So writes .com marketing legend Seth Godin in his piece “The Secret of the Web”. He’s totally correct. As anyone who has ever striven to realise an original idea knows, not only the media but those with the power in business and in society are professional cynics working to a very small time scale. If you want to create something real, you’ll have to spend a lot of time ignoring those who take your lack of results as proof of failure almost as soon as you’ve started.

It’s a thought that conmingled in my head over the weekend with the triumph of the pathetically named but surprisingly talented ‘Little Mix’ in this year’s X Factor. The audience got behind this somewhat rag-tag bunch because they got about as close to representing truth and single-minded determination as it’s possible to on the X Factor.

Media coverage has centred around their close intra-group relationships, and perhaps more importantly their relationships with existing stars. The tale of Geri Halliwell sending the group a bouquet before their final performance spread through the British and Scottish tabloids and highlights a crucial part of their appeal: these are individuals with respect for those who went before them and a desire to forge something similarly tangible. They’re the antithesis to the Frankie Cocozza model of empty fame.

Their plight is now clear, and one that every new brand- whether a teen pop sensation or a small scale start up- can learn from. One hopes that from the opportunity they’ve been handed, they’ll be able to plunder something sufficiently real to live up to their seemingly earnest aspirations- success in the true, not pre-packaged sense. However, from the outset they’ll be confronting a tidal wave of critics desperate to swamp them. They’ll also find a similarly formidable number of bigger and significantly more corporate fish looking to appropriate them into the cliché-ridden world of advertising contracts. In a year’s time, it’s sadly likely they’ll either have been hijacked by Tesco or be dead in the water.

Sound familiar? You’ve probably started a business, or even are still running one. You may not be splashed all over the tabloids or have Tulisa on your board, but you’ll have faced the same war on two fronts: the ravenous detractors on one side, the ravenous appropriators on the other. In our digital-driven world, speed is often considered to be everything, and not without justification. However, it’s vital to remember that perseverance is just as important in a market characterised by fresh or shocking ideas. Google, Apple, Facebook and countless other technological sacred cows have achieved great things by settling in for the long haul time and again. Even as I write, there are scientists at CERN firing particles around, hoping to prove a model they’ve been working on for 47 years.

Unfortunately, I can’t offer you any concrete hope, but I can press upon you something which is absolutely central. Your initial success, your first meeting, your incredible idea: these are only the doorways to true attainment. Like Little Mix, it’s vital not to be satisfied with a few minutes of cheap exposure. Shoot for what’s real. Hopefully one day you’ll end up more like the Spice Girls and less like Olly Murs, introducing younger competitors to camera with the empty smile of the truly heartbroken.

I’ve written about the show a lot on this blog: it’s always thrived on controversy. Syco’s PR lifeblood comes from outrageous stories that dig their claws in to the tabloid column inches and don’t let go for days: Katie Waissel’s gran, Chloe Mafia’s Prostitution, Ceri Rees’s humiliation and countless others. After making it through Boot Camp, Cocozza was pretty much handed an Ikea flatpack ‘hellraiser’ lifestyle, which he duly assembled within minutes and then attempted to cram up his nose.

For a time, he served his purpose: he was a decent story factory, most recently grabbing the show a page in the Mirror after his first girlfriend took them a kiss and tell. However, arguably things became a little too real after he started appearing inebriated on the show and prompted a full scale Ofcom investigation.

In deciding to fire him, the show have timed things perfectly: they can now distance themselves from whatever happens to the kid, while reaping the benefits of red top coverage that savages Cocozza while leaving them untouched.

One party that won’t be welcoming the news is M&S. Having proudly gloated about their X Factor themed Christmas ads earlier this year, they’ve found themselves a victim of ad folk’s thinking: close minded, unresponsive, short-term. They’re now saddled with a decaying, toxic brand, slowing down their promotion rather than giving them the gentle boost they’d presumably intended. I’ve been banging on about this for months, though they’re yet to send me through a 500 grand contract and a lifetime supply of orangey mini bites.

What’s more, it’s not an isolated moment of damage. The Mirror today ran with the line that Frankie had spent a large portion of his £3000 fee for the commercials on the very same ‘wild nights’ which got him expelled. Damage limitation has been implemented- though I doubt anyone buys the line (pardon the pun) that the money was just a ‘discretionary payment’ from Fremantle- but had M&S sought the advice of decent PRs in the first place, it wouldn’t be a necessity.

