Do you yearn to be famous? If so, there is a formula which may help. Granted, it illustrates the decline in fame from its peak, and thereby presupposes that you’ve already attained some measure of fame, but here goes anyway:
F(T) = B+P(1/10T+1/2T2)
Where has this come from? None other than PR adviser Mark Borkowski whose book, The Fame Formula, will be published on 1 August. According to Borkowski, an extract of whose book appears in today’s Media Guardian:
“F is the level of fame;
T is time, measured in three-monthly intervals. So T=1 is after three months, T=2 is after six months, etc. Fame is at its peak when T=0. (Putting T=0 into the equation gives an infinite fame peak, not mathematically accurate, perhaps, but the concept of the level of fame being off the radar is apposite.);
B is a base level of fame that we identified and quantified by analysing the average level of fame in the year before peak. For George Clooney, B would be a large number, but for a fabulous nobody, like a new Big Brother contestant, B is zero;
P is the increment of fame above the base level, that establishes the individual firmly at the front of public consciousness.”
Is this too much science for the dart art of PR? Borkowski says not. With the help of “willing mathematically minded researchers” Borkowski’s analyses of numerous stars prompts the conclusion that Andy Warhol was wrong: it is possible for everyone to have 15 months, rather than 15 minutes, of fame. Moreover, stars are brands and have a sell-by date: “Hollywood is run by lawyers and agents nowadays – these are the people who have the funkiest parties”. But nevertheless, the key component in fame and its prolongation is the good old human interest story, for as Borkowski notes: “Publicists Pat Kingsley and Stan Rosenfield rose to power thanks to their understanding that a brand needs a story and that storytelling is a key element of fame in our disparate, distracted world where real-life soap operas are played out in the paper”.
Borkowski says that “without intervention in the form of further publicity, fame follows an exponential slide to obscurity”, as, for example, in the case of two former Big Brother winners, Cameron Stout and Brian Dowling. He also notes the huge influence of new media in contemporary PR:
“All of the publicists I spoke to noted how constantly shifting technologies have helped them and made it clear that their ability to adapt to them has kept them in business. As they get older, however, that revolutionary zeal has been replaced by a more reactionary stasis. In a world where the ability to become famous, or create a stir on behalf of someone famous, is made ever easier thanks to the vast array of new media, from the desktop publishing that revolutionised the 80s to mobile phones and high-quality cameras in mobile phones, from social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo to YouTube, email and virtual reality worlds such as Second Life – a formula for creating fame is a necessity.”
A cynic might say that he would say that, wouldn’t he, but The Fame Formula clearly has much of interest to anyone working in, or intrigued by, contemporary media. Blade has just one question: is there a formula to deal with the scenario in which extra fame is thrust upon an unwilling subject? For it appears that by choosing to sue the News of the World for libel – as the Guardian reports here – Max Mosley ticks one of Borkowski’s boxes for prolonging his fame.
Mind you, Blade is inclined to echo the words of Jennifer McDermott, media partner at Withers, who said the News of the World - and other media outlets which repeated the suggestion of a Nazi theme to Mosley’s infamous Chelsea rendez-vous – would find it difficult to defend the action because of the court’s ruling rejecting this allegation, but damages were unlikely to be huge because of Mosley’s damaged reputation. “He hardly has a sparkling reputation now he has admitted to a secret history of sadomasochism which he hid from his wife,” said McDermott.
Blade fears that a formula dealing with Mr Mosley may not yet have been devised.
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