Fore crying out loud…
The mention in the post below about Glen Goldsmith got me thinking…where is he now? I knew that after he’d left Text 100 he sort of went freelance and then, I seemed to remember, he’d got together with Katie King (in a professional sense, of course…Katie and Glen always, I understand, had a very close working relationship but I would never suggest that it went anyway beyond that…you know, kissing or anything. No way, no how).
Anyway, niggling away in the back of my tiny mind was a memory that Katie and Glen had formed an oddly-named PR outfit, and indeed it’s true! It’s called 2thefore (geddit?) but you’ll have to visit the website to see what they’ve done there…because in an inspired bit of branding, they’ve lifted the 2 up a bit (you know, like it would be if it was something squared).
While you’re on the website, have a look around. It’s true that Katie and Glen have lots of experience and seem to be doing quite well. The website’s got some, umm, interesting bits of content though.
Everything seems to be themed ‘Fore’; so the menu items include: Whomfore (i.e. who they’d like to work for…which strangely starts and finishes with the same paragraph); Foremost (companies they've worked with in their whole lives); The Foremen (Glen and Katie) and Wherefore (as in "wherefore art thou, press coverage"...oh no, it's the contact details).
There’s also Forelosophy which, in case you can’t decipher the wordplay, outlines the company’s philosophy, which seems to be based on a trip to a restaurant, and Forethoughts, a series of quotes that, I guess, the Foremen think are apposite, the lead one being:
“Remember that the toes you stand on today may be attached to the legs that support the arse you have to kiss tomorrow.”
Hmmm…great.
I’d like to propose a couple of other menu items:
Foretune: how much you’re going to have to pay for Katie and Glen’s services
Foreplay: the team’s favourite leisure pursuits
Fore!: what the team shouts when there’s a crisis on the horizon
And if you really want to get to know the team very well, how about a menu item called “Get under our Foreskin”?
31 August 2006
A vicious PR circle…
Here’s something you don’t see every day…one company issuing a press release about another company’s press release. Talk about PRs making work for themselves! I mean this could go on forever…a discussion between two companies carried out through their PR reps via a series of press releases…for crying out loud.
This is how it happened. Scanning (as regular readers will know I often do) through the press release index over at Sourcewire – home to great examples of the worst type of PR bullshit – my eye was caught by this rather odd headline:
“One in ten employees needn't be injured at work”
Brilliant! What about the other nine? Do they definitely need to be injured at work? You’d better hope you’re the lucky one in ten that manages to escape the workplace unscathed.
I dug deeper, and found that the headline (and, indeed, the rest of the announcement) was created yesterday by the “country’s largest specialist personal injury practice” Thompsons Solicitors (not quite the world’s leading, but getting there). It was penned in reaction to a press release also created yesterday by AXA Insurance (“worldwide leader”) which carried the headline “One in ten employees injured at work”.
Now I’m really confused! Do I want to be one of the nine out of ten employees that AXA tells me don’t get injured at work, or the one in ten employees that Thompsons says needn’t be injured at work? Or should I stay at home?
Maybe one of these companies could explain…or perhaps a press officer? I notice on the Thompsons announcement that one of the press contacts is listed as a certain Mr Glen Goldsmith. The only one of those I’ve ever heard of is the Charlton-loving, ex-Text 100 managing director…
Here’s something you don’t see every day…one company issuing a press release about another company’s press release. Talk about PRs making work for themselves! I mean this could go on forever…a discussion between two companies carried out through their PR reps via a series of press releases…for crying out loud.
This is how it happened. Scanning (as regular readers will know I often do) through the press release index over at Sourcewire – home to great examples of the worst type of PR bullshit – my eye was caught by this rather odd headline:
“One in ten employees needn't be injured at work”
Brilliant! What about the other nine? Do they definitely need to be injured at work? You’d better hope you’re the lucky one in ten that manages to escape the workplace unscathed.
I dug deeper, and found that the headline (and, indeed, the rest of the announcement) was created yesterday by the “country’s largest specialist personal injury practice” Thompsons Solicitors (not quite the world’s leading, but getting there). It was penned in reaction to a press release also created yesterday by AXA Insurance (“worldwide leader”) which carried the headline “One in ten employees injured at work”.
Now I’m really confused! Do I want to be one of the nine out of ten employees that AXA tells me don’t get injured at work, or the one in ten employees that Thompsons says needn’t be injured at work? Or should I stay at home?
Maybe one of these companies could explain…or perhaps a press officer? I notice on the Thompsons announcement that one of the press contacts is listed as a certain Mr Glen Goldsmith. The only one of those I’ve ever heard of is the Charlton-loving, ex-Text 100 managing director…
Isn’t it ironic….
Older readers may remember David Baddiel’s rant about Alanis Morissette’s lyrics to Ironic – including the line that went something like “it’s like Rainier, on your wedding day” – being anything other than ironic. Indeed, it being just plain wrong.
Well….
One of technology’s nicest journos – the very lovely Doctor Mark Samuels – has been revelling in the glory of his new found fame, having been officially announced as the new editor of Computing Business.
The usual brown-nosing compliments from PR companies followed, with the exception of Rainier PR who managed to wildly insult the poor fella.
In a clumsy attempt to update its regulars with the latest media gossip, Rainier embellished a cut-n-paste of the announcement from FeaturesExec with some nudge-nudge-wink-wink nonsense about Mark having “slipped past bouncers to attend a Rainier PR party at London's Floridita despite wearing a dodgy Liverpool shirt.”
Anyone who has actually spoken to Mark will have picked up on his Brummie accent.
Anyone that knows Mark well might be aware that he and his mates used to hang out with a “hot cup of orange squash in a glass” at Mr Egg.
Anyone who has taken any time to actually know the chap will have picked up on the fact that he’s a committed Aston Villa fan - and a very excited one, given that MBNA-rich Randy Lerner has bought the club from the tight-fisted octogenarian, Doug Ellis.
Anyone who runs a Fantasy Football League competition for journalists, especially one in which Mark participates, would, also, presumably, be aware of such a basic fact.
