For Fuks Saké

PR Case Studies ref: McClaren '08

When you start a new job, don't pretend to be someone you're not. Like pretend to be Dutch. Or simply be a twat. Full marks to the Mirror for bringing this to our attention.

It's Still A Girl's Game

Lacoste...tennis 75 years from now.

The 00's: Remembered For Music, Or Technology?

I saw this question on a forum and it got me wondering, will the 00's (I loathe the word noughties) be remembered for the technological advancements in music, rather than the music itself?

The 50s gave us rock 'n' roll, the 60's pop/rock/psychedelia, the 70's glam/funk/disco/punk, the 80's more punk/more disco/new romantics/hip-hop/acid house/indie/baggy/shoegaze the 90's more shoegaze/more indie/grunge/britpop/trip-hop/gangster rap/trance/techno/post rock etc... (not an exhaustive list by any means) but this decade...Coldplay-esque stadium rock? Won't the decade be remembered for the iPod and file-sharing instead?

Is there an exhaustion? I've struggled to come up with a better answer than electro, which to be honest is merely a sub-genre of dance. When was the last band to come out, and the world just collectively went "....WTF!"? The Klaxons? Maybe, but then I think their sound is just following on from early Acid House.

I guess my point is, where will the next sub-genre come from? Will we look back at the present and say to ourselves "I remember when all you could download was an mp3. An MP3!!!!" Maybe the reason I can't think of where the future of music is going to from is cos I'm sat here in an office, and not holed up in a studio, with Dr. Dre (who's Detox album, I'm very confident, will bend my head) actually trying to find the answer.

Dave Macnamara

You Don't See This Too Often Either

Fire alarm goes off during C4 News. Krishnan whatever his name is, does a runner.

Got My Mind Set On You

My first ever blog post for all those irrational enough to want to listen to the mind of Proudlock, which takes me nicely into the topic of said blog post, irrationality.

This week I have been reading, Irrationally by Stuart Sutherland (link below) to save me from the mind numbing, retardation of free newspaper reading. And it is amazing how unbelievably irrational we all are and fascinating the lengths we go to justify our irrationality to ourselves.

Take this example:

"The rivalry between groups may be so irrational that each may try to do the other down even at its own expense. In an aircraft factory in Britain the toolroom shop stewards tried to preserve this difference, even when by doing so they would receive a smaller wage themselves. They preferred a settlement that gave them £67.30 a a week and the production workers a pound less, to one that gave them an extra two pounds (£69.30) but gave the production workers more (70.30)"

Unbelievable! But leads to the question "do we all compete with people to our own detriment?"

Are you competing with someone for that promotion or to catch the eye of a certain someone? Are you sure it is the path to success? Are you even sure that it is actually what you want?

Brands are you so busy fighting the competition on micro issues that you have lost sight of the bigger issue? Being the best! Or at least yourself.

If you are constantly looking at the competition and reacting to what they do, how can you really be yourself? How can you produce your best? And most importantly why would anyone take notice of you?

David Proudlock

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Irrationality-Stuart-Sutherland/dp/1905177070/ref=sr

_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215784326&sr=8-1

PR Case Studies ref: Mosley '08/Davies '03

The High Court is currently deciding whether this was a 'sick Nazi sex orgy' or not. Best leave that for them to decide - but you can draw your own conclusions by reviewing the News of the World's footage here.

Nevertheless, if my memory serves me correctly Mosley's original defence was that he was speaking German because the prostitutes were "native German speakers." Very plausible - and for those of us in PR, an outstanding piece of crisis management.

For PR students visiting 4 Fuks Saké for some industry learning, I recommend you dig into the archives and have a look into the defence of former Welsh Secretary Ron Davies, back in 2003. We all learnt a lot from Ron.

Despite a "moment of madness" on Clapham Common back in 1998, Ron was under the spotlight again one Monday morning some five years later. The Sun published a story reporting that Davies had pulled off the M4, visited a notorious cottaging spot outside Bath and had "gay sex in the woods" with a man. Ron was able to clarify his actions, claiming that he had merely been stretching his legs in an area where he regularly indulged his hobby of "badger spotting."

