news, given how long I’ve worked in PR, but the more I read the papers or listen to the radio these days, the more I find myself considering the underbelly of the stories that I’m hearing and pondering on who exactly delivered a particular story and if they’ve spun it so that it would arrive on the particular day knowing what effect it might have on the world. Actually, I think it’s more than that – it may be becoming an illness. I may be developing Churnophrenia, a disease that affects publicists of a certain age and forces them into ever more desperate attempts to join the dots.

Everywhere I look I think I see small stories blowing themselves out of all proportion, being pumped up by the people behind the news agenda, floating in the headlines like ungainly zeppelins spinning slowly out of control. I’m not entirely sure what is imagined and what is truth any more, and so, to try and find out, I routinely find myself picking compulsively over the minutiae of who, what, where, when and why a story might have been spun out to create the biggest impact, all the while playing the news matrix like some vast, infernal sudoku puzzle that MUST be completed.

Take yesterday morning’s news that Harris Tweed has decided to drop all reference to Scotland in their promotional material to “avoid a backlash over the release of the Lockerbie bomber” – I immediately developed a cold, shivering sweat as I considered the possibilities.

The first thought that struck me, like a falling brick, was that it’s perfectly possible that there could be no hidden agenda; there might actually be a backlash. A brief moment of respite from the neurosis! Better than medication, I took the resurgent memory of the time the French irritated the USA in 2003 by opposing the invasion of Iraq, and the Americans renamed French Fries as Freedom Fries in revenge. The chill abated – of course it’s easier by far for an irate American to give up buying Harris Tweed than give up their favourite over-salted fried potato sticks, so there really could be reason for the tweed makers to be cautious.

Then I remembered the debate I took part in last week for the Radio Academy, which made me brutally aware of how many people accept and acknowledge the use of spin to make the news, of how many consume the information knowingly, unquestioningly. And here I am breaking out in a paranoid sweat again. I am Jack’s Churnophrenic sense of confusion.

Not even the idea that there may genuinely be crofters out there panicking about losing sales to the wrath of America can save me now – I can still feel a realisation trickling down my spine like ice: if I were looking for a good way to get Harris Tweed stitched into the national consciousness and talked about the world over, I would certainly consider planting a story about it, connected to a hot topic of the day if possible, primed to burst onto the news agenda on a Monday and help dictate the way the week’s news ran.

My god, it even ties in nicely to the launch of Dan Brown’s new book, The Lost Symbol – the hero of which wears Harris Tweed, probably even to bed.

Should I seek treatment for my condition? Is there any hope for me? And, more to the point, am I alone in this Churnophrenic inability to be entirely sure what is truth and what is spin? Worryingly, I think not…