Posts Tagged ‘the independent’

The whole Bell Pottinger lobbying scandal was fascinating to watch as it slowly consumed The Independent throughout the week. Clearly, there are certain pernicious forces at work here. It’s difficult not to feel a little uneasy when the British democracy is in such a state that individuals like ‘cantankerous’ Vince Cable require years of expert strategic experience and a big pile of cash to reach.

Of course, it isn’t surprising- everybody knows on some level that this sort of business goes on. The striking thing is how rarely it’s reported on. I’ve written in the past on the great media operator John Rendon, and the upshot of my thoughts was that many of those who do most to change public and political opinion succeed by remaining as invisible as possible.

Rendon managed to monitor and control the fallout from every major US military operation of the past 20 years, and he did so by making sure he personally made as little noise as possible. When he supplied the Kuwati welcome crowd with stars and stripes following its liberation in the first Gulf War, no media commentators celebrated Rendon’s role. Instead, millions saw an inexpressibly powerful image, seemingly created from nowhere.

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I’ve just been reading an intriguing post by that doyenne of the celebrity underbelly, Madame Arcati, querying the disappearance of an article by the Times’s Dan Sabbagh on Sir Philip Green’s involvement in trying to break the X Factor in America.

Arcati, whose blog is the current darling of the blogoshphere and one of its best, sexiest reads, muses, with an amused raised eyebrow, on the possibility that the article – which threw light on Green’s angling for a $9 million raise for Cowell and the idea of broadcasting an American X Factor on Fox to tie Cowell to American Idol for the next two and a half years.

Arcati wryly pricks the egos at work, acknowledging that the story could either be a fabrication or an irritant to the moguls behind X Factor and American Idol. The missing Sabbagh story is either full of “unusually fearless objectivity” or “total tosh” – either could have prompted its pulling.

Regardless, the good Madame, by exposing the article’s vanishment, is gleefully and gloriously helping expose the powerful PR muscle that keeps the X Factor in the public eye.

As we know, the X Factor is the current role model for promoting celebrities, if not neccessarily the ones it is purportedly creating. I’ve been looking at the rise of Cheryl Cole; the Independent asked for my opinion on her success. It all ties in rather nicely with Madam Arcati’s timely piece.

“She is a phenomenon of the moment,” I told the Independent. “There is a time and place for opportunities driven by The X Factor. Marketing is built to capitalise on the moment. With every level of pop, it’s going to be transient. It’s about harvesting the brand at its prime, and knowing their sell by date is firmly tattooed on their arse. There’s no long-term future with Cheryl Cole. You drill your marketing through the ears listening at that moment in time to the music. They’re sinking the drill into the deep well and sucking up the crude while it’s where it is.”

You could say the same about the X Factor and, if the missing Times article is to be believed, the people behind it know this and are pushing to squeeze out every last drop of milk whilst they still can…