Donald Trump has public relations advisers on tap, but from the outside I’m guessing they must be feeling somewhat out in the cold as he ignores their strategic advice for his speeches, interviews and tweets as he aims for the White House. And yet, by all current measures that matter, Trump...
The list of clients and journalists I like is, by now, fairly long and includes good friends from both camps. But is it ever a good idea to put both in the same room with the offer that the client can ask the journalists ANY question they like? Last night I...
Tesco has had its fair share of bad PR over the years, and as a result spends a great deal of resource and time superintending its reputation. Anyone who follows the legal media will know that it is currently facing a Serious Fraud Office investigation, advised by at least two...
We often see PR firms having to manage the PR disasters of their less savvy clients. It is arresting, then, when a PR adviser gets something very wrong – and when it happens it tends to attract a lot of attention. Shadenfreude isn’t all that we should respond with when this happens....
We regularly bring you examples of ways in which everyone from politicians to celebrities and even ‘normal people’ have managed to make spectacular blunders on social media that have ended up being very high profile. When it comes to brand use of social media, sometimes it can be even more...
I'm at the IBA in Vienna this week networking with over 5000 lawyers and I have had numerous conversation about the fate of Volkswagen's brand. To answer this I've started by asking a few questions. Do you own a diesel engine Volkswagen? How does it appear to you when you open the...
It’s an unfortunate reality that most women experience casual sexism as an everyday occurrence. A yell from a white van man as she walks to work, or a presumption she will undertake the lion’s share of household chores; women in modern Britain are wearily accustomed to being the subject of...
Not that long ago I blogged about Taylor Swift’s pretty immaculate record when it comes to well played moves in Twitter spats. Well, it seems I was tempting fate as the internet has been buzzing with Swift’s name this week, linked to all sorts of online arguments. However, it’s not the...
When it comes to the media, most celebrities tend to take a cautious, even fearful approach. There’s no doubt that we have seen some horrible invasions of privacy by (mostly tabloid) journalists and some pretty devastating stories about high profile figures, some of which have even turned out to have...
I took a few days off last week and as a consequence found myself delving into the lives of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry through the medium of Heat magazine. Both are two vastly famous and successful young women who seemed to have managed to evade the curse of a...