More pressingly, we must pray to whichever God is listening for poor Frankie, whose inevitable meltdown should be cosseted by some kind of duty of care from ITV or Syco. Following his 12 and 1/2 minutes of fame, he’s been cast away from the golden circle he was briefly permitted to enter, and the only possible result is bitterness, ironically the main recipe for perpetual obscurity.

The latest Mail piece by Richard Price, which (in its online form) incorporates nearly 2000 words of surgically targeted attack on the show, including interviews with a hapless carer of Rees’s and a spokesperson for mental health charity Mind. It would make it without question into my list of “top ten examples of stories you don’t want floated about your brand” if I was the kind of person who kept inane lists.

The sincerity and depth of feeling of the coverage, however, marks this out as more than a simple lesson in the devastating consequences of poison publicity. This is not just an unfortunate expose of one woman’s treatment, it is a tailor-made vehicle for injecting awareness of the fundamentally flawed reality show process into the mind of even the least media-savvy member of the public.

The main angle that’s grabbed the popular imagination is not simply that Ceri’s humiliations were repeatedly broadcast, it’s that she was, according to a friend, called up specifically by the show under the false pretext of giving her another serious chance. This was calculated manipulation of reality not only in the comparatively harmless name of national entertainment but in the very harmful sense of distorting and playing off the aspirations of one unfortunate woman.

That this story has broken and run is not the fault of and PR involved with X Factor or Freemantle, it is an inevitability; when the operating narrative of a brand is so poisonous and broken, it is only a matter of time before the public and the media rise up against it. As any brand manager will tell you, there is only so much spin people will swallow.

The whole affair sheds a new light on this week’s ban of Chinese reality property ‘Super Girl’ by the country’s State Administration of Film, Television and Radio (SARFT). I know China is run by a kind of totalitarian administration in drag, but I’m beginning to feel they have the inkling of a point.

The show, which was unceremoniously and ‘voluntarily’ cut from the airwaves under the paper thin premise that it was being punished for exceeding its allotted time slot, is purportedly the first victim of a forthcoming ‘moral purge’ in Chinese television.

The whole affair will undoubtedly (to an extent already has) generate criticism in Western liberal media- clearly one motive for the government move is a suppression of perceived anti-communist sentiment in a programme which glorifies consumption and connects it with democratic choice. Yet the question is begged of whether the destructive practises of reality TV are suitable for any society, regardless of ideology.

While it is true that the show garnered huge audiences, comment on the speed and decisiveness of government reaction invariably comes back to insisting that the mores of reality TV are simply not compatible with the Chinese character.

Whether it comes from a government crackdown or a media backlash, civilisations of all stripes are reacting to the increasingly obvious and undisguisably amoral process behind the brand gloss placed atop reality properties. People will swallow distortion, exaggeration, spin, bluster- these are key

tools of the black art of improperganda. They will not, however, swallow a brand narrative that is totally false, and their rejecting the x factor’s claim about giving Mrs Rees a sporting chance may prove to be the first stage of something bigger.

Cheryl’s recent sacking is an opportunity to re-evaluate her identity and learn valuable lessons in creativity. We all have to learn to deal with rejection and the word ‘No’.

1. Focus on who you are and why you’ve been successful.

A strong identity and deep roots in what made you successful in the first place will help you weather the worst storm. Was the American ‘X Factor’ actually the right strategic move for you? What is your real mission in life? Is your brand in accordance with this? Remember, being a sleb is not the most important thing in life.

2. Do you have a relevant narrative?

When you move on to a new challenge is your ’story’ appropriate for the new context you are moving in to? Consider this: is an American TV focus group going to be moved or confused by “British television celebrity/Geordie singer/overcame the odds/deprived back story”? Always bet on the latter.

3. Make the most of your successes to date

Your strategy here is to ensure that your previous successes that made you are amplified as much as possible. What new things are you planning to do? What past, present and future exciting projects can you plant as memorable seeds in people’s minds?

4. Don’t piss off your enemies. Forgive. Don’t bear grudges.

You evidently landed the role in the American ‘X Factor’ thanks to your links with Simon Cowell. Encourage these links and you may open up new avenues.

5. Do you need to focus on new skills? What can you learn?

Take time to come back. Use that time to learn new skills. Don’t mention them until you’re ready. Project confidence. People with authenticity will always surprise.