Anyone that knows him might also be aware that Mark is not one for throwing free alcohol down his neck, as Rainier’s diatribe suggests.
Word has it that Mark is as sick as a parrot and will be seeking early doors at Rainier’s next party unless it pulls its football socks up….
Older readers may remember David Baddiel’s rant about Alanis Morissette’s lyrics to Ironic – including the line that went something like “it’s like Rainier, on your wedding day” – being anything other than ironic. Indeed, it being just plain wrong.
Well….
One of technology’s nicest journos – the very lovely Doctor Mark Samuels – has been revelling in the glory of his new found fame, having been officially announced as the new editor of Computing Business.
The usual brown-nosing compliments from PR companies followed, with the exception of Rainier PR who managed to wildly insult the poor fella.
In a clumsy attempt to update its regulars with the latest media gossip, Rainier embellished a cut-n-paste of the announcement from FeaturesExec with some nudge-nudge-wink-wink nonsense about Mark having “slipped past bouncers to attend a Rainier PR party at London's Floridita despite wearing a dodgy Liverpool shirt.”
Anyone who has actually spoken to Mark will have picked up on his Brummie accent.
Anyone that knows Mark well might be aware that he and his mates used to hang out with a “hot cup of orange squash in a glass” at Mr Egg.
Anyone who has taken any time to actually know the chap will have picked up on the fact that he’s a committed Aston Villa fan - and a very excited one, given that MBNA-rich Randy Lerner has bought the club from the tight-fisted octogenarian, Doug Ellis.
Anyone who runs a Fantasy Football League competition for journalists, especially one in which Mark participates, would, also, presumably, be aware of such a basic fact.
Anyone that knows him might also be aware that Mark is not one for throwing free alcohol down his neck, as Rainier’s diatribe suggests.
Word has it that Mark is as sick as a parrot and will be seeking early doors at Rainier’s next party unless it pulls its football socks up….
29 August 2006
There could be trouble ahead…
"It only takes a couple of consumers who have had a bad experience to complain and make a lot of noise on the Internet about it."
That’s right. Just a couple of grumpy old consumers who don’t like their new product and decide to have a little moan about it online….moany, moany, moany. People with nothing better to do…why can’t they just spend their money and be happy with what they get? OK, so a few products are a teeny little bit sub-standard, but most of them are OK…that’s just the luck of the draw.
And before you know it…wallop…you’re share price is in freefall and you’re in full crisis management mode.
Of course, we know that, but you can’t expect everyone to know it. We’re in the eye of the online storm; we see the power of the bloggers on a daily basis, the speed with which news spreads around the world. But not everyone is…like the bloke who delivered the quote above, probably.
Hang on a minute…the bloke that delivered the quote above was Jason Michael - from Edelman no less! Jason uttered it as he “dismissed the chorus of online complaints” about Microsoft’s Xbox 360 when chatting to a reporter from US site ConsumerAffairs.com. Though the site says it has received “about 40” complaints from consumers, it reports that Jason reckons that “it is only a few consumers plus reporters who are generating the complaints.”
In robust defence of the growing issue, he also said: “As far as I know, the great majority of Xbox owners are having a great time.”
Quite possibly, but presumably they’re having a great time doing something else as their broken Xbox gathers dust in the corner of the lounge, right next to their scratched up iPod and their fireball Dell laptop.
"It only takes a couple of consumers who have had a bad experience to complain and make a lot of noise on the Internet about it."
That’s right. Just a couple of grumpy old consumers who don’t like their new product and decide to have a little moan about it online….moany, moany, moany. People with nothing better to do…why can’t they just spend their money and be happy with what they get? OK, so a few products are a teeny little bit sub-standard, but most of them are OK…that’s just the luck of the draw.
And before you know it…wallop…you’re share price is in freefall and you’re in full crisis management mode.
Of course, we know that, but you can’t expect everyone to know it. We’re in the eye of the online storm; we see the power of the bloggers on a daily basis, the speed with which news spreads around the world. But not everyone is…like the bloke who delivered the quote above, probably.
Hang on a minute…the bloke that delivered the quote above was Jason Michael - from Edelman no less! Jason uttered it as he “dismissed the chorus of online complaints” about Microsoft’s Xbox 360 when chatting to a reporter from US site ConsumerAffairs.com. Though the site says it has received “about 40” complaints from consumers, it reports that Jason reckons that “it is only a few consumers plus reporters who are generating the complaints.”
In robust defence of the growing issue, he also said: “As far as I know, the great majority of Xbox owners are having a great time.”
Quite possibly, but presumably they’re having a great time doing something else as their broken Xbox gathers dust in the corner of the lounge, right next to their scratched up iPod and their fireball Dell laptop.
23 August 2006
A nugget of purest green…
Rupert Goodwins has done what I’d have done if I’d been a proper journalist. Seems both Rupert and I both read The Economist, and an ad in this week’s issue caught both our eyes (that sounds odd…like we’ve only got one eye each). It’s strange for me, as normally I skip past the ads like I skip past dog pooh on the pavement.
But this one stopped me. Perhaps because of the George Bernard Shaw quote used as the ad’s main feature: “All great truths begin as blasphemies”…or perhaps the design…I’m not sure. Anyway, I stopped and I read. The ad was placed by a company called Steorn, and, in few words, told me that it had created technology that would “allow the production of clean, free and constant energy”. Wow, some claim.
The ad was placed to attract 12 of the world’s top scientists to test Steorn’s technology and to prove it works (or otherwise). Goodwins done some more digging and found what he thinks are some serious flaws in the proposition…he also points out that full page ads in The Economist don’t come cheap (upwards of £50k a shot) and neither do the services of the likes of Citigate Dewe Rogerson. But if their claims are true, well, I can’t imagine they’ll be short of a penny or two.
But whether it was the claim of producing valuable energy for free…or the fact that the ad was predominantly pale green, it did serve to remind me of the following passage from the genius Blackadder series…and that cheered me up no end:
Lord Percy: My Lord! I have waited on your return!
