Cheryl Cole. Cheryl Tweedy is out and about again. Hurrah. Don’t misunderstand, she seems like a perfectly lovely woman but I wonder if she will soon fall foul of committing publicity overkill in the highest degree. Her face is everywhere. Guest appearances, hosting, singing you name it she’s done it. The public are smitten, but can it last forever?
Her recent unfortunate bout of Malaria incited national coverage of not only her but follow up features on the disease itself, the risks and stats, and of course, commentary on the issue of Malaria from many a health source, keen to bask in the Tweedy limelight.
The Times’ paywall has sparked fierce debate into the very fundamentals of what it means to be a newspaper. It all feels so aggressive. Newspapers are supposed to be for the people, sharing information that matters and is in the public interest, accessible to all!
Forgive me for playing devil’s advocate here, but what’s the big problem with paying for a product? Are we so used to free online content at the cost of being bombarded with advertisements? And anyway, we’ve all been paying for BBC content for years!
There is a certain guilty pleasure in reading about the exploits of high profile individuals, and mud flinging between the big characters at Ryanair and Easyjet are no different.
Take the advertising space purchased by Sir Stelios of Easyjet in this weekend’s papers. That doesn’t come cheap, but instead of using it wisely, the public were treated to cartoons depicting Ryanair’s chief exec, O’Leary, at confession captioned “arrogant” and “the ugly face of capitalism”. Yet another in a long line of digs between the pair.
O’Leary and Stelios as the faces of their respective brands clearly don’t have company image at the forefront of their minds. Slanderous retorts and jibes do nothing to protect, enhance or strengthen the image of their respective companies – which leads us to believe this is nothing more than a case of media narcissism…
Raol Moat’s final weeks have been played out on a public stage and now, with its morbid conclusion, it has to be said that the support he has been shown is mind boggling.
Facebook pages entitled ‘RIP Raoul Moat You Legend’, thousands of followers branding him a hero and shrines flooded with sympathetic messages of support for his ‘plight’ suggest something just isn’t right with the public’s perception. It simply must be a case of misinformation. Read the rest of this entry »
Despite thousands of fans descending upon Leicester Square for the premier of the latest in the Twilight Saga, Eclipse, the organisers ended up a few people short – the film’s three biggest cast members no less. Read the rest of this entry »
Our new Government is still learning the ropes…and the first few weeks in power have shown just how tangled those ropes are when it comes to handling the media.
Today another cabinet minister, this time Health Minister Andrew Lansley managed to direct a comprehensive shot to his own foot when he informed the BMA conference in Brighton that Jamie Oliver had got it wrong about school meals. We can imagine his press team’s delight that the Minister was giving a bold and controversial policy statement “yes Minister…a very, er brave decision”.
Branding at the World Cup has been a much discussed topic of late. Its global audience is so great that any affiliation with the event is an enticing and much covet
ed prospect. Past presidential involvement with the World Cup exemplifies the power of the association, cue a host of politicians lining up to exploit the event’s public appeal. Read the rest of this entry »
The England team have weathered the storm and are into the last 16 of the World Cup. As usual, certain characters have emerged from the team such as goal scorer Jermaine Defoe or manager Fabio Capello to take the spotlight and portray the ‘personality’ of the England team as a whole – a personality that may well be based on fact, or the manipulation of public feeling at the time. Read the rest of this entry »
They don’t come tougher than General Stanley McChrystal, who was until this evening the top US military commander in Afghanistan. Up at dawn for an eight mile run, allowing himself only one meal a day, surviving on four hour’s sleep, he was the soldier’s soldier who outran, outfought and outsmarted not just the enemy but his own men. As they will have said, echoing the Duke of Wellington’s famous quote “I don’t know what he’ll do to the enemy but by God he frightens me”. But McChrystal was brought down by the power of the media.
England’s World Cup campaign has been turbulent to say the least. Think back to John Terry being stripped of his captaincy after revelations of adultery came to light several months ago. The team have suffered not only on the pitch but in the players’ handling of the media during the tournament.
So now we know. But for days before the budget speech, we were well softened up. Reminded frequently that every single man woman and child in Britain will share the pain. The lights will go out all over Britain, and we will not see them lit again until…the next boom.
The £195 million spend on the Saville Report into the Bloody Sunday events has, at last we can confidently assume, got to the truth of what happened on that awful day. 14 entirely innocent people were gunned down by soldiers who fired the first shots. The Army then lied about their actions. Most of the people killed were either fleeing or going to help the injured.
Pretty astounding and exciting because as the story unfolds we believe it, well, I did.
These events did happen, just not all at the same time, as Tom explains. But the idea of an action causing a reaction, which snowballs, is highly plausible today for the following reasons.
Love it or loath it, Big Brother has, over the past 10 years, gained unfathomable popularity and recognition as the Godfather of reality TV.
On July 18th 2000, 11 hopefuls who were unaware of the potential of the show (along with its producers) to boost their celebrity, entered the house. Commonly blamed for ‘dumbing down’ television and creating celebrities out of people who are now simply famous for being famous, the show had undeniable impact on our viewing habits.
This year’s General Election has seen many a political blunder, which put politicians’ media handling skills to the test. Managed differently, the image of the person in question could be cast in an entirely different light.
Take Alex Salmond, for example. Accidentally caught posing in front of an advertisement for the new horror film, ‘The Crazies’. The message he sent to the world was a picture of himself standing under the words ‘The Crazies’ – in his party’s trademark colours, no less. Read the rest of this entry »
Why does the BA strike matter? The plight of several thousand inconvenienced passengers for four days isn’t enough to propel it on to the front pages of every paper in the land. No, the real story is that of the key players in this dispute.
Celtic Football Club’s manager Tony Mowbray looks out over the vast wasteland of a ten point gap behind Rangers in the SPL. The howling of the wind in the wilderness Celtic currently inhabit is still not loud enough to drown out the cries of anguish of the club’s devoted fans. So how does Mowbray boost morale? Unaccountably, he gives vent to a tirade of abuse of one of his star players Aiden McGeady.
When Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda finishes speaking before the House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in Washington later today, Toyota shares may drop, but he will have done the right thing.
When Tiger eventually emerged from the Woods, it was to show the world that even the richest sportsman in the world can be crippled by nerves, and even the wealthiest performer can be let down by poor equipment. The signs weren’t good from the start.
As Tiger Woods prepares to speak publicly for the first time since his fall from grace, it’s questionable whether a public, stage managed apology will really cut it. Once one of the most marketable sportsmen on the planet, no one has destroyed a reputation faster than Wood’s did this year.