6. Go back to basics – your core skill, your ‘essence’.

Don’t confuse people. Remind them why they love you. Learn the power of saying ‘No!’ to things that aren’t you. Make sure you understand what your Brand Essence is. Don’t let rejection define you. Get back to basics, and you will find new ways to move forward.

7. Bounce-back-ability

A fundamental characteristic of creative people is the ability to bounce back after a major knock. It may be a cliché, but if you get knocked down the best way to cope is to get straight back up again.

8. Make sure you trust your team.

If you can trust the people around you and you are willing to let them be honest, they can inject new insight even if it is sometimes not what you want to hear.

9. Say very little until you have something to say.

Filling the social media with endless weak messages will dilute your brand, as will staggering in and out of the tabloids. A little mystery goes a long way. When you have the platform, then it is time to seed the social world with strong positive stories.

Like a Chinese meal, it is all you can taste and think about, but when it’s finished it’s forgotten and all you want is the next fix of foodstuff. There’s news, there’s excitement, there’s hyperbole scattered all over the place like MSG – and then it’s gone.

Of course, we are at the point that everyone is most interested in – the freak parade. Never mind the machinations behind the scenes or the commercial value of the brand; this is what the people most care about; the narrative, the crazies.

Given that it’s all about BGT right now, will we ever know the truth of what caused Cheryl Cole’s American X Factor exit and non-admittance to the UK judging panel? I doubt it, as the people have spoken and what they want is the tears, the heartache, the visceral stories, whether good or bad. What use is a nation’s sweetheart without some pain? We’ve used up the divorce tears – here’s the next weepie Cole adventure.

We know that Fox had a part to play, and Cowell, and many other factors, from agents to stylists – but it barely matters so long as the newspapers and Twitter benefit.

Brian Solis says that Social Media is creating its own ego systems. To survive, brands, businesses and celebrities should ride the shift in public perception and develop market strategies to work these ego systems. They need to recognise the shifts for what they are, however – the public has taken built in obsolescence at the heart of celebrity and business and celebrates it wholeheartedly – the nation no longer cares for yesterday’s cast offs. It only cares for the now.

We are living in one giant QVC-style shopping channel trading in celebrity; not a format that creates longevity. There’s no need when the consumer gladly moves on as soon as the sleb stops living in the now and starts thinking about the future.

Consumers are setting up information networks and are happy to be governed by social media connections. They expect the information to come to them in the instant – hardly anyone seeks out information elsewhere any more. They want it all NOW!

Yet, since no one is focusing on the past, no one is contextualising what’s happening now either, so let’s try to. Only people with platforms triumph – hence we see Cheryl Cole becoming cannon fodder to the march of the platform she’s been ousted from. High profile she may be, but she’s still just cannon fodder. It’s the people who’ve been spat out of the system who can offer most context on what is happening within the machine, but the machine has programmed us to expect a retrospective in ten years time asking “where are they now?”, at which we’ll grunt with slight recognition at the participants of all the old formats who never made it and then move on. There is no room for context in that model.

Fans and followers are firing up the process so it runs ever faster. Image is as disposable as a burger container. There is no point to super injunctions; the law is a blunt stick – and anyway, it’ll all be forgotten tomorrow.

Only a few are managing to succeed; Jedward are a prime example. But then they make no references to the past and they don’t care about the future – they may have represented Ireland at Eurovision, they may have met Obama but they have skins like rhinos and they don’t care. Their career is now and we have got to the point where the audience don’t trust people who talk about a future.

Maybe you just have to be stupid to succeed. Or, as I heard Simon Cowell tell a Britney impersonator: “Never mind the negativity. Ride it!” Salient lessons for Cheryl Cole and anyone else wanting to enter the social media whirl and the giddy world of celebrity in the 21st century.

After watching Britain’s Got Talent – the Dark Lord’s other bastard child – on Saturday, it was obvious from the slow media pick up that something was missing. Taking its first wobbly steps without Daddy, I wondered if it could ever be as successful. Could the new panel of judges cast the same spell and begin to bewitch the nation? Could its freaks and fame-hungry dreamers deliver the same connection to the media, on and offline?

Michael Mcintyre, jester-in-chief to the great unwashed, probably has the stuff; the Hoff is in another time zone; and funky, tender Auntie Amanda Holden looks lost as she tries to take the lead. Without Cowell, it all seemed a little trite; he’d left them with the formula, but the gold dust was missing.

