Soho PR In The Nineties

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The hedonistic mid nineties PR industry.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

What what was it like working in um were you in London then in the nineties?

Lads’ Mags And Client Culture

Becoming The Story, Not Just PR

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Yeah, yeah. Jackie Cooper was based on Poland Street. Uh right in the throbbing heart of Soho. Uh the great Days Ketchen was in um in Common Garden back then. So um it was great, you know. When I first started my career, not to sound like an old fart, but it was it was you know, I remember with the first Apple Macintosh classic coming into the office and everybody sort of cooing and ooing and a ring around it. Um I remember having mobile phones for the first time and going to events, things going wrong at events, and people trying to phone each other up and then not working, or your battery ran. Um there's those sort of silly things, but there were also times where people used to sort of party a lot harder. Um I was working, I was very, very connected with the lads magazines in that era. A lot of the editors are telling a lot of stories, you know, PlayStation, my clients were Carlsberg, John Smith, lots of beer brands, this, that, and the other. And um, and and and the relationships with the journalists was very much you could pick up a phone, you could go around, you'd meet them for you'd meet them for lunch. Uh, there's a lot of that. You'd meet them afterwards. Everyone was always going to parties. You know, if you've ever checked out the loaded era, uh, I think it might be on Netflix or iPlayer or something like that, you know, the things that they used to get up with, you know, PR companies weren't like that. PR companies wanted to be the journalists, but we were still part of some of the hedonism that was going on. And as I said at the start of this, you know, as well as wanting to tell the story, I wanted to be the story. And I'd been a bit of a journalist and a photographer, and I think I can't remember the exact occasion, but I was out so I was with somebody uh loaded or an editor at the time or FHM or whatever, and I used to pitch these stories. Sometimes they were to do with clients, and sometimes they're nothing to do with them. I ended up being commissioned to do a stream of adventure stories. You know, they were everything from go to South America uh and meet some football hooligans, take part in a in a in a riot at a football match. So I went to Buenos Aires and I took part in a riot uh with Bocker Juniors against River Plate. I got blindfolded and taken out of town, uh, and then I got brought back in, and next thing I know, I'm in the middle of a thing. So I wrote about it, I photographed it, and it was in Lads Mags. Um, I went to the States and learned to do the 900 with a skateboarding thing with with Tony Hawk. I had to go and visit a number of illegal massage parlours in 24 hours to see how many I could fit in in Manchester, 26 as it happens. Um, and the one that sort of sticks out, which gives me it's kind of stayed with me all my life, is that I went I was commissioned to learn to fly in 30 days. So after I went to San Diego, I guess I think it was, and uh, you know, joined this flight school, started doing all these things, and on one very, very, very misadventure, I went, I took a plane out one day. I think I've got about 16 hours of flight experience, no maps, no navigation experience whatsoever. A thing called sea mist comes in off the Pacific, and all of a sudden you're up in the air, you look down, and there's just a blanket of of white, and you're like, Where am I? I have not got a clue. And there's me trying to go from A to B. Um, I fly into, you know, Top Gun. There's a thing called Miramar on Top Gun, where the Top Gun comes from, uh their their Air Force base. It's called Miramar. I flew accidentally into Miramar airspace in front of a whole bunch of helicopters, military helicopters were doing their thing. I don't think I'll ever shake the image of the pilot giving me the V's as I sort of tried to do an emergency something or other. With your 30 days experience. I did, and then I flew into a parachute drop zone that was live. Uh, and I'm then being uh and then the next thing I think I flew accidentally into Mexico and the radio burst into life with this sort of, you know, who are you and what are you doing? Uh and I put on my best Biggles accents, you know, this sort of um blah blah blah. You know, I'm just trying to get back to Brown Airfield. Uh could you help me? And they're like, Yeah, go to this, that, and the other, do a May Day thing, turn the channel over, and then they sort of guide you back. And um, I did get sort of guided back to an airfield, and I I landed at this airfield, it wasn't the airfield where I was supposed to be, it was the wrong one. But I sort of thought, oh, I know where my airfield is, it's over that ridge of mountains over there. So I sort of touched down, and there's lots of big tall men in uniforms walking towards me, and I turned around and took off, and uh, and then tried to fly my way back and then get lost again, and then have to do the same emergency routine and ended up flying back and getting to my airfield um where I was supposed to be. I went an enormous amount of trouble the next huge amounts of trouble. Um, and I failed my flight test first time, second time, and on the third time, I think he just had enough, and he was just like, Yeah, you've passed. So I do technically have a pilot's licence from back in the day. But you know, it's that sort of thing, as again, as I said at the top, it's that sort of always just trying something new, that curiosity into everything, a master of nothing. Um has just given me a kind of quite a lot of colour when I go into in in with clients and meetings and perhaps overconfidence, um, but sometimes it gives you instincts, maybe it does give me permission because I've done stuff I can say almost what I like sometimes and get away with it. But uh you know the lesson for the people I work with is you you need to be curious, you need to have that critical instinct, you need to have good judgment, you know. I've had a lot of bad judgment, I've done a lot of stupid things, but uh all of those stupid things have given me um I don't know, they've given me maybe an edge sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Um definitely got a title of this podcast then, um Flying Bla Flying Blindly with Mark Ferriller.