Lord Percy: [hugs Blackadder]
Blackadder: And thank God you did, Percy, for I was just thinking to myself, "My God, I die in 12 hours, what I really need now is a hug from a complete prat."
Lord Percy: After literally an hour's ceaseless searching, I have succeeded in creating gold, pure gold.
Blackadder: Are you sure?
Lord Percy: Yes, my lord. Behold.
Blackadder: Percy... it's green.
Lord Percy: That's right, my lord.
Blackadder: Yes, Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything, but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's *called* gold. What you have discovered, if it has a name, is "green".
Lord Percy: Oh, Edmund, can it be true, that I hold here in my mortal hand a nugget of purest green?
Blackadder: Indeed you do, Percy, except, of course, it's not really a nugget, it's more of a splat.
Lord Percy: Well, yes, a splat today... but tomorrow - who knows, or dares to dream?
Blackadder: So we three alone in all the world can produce the finest green at will?
Lord Percy: Just so. Not sure about counting in Baldrick, actually.
Rupert Goodwins has done what I’d have done if I’d been a proper journalist. Seems both Rupert and I both read The Economist, and an ad in this week’s issue caught both our eyes (that sounds odd…like we’ve only got one eye each). It’s strange for me, as normally I skip past the ads like I skip past dog pooh on the pavement.
But this one stopped me. Perhaps because of the George Bernard Shaw quote used as the ad’s main feature: “All great truths begin as blasphemies”…or perhaps the design…I’m not sure. Anyway, I stopped and I read. The ad was placed by a company called Steorn, and, in few words, told me that it had created technology that would “allow the production of clean, free and constant energy”. Wow, some claim.
The ad was placed to attract 12 of the world’s top scientists to test Steorn’s technology and to prove it works (or otherwise). Goodwins done some more digging and found what he thinks are some serious flaws in the proposition…he also points out that full page ads in The Economist don’t come cheap (upwards of £50k a shot) and neither do the services of the likes of Citigate Dewe Rogerson. But if their claims are true, well, I can’t imagine they’ll be short of a penny or two.
But whether it was the claim of producing valuable energy for free…or the fact that the ad was predominantly pale green, it did serve to remind me of the following passage from the genius Blackadder series…and that cheered me up no end:
Lord Percy: My Lord! I have waited on your return!
Lord Percy: [hugs Blackadder]
Blackadder: And thank God you did, Percy, for I was just thinking to myself, "My God, I die in 12 hours, what I really need now is a hug from a complete prat."
Lord Percy: After literally an hour's ceaseless searching, I have succeeded in creating gold, pure gold.
Blackadder: Are you sure?
Lord Percy: Yes, my lord. Behold.
Blackadder: Percy... it's green.
Lord Percy: That's right, my lord.
Blackadder: Yes, Percy, I don't want to be pedantic or anything, but the colour of gold is gold. That's why it's *called* gold. What you have discovered, if it has a name, is "green".
Lord Percy: Oh, Edmund, can it be true, that I hold here in my mortal hand a nugget of purest green?
Blackadder: Indeed you do, Percy, except, of course, it's not really a nugget, it's more of a splat.
Lord Percy: Well, yes, a splat today... but tomorrow - who knows, or dares to dream?
Blackadder: So we three alone in all the world can produce the finest green at will?
Lord Percy: Just so. Not sure about counting in Baldrick, actually.
18 August 2006
Wagg Ed MD in stolen goods shifting shock…
PR Week’s profile this week tells me that the ‘main hobby’ of Wagg Ed’s UK MD Paul Abrahams is fencing! He says, “it’s a tactical, intellectual game, like chess, where you are trying to out-manoeuvre someone.”
OK, so we’ve knocked-off a few dodgy PCs to unsuspecting punters in our time, but it’s not something we tend to shout about.
What’s that you say? A different sort of fencing?
PR Week’s profile this week tells me that the ‘main hobby’ of Wagg Ed’s UK MD Paul Abrahams is fencing! He says, “it’s a tactical, intellectual game, like chess, where you are trying to out-manoeuvre someone.”
OK, so we’ve knocked-off a few dodgy PCs to unsuspecting punters in our time, but it’s not something we tend to shout about.
What’s that you say? A different sort of fencing?
Driving gloves and flip down sunglasses...
There are some campaigns that you just wouldn’t touch with a bargepole…drugs companies testing on fluffy bunnies, far right extremist groups, animal porn…but the Manchester office of wobbling PR leviathan Weber Shandwick has grasped the bargepole with both hands and aims to shove it where the sun does shine.
The Manc Webers have just picked up the PR account for caravan-specialist company, Eurocamp Independent. Yep, that’s right, Weber Shandwick will spend the next 12 months undertaking an ‘intensive media relations programme’ to encourage people to take caravanning holidays.
Weber Shandwick’s Manchester MD, Jo Leah, said:
"It may be hard for some to believe, but there is a real revival of camping and caravanning. We'll be working hard to capitalise on this - whether it is news about Margaret Beckett's latest caravan or Gail Porter signing up to the Caravan Club. To drive caravan column inches, we will be challenging FTSE 100 executives to de-stress on a Eurocamp Independent holiday.”
But wait. Before you all jump on the train to Manchester with a view to protesting at Weber Shandwick’s plans to clog Britain’s roads with even more of the slow-moving, wide-wing-mirrored, tight-fisted holiday-makers, there is some hope. The main thrust of the campaign will be to encourage UK caravanners to take their flimsy plywood playhouses on wheels across the channel to jam the roads of France and our other European neighbours!
Hurrah! Every success to you Weber! Ship them all off to Europe and then ban their return.
There are some campaigns that you just wouldn’t touch with a bargepole…drugs companies testing on fluffy bunnies, far right extremist groups, animal porn…but the Manchester office of wobbling PR leviathan Weber Shandwick has grasped the bargepole with both hands and aims to shove it where the sun does shine.
The Manc Webers have just picked up the PR account for caravan-specialist company, Eurocamp Independent. Yep, that’s right, Weber Shandwick will spend the next 12 months undertaking an ‘intensive media relations programme’ to encourage people to take caravanning holidays.