I think this prize content is under threat and may well struggle to survive without the Cowell influence. The cold facts are that he has created formats which are driven by his enterprise and commercial zeal. Understanding Cowell’s determination, one can begin to understand how he reinvented the entertainment event TV formats. His ability to create, star in, steer and publicise his creations is second to none.

Cowell’s talismanic on-screen persona is only one particle of this noxious brew. Commentators fail to acknowledge his personal focus off screen. Crucially on and off screen, his adherence to the craft of hype is awesome. When he is on the ground he is welded to the production. He comprehends the minutiae of the human components – the canon fodder, the folk who deliver the ongoing narrative. This attention produces a peculiar promotional thrust, a jet-propelled ballyhoo.

Make no mistake, Cowell leads from the front, and he ensures everyone understands his high expectations. He expects 1000 % because he gives 1000% . There must be an unconscious fear of failure for the new teams; they are the talent in the shop window, but who will be driving the back office? If standards wane, Cowell’s absence will be felt.

Concentrating on another territory, in another time zone, Cowell’s task in hand is to engineer a massive distraction. The lurid headlines framing his mother’s concern for his health is not idle, tabloid hype. Cowell is flesh and blood welded to mind-boggling ambition. Leaving others in command, Cowell’s inability to steer the format’s promotion might prove to be hid Achilles heel. “From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step,” said Napoleon Bonaparte, when he’d come unstuck in another nation’s chilly hinterland while in pursuit of greater power and glory.

The USA is the entertainment capital of the world and naturally the ultimate prize, but Cowell must ensure he maintains his energy to focus on the narrative engine to ensure it feeds the PR agenda.

I offer this nugget of wisdom: If all fails, success means going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. After all the unbridled success, if Britain’s Got Talent stumbles, it will serve as an early wake up call for Cowell.

Predicted viewing figures suggest a modern record which will grab the headlines and refocus attention on the Dark Lord himself, Simon Cowell. You know, he who can walk on water, the saviour of ITV, the man who has redefined event TV.

I, on the other hand, will be more interested to see how the narrative of the next chapter of Simon Cowell’s personal story shapes as he moves the X Factor juggernaut to trundle through America. Will his throne be exposed as a bench covered with velvet?

The man charged with managing this important move is Matt Hiltzic. Evidently, he told a friend of mine last weekend that he has been appointed as chief strategic advisor on X Factor, working directly with Cowell. This is because Max Clifford can’t, or won’t, travel to the States. In truth, Max is a very powerful operator in the UK but does not have the influence or raw collateral power to pull significant strings in the US.

Hiltzic is an interesting choice, as Cowell has elected not to use any of the big Hollywood TV agencies and sleb wranglers like PMK, BWR, Rogers & Cowan or Howard Bragman. Electing to keep his PR muscle in New York, he will stay closer to Rupert Murdoch and Sony and away from Peter Rice, who is the Fox man in LA, but something of a “acquired taste” within the News Corp camp.

Hiltzic made his name for managing the reputation of Glenn Beck. Beck is a leading US radio and television host, a conservative political commentator, author, and entrepreneur. He is the host of The Glenn Beck Program, a nationally syndicated talk-radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks; he is also the host of an eponymous cable news show on Fox News Channel.

Hiltzic is apparently a good man and has succeeded brilliantly in keeping Glenn Beck’s career on track after some disastrous comments about Obama, among other gaffes. Beck’s controversial views have quite possibly seriously dented his earning potential, however; despite millions of viewers, more than 200 companies have joined a boycott of Beck’s television program, making it difficult for Fox to sell ads. Hlitzic has worked for Glenn Beck for many years and is a family friend.

X Factor USA is set to start in September 2011. It’s already been trailed on Fox, almost a year before the show goes on air. There were huge promos running over Thanksgiving, during the NFL. This is an indicator of how desperate Simon is to break the show for Fox. It is a central plank for their 2011 autumn schedule. Fox traditionally have issues in Autumn because the other networks have the NFL. At present Fox only have one show in the top 20, Glee.

This all changes when American Idol comes back on air in January, as it takes Fox without fail to the No.1. slot. Next Autumn, Fox are planning to use the X Factor to crank themselves much higher up the ladder. Reportedly, they have committed a $30 million-plus promo budget for X-Factor for a marketing blitz which will roll out over the coming months, which will include billboards and a TV campaign.

