This week I had the opportunity of hearing PR legend Max Clifford speak at the Business North West exhibition.

A well-attended talk – there must have been a couple of hundred in the audience -  saw Max speak for an hour.

Much of Max’s talk urged businesses to use PR as a central part of their marketing and sales effort.  He reiterated the point again and again that a good PR man or agency can make a real difference to a business and generate a substantial return in coverage on a reasonable investment.  Max also mentioned clients who had grown, such as Pimlico Plumbers – remember Buster the 100 year old employee in the London marathon? – all thanks to PR.

Max and his agency Max Clifford Associates does more than the Freddie Starr story.  Clients range from banks to property to beauty.  But for saying that Max concentrated on using celebrities to gain coverage.  That is all very well, but can you apply that to salt of the earth B2B accounts? What about Mylene endorsing businesses investigating R&D taxes or Twiggy campaigning for the 2007 Budget capital allowance changes to be reversed?

I think there is a culture difference: you could say Max Clifford is not really B2B, possibly B2C, certainly B2Celebrity.  I think this is the visible part of his agency and much of the work is the press release and well researched feature on celebrity free business issues.

It is clear Max really understands the tabloid press and knows how to use it, both for coverage and to keep people out of the papers, when necessary.  Max’s agency says they are “protection specialists” as well as PR professionals.

Asked about future challenges for PR professionals Max admitted that he was not the most technical of people, as online PR would certainly be on the list.  Why should he argued if he can still work the tabloids as effectively as he has ever done for 40 years?

A few other members of the audience asked for a coffee to discuss their PR issues.  Max if you are reading this I will go one better: a day work shadowing you and I will buy you lunch with a real ale.  What do you say?

Tags: Max Clifford

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 at 5:23 pm and is filed under PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.