Weber Shandwick’s Manchester MD, Jo Leah, said:
"It may be hard for some to believe, but there is a real revival of camping and caravanning. We'll be working hard to capitalise on this - whether it is news about Margaret Beckett's latest caravan or Gail Porter signing up to the Caravan Club. To drive caravan column inches, we will be challenging FTSE 100 executives to de-stress on a Eurocamp Independent holiday.”
But wait. Before you all jump on the train to Manchester with a view to protesting at Weber Shandwick’s plans to clog Britain’s roads with even more of the slow-moving, wide-wing-mirrored, tight-fisted holiday-makers, there is some hope. The main thrust of the campaign will be to encourage UK caravanners to take their flimsy plywood playhouses on wheels across the channel to jam the roads of France and our other European neighbours!
Hurrah! Every success to you Weber! Ship them all off to Europe and then ban their return.
15 August 2006
We've got some half price cracked ice and miles and miles of carpet tiles….
“Dell exploding laptops alert,” screamed the front page of Tuesday afternoon's edition of The Evening Standard, summing up in its usual barking-mad manner.
Fresh from shooting itself in the foot with a crap blog, mixing itself up with an unsavoury website and generally getting itself a damn good kicking for its abysmal customer service, the hardware Jonah has apparently been using the sort of incendiary batteries that would have Paul Holmes paying extra for a ticket.
The PC Goliath is now in the process of recalling around four million of the faulty little blighters and, according to reports, is urging customers to “get in touch to obtain replacements.” This will be met with a wry smile by anyone that has ever tried to get in touch with Dell about anything.
All of which must have made for another fulfilling day at GCI, Dell’s PR agency. All is far from sweetness and light in that relationship, so we understand, with Write Image happily nibbling up the edges of the UK account with a series of projects. Given its annus horribilis, we reckon we could have 2007’s biggest pitch on the cards…
“Dell exploding laptops alert,” screamed the front page of Tuesday afternoon's edition of The Evening Standard, summing up in its usual barking-mad manner.
Fresh from shooting itself in the foot with a crap blog, mixing itself up with an unsavoury website and generally getting itself a damn good kicking for its abysmal customer service, the hardware Jonah has apparently been using the sort of incendiary batteries that would have Paul Holmes paying extra for a ticket.
The PC Goliath is now in the process of recalling around four million of the faulty little blighters and, according to reports, is urging customers to “get in touch to obtain replacements.” This will be met with a wry smile by anyone that has ever tried to get in touch with Dell about anything.
All of which must have made for another fulfilling day at GCI, Dell’s PR agency. All is far from sweetness and light in that relationship, so we understand, with Write Image happily nibbling up the edges of the UK account with a series of projects. Given its annus horribilis, we reckon we could have 2007’s biggest pitch on the cards…
Holmes loses laptop, gets out handbag…
Paul Holmes, President, CEO and Editor of the Holmes Report, has thrown a right little hissy fit over on his blog.
To cut a long story short, Holmes was supposed to be flying to the US from the UK last week, but found that UK security services had rather inconveniently scuppered a plot by terrorists to blow up a number of planes flying out of the UK and bound for, umm, the US (which might have included, I suppose, the one upon which Holmes was meant to be travelling).
Faced with having to check his beloved laptop into the hold and thereby lose a few hours of his preciously productive time, Holmes decided to be a smartarse and catch the Eurostar to Brussels, stay overnight in a hotel and then buy a new plane ticket to the US, just so he’d be able to take his laptop on board. Brilliantly, his laptop found the additional travel too much and expired before the flight.
So frustrating did Holmes find the whole experience, and so much value does he clearly place on his working time, that he’d rather forego airport security than lose the ability to write ever-so-important reports about PR companies while he’s flying. In his own words, “…for me personally, the trade-off isn’t worth it. I’d rather take my chances with the bomb-making whackos.”
In fact, Holmes would actually pay more (a whole $1,000 no less) to fly on a ‘no-security’ airline, one “that didn’t wait me stand in line for half an hour, take off my shoes and belt, start up my laptop, surrender my iPod and generally inconvenience me in an effort to persuade me that all of that will somehow make me safer.”
Which is fair enough, I suppose, if you’re willing to take the risk yourself. But when terrorists have taken to getting on planes with less-than-perfect security and then fly them into buildings killing thousands of innocent civilians that haven’t chosen to “take my chances with the bomb-making whackos”, it doesn’t seem to us like a very mature position to take.
Get over yourself, Holmes.
Paul Holmes, President, CEO and Editor of the Holmes Report, has thrown a right little hissy fit over on his blog.
To cut a long story short, Holmes was supposed to be flying to the US from the UK last week, but found that UK security services had rather inconveniently scuppered a plot by terrorists to blow up a number of planes flying out of the UK and bound for, umm, the US (which might have included, I suppose, the one upon which Holmes was meant to be travelling).
Faced with having to check his beloved laptop into the hold and thereby lose a few hours of his preciously productive time, Holmes decided to be a smartarse and catch the Eurostar to Brussels, stay overnight in a hotel and then buy a new plane ticket to the US, just so he’d be able to take his laptop on board. Brilliantly, his laptop found the additional travel too much and expired before the flight.
So frustrating did Holmes find the whole experience, and so much value does he clearly place on his working time, that he’d rather forego airport security than lose the ability to write ever-so-important reports about PR companies while he’s flying. In his own words, “…for me personally, the trade-off isn’t worth it. I’d rather take my chances with the bomb-making whackos.”
In fact, Holmes would actually pay more (a whole $1,000 no less) to fly on a ‘no-security’ airline, one “that didn’t wait me stand in line for half an hour, take off my shoes and belt, start up my laptop, surrender my iPod and generally inconvenience me in an effort to persuade me that all of that will somehow make me safer.”
Which is fair enough, I suppose, if you’re willing to take the risk yourself. But when terrorists have taken to getting on planes with less-than-perfect security and then fly them into buildings killing thousands of innocent civilians that haven’t chosen to “take my chances with the bomb-making whackos”, it doesn’t seem to us like a very mature position to take.
