Mark Borkowski

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Mark Borkowski is a PR agent for some of the biggest names in show-business – founded his eponymous agency in 1987 and over the past 20 years has developed it into one of the most reputable PR companies in the UK, working on consumer brands, celebrity and arts and entertainment.

He has worked for Eddie Izzard, Graham Norton, Joan Rivers, Macaulay Culkin, Cliff Richard, Shirley Bassey, the Bolshoi Ballet, Cirque du Soleil, the Three Tenors, Michael Jackson, Michael Flatley and Michael Moore amongst others. His roster even extended to Mikhael Gorbachev and Diego Maradona.

What distinguishes Mark from other publicists is the pure showmanship of some of his PR, which has resulted in some astonishing, spectacular and memorable stunts for client campaigns.

Mark planted a field full of Cabbage Patch Kids for Hasbro, commissioned the world’s first chocolate billboard for Thorntons, created a newspaper column for a cat for Bacardi Breezer and he beat the world record for how many people you can fit in a Smartcar. This is the man who killed off a tap-dancing dog to promote an amateur Variety night at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, who publicly auditioned parrots, cats and crocodiles, and who was once frog-marched from the BBC for letting scorpions loose in a Green Room to promote the Jim Rose Sideshow tour in the UK. In 1994 he caused an uproar in London when he was involved as publicist on the highly controversial and allegedly blasphemous rock musical Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom. The production was banned by the Church Council of Great Britain. To publicize Archaos, the grunge circus, he organised a series of jumps on motorbikes over traffic queues in the centre of Edinburgh, he commissioned the world’s largest paper boat, and he’s walked an elephant into a fish and chip shop with the Andrews Sisters to promote Trivial Pursuit. He brought S&M performers face to face with Moral Majority Campaigners, and in 2000, generated the only interesting event ever held in The Dome (a World Record Custard Pie Fight, involving 1,000 people).

To launch Hank Wangford in Edinburgh with Andy Kershaw, he staged the first UK Cowpat flinging competition. For The Pirates of Penzance launch in 1986 in the West End, he organised a sword-fighting workshop with Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. For the return of Archaos in 1999, without permission, he coordinated an illegal stunt driving cars on two wheels across the Albert Bridge in London. To make a book called Glad to be Gray get media attention, he staged a dull, cheapest-ever book launch in a Covent Garden launderette. For Action Man’s 30th birthday party he hired an NCP car park and had a Vivienne Westwood dress made for Sindy. He created a radio-controlled vacuum cleaner to bring attention to a premium lager.

Mark’s first freelance client work was as publicist to a single seat theatre on the sidecar of a 750cc motorcycle, owned by the late comedian Marcel Steiner. When he was the youngest publicist in the West End, he handled Brenda Blethyn and six other naked actresses in a swimming pool on stage at the Comedy Theatre in Steaming. Mark was thrown out of a hotel room in Toronto for inviting 200 people into his suite for an exclusive off-festival movie preview for the maverick Tony Kaye. He resigned the Michael Jackson account.

Mark is also recognised as a pundit on PR, the media and celebrity and is regularly asked to give television and radio interviews. He lectures to the industry, to corporate trade associations and at academic institutions. His column, Stuntwatch, appears on the Guardian Online and he is frequently commissioned to write for other publications. His book, Improperganda: The Art of the Publicity Stunt, sold around the world and his second book, on the history of Hollywood’s great publicists, is due for release through Macmillan in 2008.

Contents

[edit] Other

[edit] Guinness Book of Records

Borkowski has twice earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the Biggest Custard Pie Fight in the World (on the second occasion in the Millennium Dome).

[edit] Writing, exhibitions and stage shows

  1. Ongoing - Stuntwatch - The Guardian online regular column
  2. 2004 - “How The War Was Spun” – BBC 3 Documentary - a detailed criticism of the media techniques employed by the US during the 2nd Gulf War.
  3. 2004 - “Son of Barnum: A Stunt Too Far” – Edinburgh Festival
  4. 2001 – “Improperganda: the Art of the Publicity Stunt” - exhibition

[edit] External links