Certain media outlets have fallen for the story of Fuller vs. Cowell, in my opinion, that misses the point – it is in fact Fox versus the other networks! Simon has a tough fight; despite the obituary notices, American Idol is still the biggest entertainment show on US TV by a long way, as it has been for the last seven seasons.

Its audience declined 7% last year, which is roughly in line with other shows; it opened last season on 29 million. Interesting that, in comparison, Simon Cowell’s other hyped show in the US – America’s Got Talent opens on about 11 million and reached about 14 million for the final. So if X factor USA starts on anything less than 20 million, it will be a chilling wake up call. The Americans only pay attention to success.

I read Simon Cowell’s Daily Mail chat yesterday, in which he suggested how he would get a bigger audience than American Idol so as to defeat ‘his rival Simon Fuller’. This is nearly as big as the humbug that his film venture (remember that?) was going to rival Disney. Figures suggest that in the US Cowell’s rivals are people like Ellen, Jay Leno, Oprah etc and other hosts / TV personalities.

Fishwives are voicing audible concern within Fox LA that Cowell’s overt style on X Factor may be too much for Americans, who like the soft diet an authentic talent show like American Idol brings them. The worry is that the X Factor style will perceived to be closer to Jerry Springer; too much confrontation, fakery, theatre. Cowell reinvented Saturday night TV here. But can he really reinvent the Barnumesque ballyhoo of X Factor in the US?

So let us hope, for Cowell’s sake, that Matt Hiltzic can keep the wolf from the door and the negativity locked safely away. It’s going to be a huge job, not helped by the assortment of meddlers in the camp. I will be following with interest. An old PR suppress agent once told me “a good deal of tyranny goes by the name of protection”. Wisdom indeed! Perhaps Hiltzic is a PR who has contacts within the ‘old’ media but understands the ‘new’. If so, there’s a chance he might just help Cowell big time.

The power of social media is at their fingertips, so isn’t it time to reinvent the act of protest and direct action for the digital age, where the image is ever more important? Images of violence, window smashing and scarf-faced ‘anarchists’ are something the establishment can deal with in the aftermath all too easily – it allows them the breathing room to default to a huffy ‘look at them, they don’t care about anything’ stance.

Grey matter needs to be applied as creatively as possible in the devising of a contemporary method of effecting real change. Smashed windows and bloody faced policemen should be a thing of the past. Interesting, also, to see the Met so woefully unprepared for any violence – perhaps they thought students were a spent force? The other possibility, of course, is that health and safety has prevented them from giving protestors a kicking.

The bloody noses and cut heads the police endured work against the protestors, of course, and become the sort of startling imahes that illustrate, in glorious technicolour, the more scaremongering media outlets; it’s quite possible the police just don’t want to provide or create the opposite effect. If so, the protestors need to learn from that and become more canny in their methods of dissent.

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Talking of the aftermath of violence, the Royal British Legion have come up with an excellent PR stunt to rejuvenate the Poppy Appeal – a “2 Minute Silence” download from iTunes.

There is some grumbling that they may have swiped the idea wholesale from the latest anti-X Factor Christmas number 1 campaign, for John Cage’s famous silent piece of music 4’33” – wittily titled Cage Against the Machine – but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a very smart move by the Royal British Legion.

Unless you’re in the UK, that is, in which case you’ll be watching episode seven of 13 and the spoilers could really hurt your enjoyment of this remarkable series. The start of the series may have been brought forward in the UK, but we’re still too far behind. In today’s social media world, the narrative is just not as powerful when the story is out of sync in different parts of the world with a (fairly) common language and culture – it is diluted by spoilers and web-chatter.

True event TV benefits from Twitter and the Twitterati show fans of Britain’s Got Talent, the X Factor and the Inbetweeners offer great examples of tweet chat from the sofa. A great way to pull in more followers is to use show hashtags and demonstrate sharp wit that can be retweeted. True entertainment brand-love usually has a crowd that engages with Twitter. But it is hard to engage properly when a global source like Twitter is moving faster than the shows its users love. For narrative TV brands like Mad Men to keep up, they need to be shown as close to simultaneously as can be achieved to avoid dilution.

For the next series of Mad Men, mind you, they will need all the PR and web-chatter they can muster just to achieve the amount of coverage the show gets in the UK at the moment, as it will debut for the first time on a Sky subscription channel, alongside all of the output from HBO. I suspect many more people will be driven to file sharing, not only to avoid having the narratives of their favourite shows spoiled before they’ve seen them but also to avoid paying fees for what was previously free to view.