Get over yourself, Holmes.
11 August 2006
Mini-me….
ZDNet has the finest offices in IT journalism (although it moves offices soon). Beautiful views of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge on one side, and St Katherine’s Dock on the other.
It’s also a very spacious office, with each employee enjoying the luxury of a swanky 6ft wide desk. However, ever overheard Tom Espiner when on the phone to Graeme Wearden? For reasons unexplained to us, apparently Graeme and Tom share a desk.
ZDNet’s HR team must be incredibly proud of Graeme’s commitment to employee development, making sure his prodigy is well looked after. Bless.
ZDNet has the finest offices in IT journalism (although it moves offices soon). Beautiful views of the Tower of London and Tower Bridge on one side, and St Katherine’s Dock on the other.
It’s also a very spacious office, with each employee enjoying the luxury of a swanky 6ft wide desk. However, ever overheard Tom Espiner when on the phone to Graeme Wearden? For reasons unexplained to us, apparently Graeme and Tom share a desk.
ZDNet’s HR team must be incredibly proud of Graeme’s commitment to employee development, making sure his prodigy is well looked after. Bless.
09 August 2006
Can't Vegas, can Cook...
The first comment on the Aedhmar Hynes/Second Life post mentioned Jonny Vegas' superb tirade on 'Room 101' about getting barred from his own virtual pub. As rightly asserted by 'anonymous' (quite why one needs anonimity when recalling favourite TV moments is odd, but we're in a glass house with that one....), it's one of the funniest bits of TV ever.
We rushed to YouTube so we could share the classic but, alas, it's not there. However, it does have Peter Cook's failed attempt to get packaging into Room 101. Stick your headphones in and pretend you're researching....
The first comment on the Aedhmar Hynes/Second Life post mentioned Jonny Vegas' superb tirade on 'Room 101' about getting barred from his own virtual pub. As rightly asserted by 'anonymous' (quite why one needs anonimity when recalling favourite TV moments is odd, but we're in a glass house with that one....), it's one of the funniest bits of TV ever.
We rushed to YouTube so we could share the classic but, alas, it's not there. However, it does have Peter Cook's failed attempt to get packaging into Room 101. Stick your headphones in and pretend you're researching....
A company in need is a client indeed...
As you might be guessing, one of the small joys of my sad little life is perusing the releases posted on Sourcewire. It really does throw up some classics...but more than that, it might just present a new business opportunity for one of you agencies out there (Fundamental?). These guys need some help...
First up, some more great names: Mark Tardivel and Seth Gunnelfinga (no anagram necessary...I wonder if he's ever met the 1992 Olympic 400m hurdles champion?). Mark and Seth are founders of a new company: www.theworldwideworld.com, which has the snappy strapline “Why Only Search the Web When You Can Also Search the World?TM” (honestly!).
I'll leave you to find out what the hell it is that these guys do, suffice to say that you'll need some determination if you want to find out from the launch press release...it's not until the fourth paragraph that they mention the company's name!
The first line of the press release is my favourite, however:
"If you were reading a magazine and came across an advertisement promoting a pair of shoes that appealed to you, how would you go about buying them?"
Umm, I dunno....go down the shops? Exchange money for goods? Call me old fashioned.
Anyway, give them a call and pick up a client. Tell them that The World's Leading sent you...
As you might be guessing, one of the small joys of my sad little life is perusing the releases posted on Sourcewire. It really does throw up some classics...but more than that, it might just present a new business opportunity for one of you agencies out there (Fundamental?). These guys need some help...
First up, some more great names: Mark Tardivel and Seth Gunnelfinga (no anagram necessary...I wonder if he's ever met the 1992 Olympic 400m hurdles champion?). Mark and Seth are founders of a new company: www.theworldwideworld.com, which has the snappy strapline “Why Only Search the Web When You Can Also Search the World?TM” (honestly!).
I'll leave you to find out what the hell it is that these guys do, suffice to say that you'll need some determination if you want to find out from the launch press release...it's not until the fourth paragraph that they mention the company's name!
The first line of the press release is my favourite, however:
"If you were reading a magazine and came across an advertisement promoting a pair of shoes that appealed to you, how would you go about buying them?"
Umm, I dunno....go down the shops? Exchange money for goods? Call me old fashioned.
Anyway, give them a call and pick up a client. Tell them that The World's Leading sent you...
Juvenile, I know…
Excuse me for being completely childish, but I was just reading today’s press release from Trend Micro about some survey its done which tells us that Brits spend quite a bit of their time online or something…it’s been reported here and there.
Anyway, I noticed the names of the contacts on the release because one of them is just fantastic: Funda Cizgenakad. The other one’s Sophie Braun…I think they’re from Grant Butler Coomber (simply horrific website, by the way).
Anyway, mucking about with their names I’ve come up with what sounds like a couple of Eastern Europeans talking about the party they’re off to this evening:
Funda Cizgenakad: “Iz fun da gac naked”
Sophie Braun: “Hope is new bra”
Sorry. Bit bored.
Excuse me for being completely childish, but I was just reading today’s press release from Trend Micro about some survey its done which tells us that Brits spend quite a bit of their time online or something…it’s been reported here and there.
Anyway, I noticed the names of the contacts on the release because one of them is just fantastic: Funda Cizgenakad. The other one’s Sophie Braun…I think they’re from Grant Butler Coomber (simply horrific website, by the way).
Anyway, mucking about with their names I’ve come up with what sounds like a couple of Eastern Europeans talking about the party they’re off to this evening:
Funda Cizgenakad: “Iz fun da gac naked”
Sophie Braun: “Hope is new bra”
Sorry. Bit bored.
Boffins not bankrolled…brilliant…!
When I saw this headline from the BBC pop up in my RSS reader:
"Britain's digital tribes revealed
Academics classify every household in Britain according to their access to and use of technology"
I inevitably thought…”oh yeah, academics in the pay of which tech corporation..?” smacking, as it did, of any number of PR tactics rolled out since the birth of t’internet.
