MARK MY WORDS

Sydney Sweeney has extraordinary assets and, more importantly, she appears to understand exactly what they are worth…

Nigel Farage’s response to the Reform sting demonstrates how thoroughly Donald Trump has rewritten the crisis communications manual…

Nigel Farage’s response to the Reform sting demonstrates how thoroughly Donald Trump has rewritten the crisis communications manual. This was meant to be the conference where Reform pushed its claim that Britain’s wheezing two-horse political race could finally be broken. Instead, Channel 4’s undercover investigation arrived like a hand grenade in the conference goody bag. Dan Jukes […]

I can see why American PR experts are calling Meta’s latest move a masterstroke…

I can see why American PR experts are calling Meta’s latest move a masterstroke. Almost immediately after agreeing to pay up to $18 billion to settle claims concerning the harm its platforms caused children, Meta began taking out full-page advertisements calling on TikTok and YouTube to introduce similar restrictions for teenagers.The strategy is obvious, but […]

Winter is coming. So, apparently, are the Sussexes…

Winter is coming. So, apparently, are the Sussexes.Stand by for a new season of Game of Thrones. This time it has two new houses and plays out across social media, newspapers, websites, TV and radio. Harry’s return is not a homecoming. It is an economic stimulus package for the Fourth Estate.The prodigal prince and his […]

I adore Count Binface…

I adore Count Binface. My sort of geezer, clearly from a planet of stunsters, He has given British politics something it has lacked for years: gags with discernible punchlines. His Clacton campaign was a beautiful publicity vehicle. A striking visual, a serious target and an intergalactic candidate who understood the minds of television producers and […]

Tribute to Neil Reading

I learned last night that Neil Reading had died at 56.Back in the late 1980s, when newspapers were read by millions and letters were still written by hand, my entertainment-focused agency received one from a young man working in a chemist’s shop in Kent. I spoke to him. He was bright and persistent, with raw […]

So, the time has come to kill the economy of hope.

Not hope itself. The industry built around it. Every two years, England demonstrates the business model. Take a talented team, add encouraging performances, a young star and a manager suddenly expected to do rather more than pick eleven footballers, find the lost grail of DNA at St George’s Park: repair the national psyche.Tills ring, beer […]

Will Jude Bellingham Become Bigger Than David Beckham?

Will Jude Bellingham Become Bigger Than David Beckham?It’s the question I’ve been asked more than any other over the past few weeks—usually with the faint implication that I might produce a definitive answer, like a man who keeps the master key to fame in his inside pocket.Can Jude Bellingham become bigger than David Beckham?After forty […]

Tomorrow, a nation holds its breath. Sixty years of hurt…

Tomorrow, a nation holds its breath. Sixty years of hurt, and as every England supporter learns before they learn long division: it’s not the despair that kills you. It’s the hope. At the centre of it all, a 23-year-old from Stourbridge who appears, unnervingly, to be self-assured.English football used to produce greatness in exactly the […]

This week’s High Court verdict 97 claims dismissed…

This week’s High Court verdict 97 claims dismissed, and a victory speech from Paul Dacre delivered with all the quiet restraint of a gender reveal party should, by rights, be a full stop. Not for the Mail. For Harry.The ancients got there first, as they tend to. Fame, Atticus warned, is a poison most would […]

There is a growing belief in marketing that attention is transferable…

There is a growing belief in marketing that attention is transferable. It isn’t.DoorDash may have bought Brooklyn Beckham, but what it received was the entire Beckham family psychodrama bundled in for free. Whether orchestrated or not, the story has overwhelmed the product. Nobody is discussing food delivery. Nobody is discussing the brand proposition. They are […]

I’ve been spending far too many late nights watching the World Cup…

I’ve been spending far too many late nights watching the World Cup. After five days, I am still struggling to comprehend the BBC’s studio coverage.ITV appears to have rented New York. Brooklyn studio, Manhattan glittering backdrop, the whole thing looking like football’s answer to a Scorsese opening shot, minus the Gershwin soundtrack. The BBC appears […]

Nils Leonard says #PR should be scared…

Nils Leonard says #PR should be scared and, predictably, half the communications industry has spent the week reposting the quote in the hope of catching some reflected glory. Which is rather wonderful because the entire episode demonstrates exactly where we are. A good advertising man throws a hand grenade into the discourse, everybody rushes towards […]

I was feeding apple, carrot and ginger into my Nama juicer as Nicola Sturgeon…

Episode three of THE FAME FORMULA lands tomorrow, and it’s a proper one…

Episode three of THE FAME FORMULA lands tomorrow, and it’s a proper one. My guest is Lynne Franks OBE, the woman who built modern PR before every third person on LinkedIn appointed themselves a “personal brand strategist” and storytellerLondon Fashion Week was just one landmark on her map. Lynne helped redefine the entire culture around […]

For years reality television has sold itself as a democratic route to fame…

For years reality television has sold itself as a democratic route to fame. A contemporary three-ring circus haunted by the ghost of P. T. Barnum. Ordinary people transformed into stars by the will of “the public”. A meritocracy with contemporary additives and sponsored dental whitening.But beneath the glossy language sat something far older and rather […]

There was a time when Hollywood buried its bodies with dignity…

There was a time when Hollywood buried its bodies with dignity.The old studio system understood that reality itself was negotiable if managed correctly. Fixers, gossip columnists, private investigators and publicists all played their sacred role in maintaining the illusion. The audience saw only what survived long enough to become memory. It was manipulation, yes but […]

Saying goodbye to Andy Kershaw…

As we say goodbye to Andy Kershaw, it’s time to offer a personal anecdote about a passionate man. I’m not going to pretend he was tidy, easy or remotely manageable. He wasn’t. That was the point.We first crossed paths when he was working with the legendary manager Pete Jenner, who managed Pink Floyd and The […]

What hosting my own podcast has taught me…

What hosting my own podcast has taught me, despite decades spent discreetly puppeteering other people’s publicity, I am now required to pop up like a caffeinated meerkat and say please watch and listen.There is, it turns out, I have to grovel shamelessly for attention. Only varying degrees of enthusiastic self-endorsement, all reminiscent of a man […]

Will the Scott Mills moment be a full stop? 

Will the Scott Mills moment be a full stop? Of course not. It’s simply more of the same, the BBC trapped in a loop it refuses to recognise.This isn’t a passing wobble. It’s structural. The BBC has a profound reputational challenge, not just now, but baked into its future.Riding ahead, as ever, are the twin […]