And now, a sneak preview of Mad Men’s radical new direction for season five.

Cowell’s money machine TV show has always trodden a fine line between seeking privacy for its big announcements and demanding that everyone talk about the show around the water cooler, be it real or virtual, but that need for word of mouth has come back to bite the show on the backside with a vengeance in the last week. Depending who you listen to, that is.

On the audience’s side, there widespread disgruntlement on the social networks at Cheryl Cole’s dismissal of Gamu Nhengu in favour of less well-liked contestants (an act that has brought up ugly slurs reminiscent of the hoo-ha surrounding Cheryl’s alleged racist assault on a nightclub attendant seven years ago – a prime example of how easy it is to switch from nation’s sweetheart to bête noir in a matter of moments) but now, Twitter has been used to leak the names of four wildcard acts who are apparently to be reintroduced to the show in a new feature this weekend. This happened with the names of the 12 finalists as well.

But what the audience, and the people complaining on Twitter, forget is that the X Factor’s modus operandi is not solely about talent; it’s as much about what will generate vast swathes of PR, its about creating the captivating narratives behind the contestants and it’s about engaging public conversation and driving up TV audiences. That’s what keeps contestants on the show.

There is too much debate about the talent, but it needs to be made clear that this is a ruse, a conversational opiate that the people consume gleefully. The talent is only there to serve the commercial designs of the people behind the show – the X Factor is a hard-arsed exercise in accumulating cash. Show business with a capital BUSINESS. So few singers involved in the show go on to a serious career and any that do only keep that career as long as they march to the tune of the bosses. The only real winners are the owners of the format.

Just to emphasize the point, take a look at the X-Factor PR team, who are really playing a clever game with this series. I strongly suspect that they may be deliberately leaking info and then claiming to be upset, thus generating more stories. There is certainly a constant back and forth of “someone’s pissed of with someone else in the X Factor” stories bouncing all around the media and the Internet. All of this boosts the show, the ability to make money, and more often than not it is at the expense of the ‘talent’.

It’ll be interesting to see what impact Twitter will have when the show turns to the live format. The X Factor team are surely hoping that the live shows will stem the willy-nilly flow of information onto the Internet. They really do like to own every aspect. I personally don’t think tweeting in real time can become a major force until it’s voice generated; I don’t think it’s possible to type and respond in real-time. What’s being tweeted will already be passé by the time it’s written. You need an a speedy typist to do it for you.

I think tweeting in real time to a celebrity, watching a live TV show, will be a great PR story, possibly in conjunction with or for a client with internet enabled TV, YouView, IPTV, GoogleTV etc. But the individuals who prefer their followers to family prefer privacy in their messaging; just look how big comparatively Text and Blackberry messaging are to Twitter.

Very few of the X Factor hopefuls are likely to find themselves in this position, mind you. It would probably be seen as too dangerous for the show’s brand.

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Talking of bad for the brand, I heard the other morning that there is to be a production at the Barbican where the audience will arrive at 11.00 pm, lie in beds and fall sleep, to be woken by cast eight hours later who will serve them breakfast. Going to cost £42? The producer was quoted as saying he’s been to the theatre himself and fallen asleep, so he’s doing the show to put you to sleep.

I’m not convinced that this is the best PR stunt. Surely it just reinforces the stereotypical view that the theatre is a dull place. Theatre needs to reawaken itself and interest in it, not tell people that it’ll put you to sleep.

Add in the fact that you wouldn’t pay that much to sleep in a youth hostel, let alone an emergency shelter for the middle classes, and it amounts to a PR fail in my book.

A more entertaining, if also somewhat self-defeating, PR stunt is the news that Little Chef have produced a T-Shirt commemorating their 50th Anniversary. The slogan on the shirt is “I love Charlie”, which is allegedly the name of their mascot – who I always thought was called Fat Charlie.

PR spin says that hordes of students are buying the t-shirt with a smirk, because of the “difficult to spot Peruvian marching powder reference”. It can’t be that difficult to spot, surely? It was obvious to me and a mother who spotted her teenage son wearing the T-Shirt is up in arms. Stirring up a little PR controversy never hurt anyone, but surely it would help if it were relevant to – and unlikely to damage – the brand.