But no! To my delight, it literally is the boffins on their own; there doesn’t appear to be any commercial organisation involved at all. And it’s great…they’ve looked at electoral roll information and done lots of other number crunching and come up with 23 different categories of ‘e-type’ (not the classic Jaguar sports car) depending on access to technology. My favourite is Type A05: Too old to be bothered.
There’s even a tool where you put your postcode in and find out which type you are; or at least, which type most of the people in your neighbourhood are. So if you find that your postcode’s in the E-marginalised category but you think you’re an E-professional, the likelihood is that your computer’s going to get nicked. So it’s really useful.
Still, what I do know is that somewhere out there in tech PR land there’s an Account Director crying into his coffee this morning as he realises that the very expensive research project he’s halfway through for his second tier internet client has just gone tits up.
When I saw this headline from the BBC pop up in my RSS reader:
"Britain's digital tribes revealed
Academics classify every household in Britain according to their access to and use of technology"
I inevitably thought…”oh yeah, academics in the pay of which tech corporation..?” smacking, as it did, of any number of PR tactics rolled out since the birth of t’internet.
But no! To my delight, it literally is the boffins on their own; there doesn’t appear to be any commercial organisation involved at all. And it’s great…they’ve looked at electoral roll information and done lots of other number crunching and come up with 23 different categories of ‘e-type’ (not the classic Jaguar sports car) depending on access to technology. My favourite is Type A05: Too old to be bothered.
There’s even a tool where you put your postcode in and find out which type you are; or at least, which type most of the people in your neighbourhood are. So if you find that your postcode’s in the E-marginalised category but you think you’re an E-professional, the likelihood is that your computer’s going to get nicked. So it’s really useful.
Still, what I do know is that somewhere out there in tech PR land there’s an Account Director crying into his coffee this morning as he realises that the very expensive research project he’s halfway through for his second tier internet client has just gone tits up.
08 August 2006
My gaff, my rules...Loved the picture of Aedhmar Hynes, CEO of Text 100, used in her PR Week profile the other week. I think it's Text 100's reception desk, but all you'd need are a few pumps, some optics and Al Murray and Aedhmar could be in her local boozer. No wonder she's smiling! Mind you, having said that, we're not even sure Aedhmar drinks...but we haven't met many from the Emerald Isle that don't.
And then I read that Text 100 is the first PR company to set up a permanent office in the virtual world of Second Life, and that there's even going to be an avatar of Hynes in there! I don't know much about Second Life, but this is what CBS said about it:
"When reality gets hard to take, there's an escape to a parallel universe — a virtual world without end where real people create online personas called avatars. Anything is possible."
Like double digit revenue growth and zero client turnover perhaps?
Rupert's ed slags Wagg Ed...
Crikey, I wouldn't be happy with this, would you...?
"WaggEd, bless it, is still flying over the jungle blasting propaganda from its helicopters. It looks foolish. It makes its client look foolish. It's out of touch. You don't want that in your PR company. Perhaps someone in Microsoft could recognise this."
Read the full story in Rupert Goodwins' Diary on ZDNet.
Crikey, I wouldn't be happy with this, would you...?
"WaggEd, bless it, is still flying over the jungle blasting propaganda from its helicopters. It looks foolish. It makes its client look foolish. It's out of touch. You don't want that in your PR company. Perhaps someone in Microsoft could recognise this."
Read the full story in Rupert Goodwins' Diary on ZDNet.
06 August 2006
Parallel lives….
“Use sun cream all year round to stop skin damage,” urges a headline in this weekend's Sunday Times.
The article says that “sunscreen should be used all year round, even in cloudy weather, to protect against long-term damage that can cause cancer.” It goes on to suggest that people “should apply factor 15 sunscreen every morning, even if they are going to spend most of the day indoors.” A healthcare PR, somewhere, is very happy.
The report came from the British Skin Foundation which exists “solely for the purpose of supporting research into skin disease.” Thank goodness, we thought it was a sunscreen laundering front.
Of course ‘supporting research’ doesn’t come cheap, and so thankfully the British Skin Foundation has what it calls 11 corporate partners. However, if you give it your best Columbo, you’ll notice it’s actually 11 product brands. Turn and pause dramatically just before you walk out of the door, and you’ll see that four of the products belong to Garnier. Look confused, adjust your rain jacket, cock-your-head-to-one-side-and-squint-a-little, and you’ll see that one of them is Garnier Ambre Solaire suncream. Hoorah.
The Garnier Ambre Solaire website, incidentally, is as pleased as punch with its endorsement from the British Skin Foundation (and the eagle-eyed will have noticed that the British Skin Foundation gets featured in Garnier’s TV advertising too).
Ah well, all’s fair in love and suncream sales (even your skin, presumably). It’s standard third party endorsement, nothing more.
Still, with all this sunscreen to buy so that we don’t drop dead from skin cancer within the next 31 seconds, we’re off to sell a project to a client based on the need for some very expensive compliance software. And if those damned CIOs don’t believe what our software vendor has to say, they’ll sure as hell believe the relevant hired hand at Laboratoires Gartner in Egham.
“Use sun cream all year round to stop skin damage,” urges a headline in this weekend's Sunday Times.
The article says that “sunscreen should be used all year round, even in cloudy weather, to protect against long-term damage that can cause cancer.” It goes on to suggest that people “should apply factor 15 sunscreen every morning, even if they are going to spend most of the day indoors.” A healthcare PR, somewhere, is very happy.
The report came from the British Skin Foundation which exists “solely for the purpose of supporting research into skin disease.” Thank goodness, we thought it was a sunscreen laundering front.
Of course ‘supporting research’ doesn’t come cheap, and so thankfully the British Skin Foundation has what it calls 11 corporate partners. However, if you give it your best Columbo, you’ll notice it’s actually 11 product brands. Turn and pause dramatically just before you walk out of the door, and you’ll see that four of the products belong to Garnier. Look confused, adjust your rain jacket, cock-your-head-to-one-side-and-squint-a-little, and you’ll see that one of them is Garnier Ambre Solaire suncream. Hoorah.
