Posts Tagged ‘today’

The Media Buying world is clearly in need of some PR help to drag it out of the 1980s. I found myself reading, jaw dropping to the table, this Media Week article by MediaCom’s Claudine Collins. It’s as if it had been ghosted by Charlie Brooker, Chris Morris and Helen Fielding – it reads like an unholy alliance between Bridget Jones’s Diary and Nathan Barley.

Snippets like “Later, the Telegraph’s party goes to dinner at the Goring Hotel in Victoria, where I sit next to Sir John Sawers, the head of MI6 – it is a real-life James Bond moment” and “Back in the gym for 5.45am where my personal trainer Gary nearly kills me – but luckily he is gorgeous to look at so I don’t mind” really set the tone, if a tone can be found in amongst the slew of names of the successful, rich and famous. Read the rest of this entry »

David Cameron is THE great communicator in the new era of politics. His effortless performance on the Today programme earlier must have sent a shiver down the spine of the journalistic community. How will they get at this moderate, articulate, confident, unflappable and frankly relentless Old Etonian

OK, Dave is enjoying surfing on the bubbly froth of post-election hype and confidence, but frankly he is a fit-for-purpose, well-designed, media-facing PM. A shiny Middle England man in an M&S suit broadcasting his POV like a airline pilot transmitting a pre-flight weather forecast. Evan Davis could not get a word in edgeways . Instead, he was left covered in Cameron-slick as the PM steamrollered his questions.

Obviously Dave is briefed very well and is prepared for every battle; after all he is an ex #PR flak. But I detect a secret weapon lurking in his arsenal and I suspect has been trained well to apply it with maximum force. It’s a frightening technique I have not witnessed before – one that seems unique to Smooth FM Dave. Read the rest of this entry »

I was on the Today programme at 8.40 this morning, with Phil Hall from PHA Media, discussing Simon Lewis’s new role as director of communications for Gordon Brown and how he might turn Brown’s premiership around. A challenging role, as Phil and I agreed, especially given that he has to follow in the footsteps of Tony Blair’s cabal of effortless communicators.

Gordon Brown, we suggested, needs Simon Lewis to create a compelling narrative, pushing Brown into a position of leadership rather than the reactive PM we’ve seen in the press. He needs to communicate key policies.

The same needs to happen with Fred Goodwin. Throughout the saga, Sir Fred has been right legally. However, his biggest error has been failure to accept that his legal rights were, in the eyes of the world, wrong. While the banks were rolling in clover, the cash seemed justified, but when it went wrong he should have made some concessions to the public mood.

Other bankers comprehend that remorse requires addressing the issue head on. Andy Hornby, former chief executive of HBOS, waived his rights to severance pay and to a massive pension. As such, he is being given a second chance at Alliance Boots.

Phil Hall knows about challenging clients – he has Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin on his books. Phil wryly acknowledged on the show that rehabilitating Fred Goodwin is “certainly a challenge”. But it’s one he seems to be rising to, if you look at recent news on Goodwin.

By agreeing to the £200,000 a year reduction in his pension payments, Sir Fred is perhaps showing that something like a change in his thinking is coming. Goodwin certainly seems to taking control of the situation at last and not letting the media dictate the agenda. Perhaps it’s all too little too late, but it certainly seems that Phil is brewing up a compelling narrative for Fred Goodwin at a time when there are bigger financial scandals consuming the public’s attention. If so, Phil deserves a slap on the back for his canny sense of timing.

All that remains to be seen is whether Simon Lewis can begin to do the same for Gordon Brown.

To listen again to the broadcast, click here and scroll down to 8.40 a.m.

Listening to Mark Thompson on this morning’s Today programme, justifying the corporation’s decision not to allow the broadcast of an appeal on behalf of the Disasters Emergency Committee for Gaza, I was distressed. The thrust of his argument was that he didn’t want the BBC’s impartiality being damaged. I am not sure about the semantics but I fail to grasp how is the BBC’s impartiality would be prejudiced by asking others to raise money for the victims of an act of war, by a state using the most lethal arsenal of weaponry against a defenseless population.

The only crumb of comfort is that the appeal has probably benefited from the barrage of publicity surrounding the discourse. After endless debates on TV and radio and acres of print generated in the newspapers, the issues of the appeal have been distinctly elevated. My belief is that the oxygen of publicity and nature of the outrage will most likely motivate and inspire more people to donate and help the appeal.

Vivid and arresting images are commonplace in the sort of appeal films that follow a humanitarian crisis. Unforgivably lurid imagery of the awful damage poverty, starvation and war in every appeal for 30 years means that it’s possible that the viewer is anaesthetised to the impact of this genre of film.

The perception of this type of broadcast is that, thanks to the ubiquity of the imagery, it lacks impact and the intent to shock is muted. If this is the case, then the fact that the BBC are still not willing to show the Gaza appeal – a move that Sky are supporting as well – may well result in the general public responding to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza in a more expressive, compassionate and positive manner than they would have done if it had been shown.