Michael Winner's No Loser

If you think "There's no such thing as bad publicity" is just a cliche, think again.

All week on both the radio and TV I have consumed stories about Michael Winner's inflammatory comments that northerners can't cook, that the food up north is terrible, that it's not fit for humans etc etc. 

I heard it first on Radio 4 and then saw it on BBC North West Tonight, BBC national news, and I heard it on Radio 2. In the following days the Lancashire Telegraph and various press and online media operations from Liverpool to Yorkshire were inundated with readers/listeners incandescent about Winner's outrageous comments. The old north south divide was back in the debating chamber. Emotions were max'd. The old flames of patriotism were burning bright.

Lo' and behold, browsing through the TV schedule on Friday, what do I find but a new TV series starting that very night. On ITV1. Called Dining Stars and starring Michael Winner.

Calm down dear. It's just a PR push.

By now, southerners love and northerners hate Winner. And there's no better way to ensure they all tune in. You only don't turn the box on if you're indifferent to him. And who could be so after the week's multi-platform onslaught ?

People calling in to on-air debates on the subject have totally "bought in" to the movement. Having invested in this manner, an affinity takes root. It's how humans are built.

If you don't believe it's all planned out and phoney then take it from someone who's done similar work. In 1999 I worked for Loaded magazine, published by IPC. To sell a new PlayStation game called Crash Bandicoot 3 (Warped!), I hired Battersea Park Children's Zoo for a morning and cast Joanne Guest to model the shoot. Jo was a member of the anti-fur lobby. I hired the photographer, hair and make-up, props etc but I then visited a sex shop in Soho called Libido and, armed with Joanne's measurements, I ordered a fake fur bikini for her to wear on set. 

Whilst the main photographer was shooting the take for the magazine promotion, the PR guys (from Jackie Cooper on Poland Street) organised a long-lens photographer to snap our activities through the bushes, as if to imply a non-complicit snoop by the paparazzi. The PR guys and the magazine (that's me) worked the whole project up from the ground together. Everything was planned and all parties were on the pay roll. Joanne was in the loop.

When the promo hit the magazine in the next issue, our long-lens chap made a call to the tabloid press to "leak" the fact that a known paid up member of the anti-fur lobby was modelling in fur to sell a PlayStation game. He was instructed to make a deal with the papers - that they could only run the story if they included a sentence which explained that the work involved the promotion of Crash Bandicoot 3 - Warped! by SCEE out now on Sony Playstation from all good stockist RRP £44.99.

Having paid me for the magazine page space and filming costs, this fake story ran across early pages in The News Of The World, The Sun, The Mirror and various other publications. All free. I calculated the like-for-like advertising rates for such publicity and filed it with the client. They'd spent about £30,000 and had generated media presence worth closer to £150,000. 

Job done. They'll be back for more when the need arises. Why go to FHM or GQ when the boys at LOADED will spin you additional tabloid "news" for free ?

This is how the system worked and this is how it still works, except everything''s been cranked up in the PR stakes since then, as the recession bites, reality TV grows ever larger to facilitate such activities and clients demand a higher and higher return on investment / bang for their buck. Call it what you will. 

I was responsible for that campaign and many others of the type, so let's be clear that I'm not rumour-mongering here.

The opposite of love is not hate

So would proud northerners tune in to watch Winner's new show, Dining Stars, after having taken offence at his remarks just earlier ? Yes.

Love and hate are both emotional connections to the target. If you have an emotional connection you have a connection per se , and if you have a connection you have a stake in the thing. And you will follow events as they unfold. 

The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference. Marketers know this. We learn it and see it. Hence, there really is no such thing as bad publicity. Because the opposite of good is not bad in this media world. The opposite of good is indifference. Capiche? 

You tune in, ITV sees it's audience figures rise, the ad sales guys at ITV get on the blower to BT and Coke and GoCompare and they sell ads based on audience size. Now surely everyone knew it all came down to the dollar. But I witness so much dumbfounding naivete from my fellow citizens when it comes to TV and its PR arm that I just have to lay it out as it is.

How many people sit through Jonathan Ross on a Friday night without the slightest inclination that the guests only ever crawl out of their Palm Beach pads twice yearly just to sell you another book/dvd/cinema or concert ticket ? Too many for my liking.

Wise up guys. Money makes the world go round after all. And that's no bad thing. But lets open our eyes, yeah ?

I wasn't involved in it, but a few years back marketers were back slapping at an edgy London PR firm for coming up with a plan to boost the ratings of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? British law can make ITV remove a programme from a prime time schedule if it's audience market share drops below a pre-set threshold. If you move out of prime time, your advertisers move out of your bank account and ITV simply couldn't afford this to happen. 

How could you get people to tune back into Millionaire ? It was time worn and on it's last legs with nowhere to go. The fake fur bikini in this case was a coughing member of the audience and an upper-class cheating contestant. All briefed beforehand and paid accordingly for their inconveniences, which included lawful arrest. The tabloid spin, the sheer multi-media noise that constituted the fall-out from such an ingenious execution was not priceless. For you could calculate it's worth, as I did for Loaded magazine, based on current advertising rates at the requisite media channels. But it was priceless in another sense. And it worked.

Fingers on buzzers. All your feedback is sought, prized and welcomed.