I hear it said sometimes that PR lacks creativity. Mosley and Davies categorically answer those critics.

Asian Intelligence

How to get instantly smart on Asia, the Internet and other things. Norman Lewis: "To See The Future of the Internet, Look East," in the excellent Spiked.

Guys

The market for men's toiletries has risen by 800% in seven years, according to a not very interesting news piece in today's Observer. This isn't surprising. Pre-Beckham, anyone who rubbed anything other than mud, coal or Brut into their faces was obviously gay; or a 'poof,' a word you don't hear too often these days.

Let's be clear. This growth isn't driven by men. It's driven by 'guys.'

Who deemed it socially acceptable to use the word 'guy' or 'guys' to describe men? 

'Guys definitely want to look younger and they're interested in having the tools to do so,' said Brian Boye of Men's Health, offering up a cheap quote in the piece. It's an utterly offensive term, applied to the most inoffensive of people. 'Guys.' The Lynx brand managers always used to refer to them, implying sophistication, a clutch of Coldplay albums, skinny lattes and a flat in Battersea. The sort that think it's acceptable to write 'hey,' to another man in an email.

In 100 years time they'll be no genitals left on the planet.

Sex Sells. Sex + Vanity = Millionaires

Here's a signpost as to where the digital revolution has taken us to as we move into 2008.

Stressed about the democratisation of hardcore Internet porn? Depressed at the disintegration of the concept of celebrity? Disturbed by the accelerating voyeuristic hunger of tabloid and digital media? Bored by the sapping of creativity and brain-numbingness of reality TV? All four collide in a simple, yet spectacular example of dot-joining to create a piece of business genius.

Bigsister.net (be very careful with this 'not suitable for work' link) is a free, online brothel. It's a real life brothel somewhere in Prague. You can log on for $20 a pop (sorry, monthly fee) and watch the action in its various rooms. Or you can walk in and get some action - for free.

Except it's not for free. As the T&Cs say quite clearly, "Basic requirement is, that every guest visiting BigSister has to sign a contract, where he agrees, that all his activities will be shown via internet, respectively subrogates also his rights, that relate with any kind of publication."

This much I know. The publishers will be rich. The staff won't be rich. The clients will all have middle-aged paunches, many of them German.

What next? Do we get them in every city?

A Proper Job

I don't know who you are, but you'll be like me. We don't have proper jobs. As Mrs Martin Lukes' commented, we're all "just faffing about."

Except this man. This is a real man with a real job. This is David Higgins and his job is to build an Olympic Park.

The London 2012 Olympics will cost GBP10.3bn. David's in charge of GBP9bn of that - and with it he's got to see that an 80,000 capacity Olympic stadium, an aquatic centre, a velodrome, an Olympic village and a media centre are all standing and fit for purpose in some dark hinterland of east London when the world turns up in five years time. There's no mealy-mouthiness going on when you meet David down the Rotary Club. His annual appraisal doesn't have too many grey areas.

I like David a lot, and I'd like to sit down with him in his office and get my head round how the hell he does it. If you read this very refreshing interview, and if you have ever undertaken any form of 'project' in your life, you end up doing what I've been doing today...getting distracted, your mind wandering back to David and his job, and starting hundreds of phases in your head with, "how does he know," or "what if,"   or "how on Earth...?"

LOCOG should be / will be looking to Beijing for lessons as they prepare for 2012. For once, LOCOG should accept a lesson in communication from China - because it's time to get a grip on the drip-drip of budgetary bungling and the tepid passion the UK has for the Olympics. If David was in Beijing he would be a Chinese national hero - the man who holds China's dreams in his hands. In the UK he's perceived as just one of a quagmire of bungling bureaucrats with acronyms and dodgy calculators, tucked away in a corner of east London, as remote from the citizens of Putney as they are those in Pudsey. 

GBP60bn thrown down the toilet of Northern Rock, or GBP10bn for an experience that will shape a generation financially, physically, spiritually? I know what's better value for money. It's about time we started to see, hear and feel a campaign that connects with the country - that starts building an Olympic spirit with young and the not-so-young. David Higgins doesn't need our support, but he certainly deserves it.