MarCom Professional

Brand: Microsoft As a fan of the Kevin Bacon game I had to put this in here today.  For the uninitiated, the game revolves around connecting any Hollywood actor to Kev in as few moves as possible.  The game is based around the 'six degrees of separation' theory developed by Stanley Milgram. E.g . I once met Lee Evans --> in There's Something About Mary with Matt Dillon --> in Wild Things with... The Bacon.  I have a Bacon number of 3. So well done to Microsoft's US team for proving the theory via a study of 30 billion IM conversations. More...

Brand: Dave on UKTV Agency: Taylor Herring (source) Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap Yes ladies and gents, researchers at Dave have found the world's oldest ever joke.  Dating back to 1900 BC, this pretty unfunny fart gag has caused a media stir with coverage in the Metro, Mirror etc. and Google News is saying 76+ pieces so far online. A really good one from Taylor Herring - let's hope you'll not have to serve too many drinks at Dave parties from now on ;-)

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL129052420080731

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The full final shortlist is out for the UK PR Week Awards 2008.  It's actually quite hard to find online - so here's a link of the finalists to anyone in the dark: 

http://www.brandrepublic.com/InDepth/Features/836118/Awards-PRWeek-Awards-2008-finalists/

Brand: Wordscraper (source) Poor old Facebook. Fresh from a bit of bashing on the stabbing game they've had to remove (a lot of it led by The Sun, who, er, own Myspace) now the guys from Scrabulous are hitting back. Since the removal of their app they've now launched a brand new wordgame called Wordscraper. Thanks to Steve Graves at Future for pointing out that this one's a well-timed launch for the guys.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jul/31/facebook.digitalmedia?gusrc=rss&feed=media

P.S. Meanwhile the official Scrabble from Hasbro is struggling to gain a following: More...

Brand: Cuil (source) Agency: Manning Selvage & Lee The Blog PR community has been feverish about the launch of Cuil - tauted by press as 'a Google-Killer' (yawn). One blogger goes onto ask - Wow, How Did Cuil Get So Much Publicity on Day 1?!

Well here's my hacked up answer:

1. Timing- let's face it, we're pretty bored of Google, aren't we?

2.  The guys who set it up are Ex-Google, giving the press a nice 'Son of Google' story.

3.  It's the revival story from the Seven Basic plots - my Bible for PR stories.

4.  Conflict- the press were happy to say Cuil is a Google-Killer.  See other things such as BlackBerry-Killer, iPhone-Killer, etc. More...

Book: The Fame Formula: How Hollywood's Fixers, Fakers and Star makers Created the Celebrity Industry (source) 'Celeb': Mark Borkowski (source) My heart sank when I saw the front cover of The Guardian today. As readers of this blog will know, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of formulas in PR. Yes they work, but they annoy the hell out of me for some reason. So today we have a new book by self-proclaimed PR supremo (and possible heir to Max Clifford) Mark Borkowski talking about his 'extensive research' into Fame. He thinks there's a formula for it. Mmm...

F(T) = B+P (1/10T+1/2T2)

The article in G2 reads as a beautiful argument that there *may* be a formula to Fame. More...

Brand: Rock Radio 96.3 Launch (source) Ad Agency: The Bridge, Glasgow (source) This is one from a while ago, but is still spreading virally online. Someone in our office has stuck it on the wall today:

Via - http://www.frederiksamuel.com/blog/2007/12/963-rock-radio.html

Celeb: Giles Coren

Not really a PR stunt I think, but this hilarious letter from Giles Coren to the Times' sub-editors has somehow leaked and is doing the rounds in the PR world today:
"And worst of all. Dumbest, deafest, ******** of all, you have removed the unstressed 'a' so that the stress that should have fallen on "nosh" is lost, and my piece ends on an unstressed syllable. When you're winding up a piece of prose, metre is crucial. Can't you hear? Can't you hear that it is wrong? It's not ******* rocket science. It's ******* pre-GCSE scansion. I have written 350 restaurant reviews for The Times and i have never ended on an unstressed syllable. More...

Brand: Batman - The Dark Knight Surely, surely, this has to be a stunt.  That Christian Bale was Bailed just days before the release of a huge blockbuster has just a little bit too much of the spin doctor about it.  What do you think? Brilliant Sun headline though.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1458119.ece

Brand: The PelvicToner (source)

Mary Cowlett at PRWeek wrote an interesting article the other week on the pointless 'weeks' that PR Agencies make up.  But if ever there's proof that this tactic actually works, its the coverage today for National Orgasm Week - a ruse to promote The PelvicToner.

Cleverly sidestepping their product by directing people to a 'Orgasm survey' website, PelvicToner have found via their ongoing survey that fitter women have better sex.
http://www.orgasmsurvey.com/

"The PelvicTonertm ******* exerciser provides the perfect feedback that you are using the correct muscles because it will only close when you squeeze the ******* muscles," the website tells us. More...