The Garnier Ambre Solaire website, incidentally, is as pleased as punch with its endorsement from the British Skin Foundation (and the eagle-eyed will have noticed that the British Skin Foundation gets featured in Garnier’s TV advertising too).
Ah well, all’s fair in love and suncream sales (even your skin, presumably). It’s standard third party endorsement, nothing more.
Still, with all this sunscreen to buy so that we don’t drop dead from skin cancer within the next 31 seconds, we’re off to sell a project to a client based on the need for some very expensive compliance software. And if those damned CIOs don’t believe what our software vendor has to say, they’ll sure as hell believe the relevant hired hand at Laboratoires Gartner in Egham.
03 August 2006
PR exposed as being less than honest shock...
Scathing stuff from Dennis Howlett...after receiving a release from Applix Den pulled the PR up on what he thought was a 'nonsense' statement in a spokesperson's quote, and after chasing for a response, got this:
"Yes I did, and was very true. But I didn’t think honesty was the best policy on that one J ha ha…"
Dennis wasn't very happy with that.
We're not sure who the PR in question was...whether they were from Applix itself or its PR company. We know that Liberty lists Applix as one of its clients on its website...I'm sure someone will pop up here sometime soon to deny it was anything to do with them...
Scathing stuff from Dennis Howlett...after receiving a release from Applix Den pulled the PR up on what he thought was a 'nonsense' statement in a spokesperson's quote, and after chasing for a response, got this:
"Yes I did, and was very true. But I didn’t think honesty was the best policy on that one J ha ha…"
Dennis wasn't very happy with that.
We're not sure who the PR in question was...whether they were from Applix itself or its PR company. We know that Liberty lists Applix as one of its clients on its website...I'm sure someone will pop up here sometime soon to deny it was anything to do with them...
What goes around...
Isn't a mantra something you repeat over and over again? No matter.
Reading this week's PR Week I got an incredible sense of deja vu...I was transported right back to the heady days at the end of the last century, to the gold rush of the dotcom boom, to networking events bursting at the seams with two-bit entrepreneurs with haf-arsed ideas for online business and half-wit cash-laden venture capitalists only too willing to load them up with millions of dollars.
And what took me back? The story (paywall, boo, blah, blah) about Mantra, one of the many agencies that used to boom to kick-start its business and one of the few that managed to ride out the bust and keep on going. It was a rising star back then, but had gone quiet for a while.
Well, it's back, with a new spin-off called Fundamental. PR Week reports that Mantra MD Debbie Wosskow will be heading up the new agency, of which she said:
"Fundamental is for those tech start-ups that are in the very early stages of their development. We will not be looking to work on a retainer, only on a project basis from one day to six months at the most."
The plan then being to feed them into Mantra as longer-term clients. Sound like a familiar model? It was tried by a few back in the boom and it's tricky...clients get attached to people and don't necessarily want to be moved from one agency to another. My feeling is that if Debbie gets it right (and I hope she does) Fundamental will soon grow into a healthy, but traditional, PR consultancy.
But what really freaked me out was news of Fundamental's first and only client..."a networking club for VCs and dotcom entrepreneurs called Second Chance Tuesday..."
Whooooaaaaaa....
Isn't a mantra something you repeat over and over again? No matter.
Reading this week's PR Week I got an incredible sense of deja vu...I was transported right back to the heady days at the end of the last century, to the gold rush of the dotcom boom, to networking events bursting at the seams with two-bit entrepreneurs with haf-arsed ideas for online business and half-wit cash-laden venture capitalists only too willing to load them up with millions of dollars.
And what took me back? The story (paywall, boo, blah, blah) about Mantra, one of the many agencies that used to boom to kick-start its business and one of the few that managed to ride out the bust and keep on going. It was a rising star back then, but had gone quiet for a while.
Well, it's back, with a new spin-off called Fundamental. PR Week reports that Mantra MD Debbie Wosskow will be heading up the new agency, of which she said:
"Fundamental is for those tech start-ups that are in the very early stages of their development. We will not be looking to work on a retainer, only on a project basis from one day to six months at the most."
The plan then being to feed them into Mantra as longer-term clients. Sound like a familiar model? It was tried by a few back in the boom and it's tricky...clients get attached to people and don't necessarily want to be moved from one agency to another. My feeling is that if Debbie gets it right (and I hope she does) Fundamental will soon grow into a healthy, but traditional, PR consultancy.
But what really freaked me out was news of Fundamental's first and only client..."a networking club for VCs and dotcom entrepreneurs called Second Chance Tuesday..."
Whooooaaaaaa....
Biting the bottom of the barrel...
Loving bit of piss-taking on The Inquirer yesterday...a Bite press release for BT celebrating 80 years of traffic lights, a release referred to by The Inquirer as surely "some sort of end of the month contractual obligation". It continues:
""If we look at the role traffic lights have to play in our everyday lives it’s an important one," said a frankly unbelievable press release, put out by Bite. It continues: "You can imagine the chaos on our roads if they weren’t there. And it wouldn’t only be chaos for car users, think about buses too - and how could pedestrians cross busy roads safely without traffic lights?""
Worth thinking about. But not for long.
Loving bit of piss-taking on The Inquirer yesterday...a Bite press release for BT celebrating 80 years of traffic lights, a release referred to by The Inquirer as surely "some sort of end of the month contractual obligation". It continues:
""If we look at the role traffic lights have to play in our everyday lives it’s an important one," said a frankly unbelievable press release, put out by Bite. It continues: "You can imagine the chaos on our roads if they weren’t there. And it wouldn’t only be chaos for car users, think about buses too - and how could pedestrians cross busy roads safely without traffic lights?""
Worth thinking about. But not for long.
One for early morning...a genuine world's leading...
As regular British readers will 'get', the title of our little blog is meant to be ironic...highlighting the fact that most organisations and people that claim to be the world's leading very infrequently are. Regular American readers, of course, think that we're just the world's leading blog.
