A PR own goal by Marketing Birmingham?

Last week’s announcement that Marketing Birmingham had appointed Leeds-based PR agency Hatch Communications to deliver a campaign for its ‘visitbirmingham.com’ marketing initiative was met with bewilderment from Brum’s PR and marketing fraternity.
Marketing Birmingham, which is charged with promoting the city as a visitor destination, hired Hatch to carry out a 12-month campaign to maximise its [...]

How to protect your reputation in a recession

As the recession continues to ravage the fortunes of businesses everywhere, libel actions are becoming a worryingly common occurrence.

‘Holiday: a day of recreation when no work is done’

The holiday season is well and truly upon us and it seems that most of Birmingham’s residents have either headed off to sunnier climes or jumped on the ‘staycation’ bandwagon to enjoy the delights of the city, which they’re forced to overlook whilst busily nine-to-fiving (or nine-to-some-time-after-eighting as the case may be for some).

How Big Brother became Big Boring

Does anybody still watch Big Brother? At 26, I fall, more or less, into the middle of the Channel 4 show’s 16 to 34-year-old target audience but I haven’t watched a single episode of Big Brother 10. And neither has anyone else apparently.

The great media debate – a damp squib?

Last Monday saw the much trumpeted debate on the state of the Midlands media take place in Birmingham.
Sadly, it turned out to be little more than a lengthy attack on Trinity Mirror’s stewardship of the two main newspaper titles in the city, the Mail and the Post.

Michael Jackson’s death resurrects the new media / old media debate

It was as easy as ABC for social media sites to start spreading news of Michael Jackson’s death last week.
Unfettered by the conventions of the established media, rumours of the star’s death began emanating across the social media spectrum within minutes of his actual passing.

Fantasy football

Just received the latest online news bulletin from ‘Insider’ magazine, and couldn’t resist commenting on one of their news items.
The story in question concerns well-known pornographer David Sullivan, who is also the co-owner of my favourite football team (not), Birmingham-based Small Heath Alliance FC.

New iPhone – but only on O2 (boo to that)

Apple have announced the new iPhone 3G S this week, which sounds pretty good, but unfortunately they are still allowing the ghastly O2 a monopoly on this product.
Why do I say ‘ghastly’? Well, about a year ago we (Headline) bought an iPhone – it was from the O2 shop in New Street. And I have [...]

Money, football and MPs

There’s been a couple of stories in the media this week about football and money, two subjects which seem inextricably linked.

First, Deloitte announced that the total revenue earned by the Premier League clubs reached £1.9bn during 2008/09 – at the same time, the poor old 72 Football League clubs could only manage a meagre £500m.
The Premier League [...]

Dame Ann Leslie – a titan of Fleet Street

One of the best media events I’ve been to recently was the appearance by Dame Ann Leslie at a Birmingham Press Club celebrity lunch.
For those who don’t know, Dame Ann is one of last of the titans of Fleet Street. She actually began her career in Manchester at the ‘Daily Express’, a paper which she [...]