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For those who are a bit weary of the whole idea of corporate pavilions, Media magazine has a witty review of the pavilions of all of the Olympic TOP sponsors. Each is helpfully compared to the Olympic athlete or icon that it most resembles. Two examples:China MobileSMS a vote on your favourite Olympic photograph and receive a set of stickers and ...

With the possible exception of Disney villains, Imagethief cannot think of a group of people that more richly deserve their miserable fates than Hong Kong celebrity Edison Chen and his cavalcade of cupcakes. If I sound unsympathetic here, that is because I am unsympathetic. Really, how dumb do you need to be? On all sides? Girls, here's a free ...

There is no such thing as a dull year in China. 2008 is well underway and already looks like another whopper. We're only a month in and we've already had the biggest storms in half a century. The Olympics, the mother of all China events, is now a scant seven months off. God only knows what will happen in between. But before we get too far into ...

Imagethief has always been annoyed by the Chinese inclination to festoon press conferences with flowers. Spokespeople get corsages. Dais tables and podiums get bouquets. You'd think you were at a wedding if weren't for the fact that everyone is bored stupid and there's no bride to be seen. I can't count how many times I've had variations of the ...

In an auto-congratulatory Xinhua piece on media freedom this morning, Imagethief was pleased to see the following among the proof points offered:Starting this month, the southwestern municipality of Chongqing, which straddles the Yangtze River, instituted regular monthly press conferences for domestic and foreign media. Local officials pledged ...

We PR people have a natural tendency to try to put the best possible face on things. While this is a good skill for any PR pro to master, it can be carried too far. Ultimately, as one of my colleagues likes to say, you can't polish a turd. But that doesn't always stop people from whipping out the turd rag and giving it a try. Those who have been ...

On behalf of all of his journalist friends (don't hide, you know who you are), Imagethief was pleased to read in today's China Daily that foreign journalists are to be allowed more access than ever to the upcoming National Party Congress. According to the article:New services include more group interviews for overseas reporters apart from the ...

Imagethief was gratified on behalf of spin-doctors everywhere to read a few days ago in the China Daily that the CCP is finally taking PR seriously:Party leaders of the future will be better equipped to face the media, well versed in international affairs and more efficient managers, thanks to an enhanced training program, a senior official said ...

Imagethief has previously ranted about Chinese photo opp cliches in this space (and for the sake of completeness, here too). That's why I was interested to spot a photograph on Xinhua today of a joint Microsoft-Lenovo event. Here it is: PR and event companies in China move in herds. This includes my own agency, which did not work on this ...

Imagethief has read with some dismay of American plans to bring a complaint against China in the WTO as a result of China's flagrant piracy problem. This is typically short-sighted of American industrial interests. If the US government knuckles under to business in this case, it will undermine virtually the only pillar it has for influencing ...