But yesterday's Independent found a genuine world leader, and it's one of my favourites ever. Dr Denis Summers-Smith, it tells us, is the "world's leading expert on sparrows". And who can argue? Check this out:
"Dr Summers-Smith, a retired engineer from Guisborough, North Yorkshire, has been studying the house sparrow and its relatives for 58 years and has written four volumes on them. Now, at the age of 85, he has produced a fifth. This latest book, On Sparrows and Man, is a summing up, a distillation of a lifetime's accumulated sparrow knowledge, by a self-confessed sparrow obsessive, drawing on an enormous personal archive of sparrow facts and figures."
Sparrow facts like this:
"The start of a classical guitar recital being given by Konrad Ragossnig on 2 August 1979 in St Helen's Church, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, was delayed by the chirping of a cock sparrow. The rector pronounced a sentence of death, and had the bird shot so the concert could proceed uninterrupted. He met with widespread criticism."
And this:
"A sparrow has also been executed more recently for interfering with an attempt in the Netherlands to establish a world record in collapsing more than 4 million dominos in one grand "domino effect". The sparrow managed to collapse 23,000 of them before the organiser, the TV company Endemol, had it shot. It, too, was widely criticised, and subsequently fined."
And this:
"There are at least two known cases of sparrows setting houses on fire. In 1960 a sparrow took the end of a lit cigarette into its nest in the roof of a thatched cottage in Saxmundham, Suffolk, setting it ablaze; and in Toledo, Ohio, a two-storey building was set on fire in a similar way in 1966."
Simply wonderful stuff, and well worth a read. We salute you, Dr Summers-Smith, a proper world's leading.
As regular British readers will 'get', the title of our little blog is meant to be ironic...highlighting the fact that most organisations and people that claim to be the world's leading very infrequently are. Regular American readers, of course, think that we're just the world's leading blog.
But yesterday's Independent found a genuine world leader, and it's one of my favourites ever. Dr Denis Summers-Smith, it tells us, is the "world's leading expert on sparrows". And who can argue? Check this out:
"Dr Summers-Smith, a retired engineer from Guisborough, North Yorkshire, has been studying the house sparrow and its relatives for 58 years and has written four volumes on them. Now, at the age of 85, he has produced a fifth. This latest book, On Sparrows and Man, is a summing up, a distillation of a lifetime's accumulated sparrow knowledge, by a self-confessed sparrow obsessive, drawing on an enormous personal archive of sparrow facts and figures."
Sparrow facts like this:
"The start of a classical guitar recital being given by Konrad Ragossnig on 2 August 1979 in St Helen's Church, Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire, was delayed by the chirping of a cock sparrow. The rector pronounced a sentence of death, and had the bird shot so the concert could proceed uninterrupted. He met with widespread criticism."
And this:
"A sparrow has also been executed more recently for interfering with an attempt in the Netherlands to establish a world record in collapsing more than 4 million dominos in one grand "domino effect". The sparrow managed to collapse 23,000 of them before the organiser, the TV company Endemol, had it shot. It, too, was widely criticised, and subsequently fined."
And this:
"There are at least two known cases of sparrows setting houses on fire. In 1960 a sparrow took the end of a lit cigarette into its nest in the roof of a thatched cottage in Saxmundham, Suffolk, setting it ablaze; and in Toledo, Ohio, a two-storey building was set on fire in a similar way in 1966."
Simply wonderful stuff, and well worth a read. We salute you, Dr Summers-Smith, a proper world's leading.
02 August 2006
01 August 2006
Speaking in forked tongues….
There's been consternation at Hotwire over the past week with the imminent launch of the UK's latest tech agency Babel PR, which has been launched just two weeks after the departure of Director Narelle Morrison.
Founded with fellow Hotwire Director Ian Hood and European Business Development Director, Alexia Sciplino, who have both left in the last two months, the fear is whether there are yet more members of the Hotwire top brass about to jump ship.
There’s some suggestion that Babel is 'pioneering' the virtual agency model (aka they can't afford an office), so perhaps Hotwire shouldn't be so worried. However the Babel website says its address is 1 Quality Court, Chancery Lane. Let’s hope so, as that way it can be referred to as the Tower of Babel.
Anyway, the word on the street is that at least one of the Babel founders is engaged in a bitter legal wrangle with Hotwire, so the only people who are going to get rich from Babel in the near future are the lawyers.
As a by the way, on the Babel thing, Wikipedia assures us that the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens. Because man had it in his heart to be like God, God stopped this project by confusing their languages so that each spoke a different language. As a result, they could no longer communicate with one another and the work was halted. Which doesn’t sound like something a PR company should endorse.
So we assume the agency name comes from the Babel Fish of Douglas Adams’ imagination, in which case it’s just a bit geeky. A theory backed up by the three founders’ individual emoticons on Babel’s About page.
Anyway people, best of luck.
There's been consternation at Hotwire over the past week with the imminent launch of the UK's latest tech agency Babel PR, which has been launched just two weeks after the departure of Director Narelle Morrison.
Founded with fellow Hotwire Director Ian Hood and European Business Development Director, Alexia Sciplino, who have both left in the last two months, the fear is whether there are yet more members of the Hotwire top brass about to jump ship.
There’s some suggestion that Babel is 'pioneering' the virtual agency model (aka they can't afford an office), so perhaps Hotwire shouldn't be so worried. However the Babel website says its address is 1 Quality Court, Chancery Lane. Let’s hope so, as that way it can be referred to as the Tower of Babel.
Anyway, the word on the street is that at least one of the Babel founders is engaged in a bitter legal wrangle with Hotwire, so the only people who are going to get rich from Babel in the near future are the lawyers.
As a by the way, on the Babel thing, Wikipedia assures us that the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity to reach the heavens. Because man had it in his heart to be like God, God stopped this project by confusing their languages so that each spoke a different language. As a result, they could no longer communicate with one another and the work was halted. Which doesn’t sound like something a PR company should endorse.
So we assume the agency name comes from the Babel Fish of Douglas Adams’ imagination, in which case it’s just a bit geeky. A theory backed up by the three founders’ individual emoticons on Babel’s About page.
Anyway people, best of luck.
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