Reputation management in the media is becoming one of the key areas of our business. Calls come into our office from all over the UK and occasionally abroad too.

We advise people like Sir Fred Goodwin, the American DJ Michael Savage and Gordon Ramsay.

So I appreciate more than most how difficult it is to advise someone like Katie Price. She needs to stop the avalanche of negative publicity, so the chance to speak to Piers Morgan for ITV was a good one.

But although her advisors secured this great platform, they cannot  talk for her. Surely she should have shown humility, she could have admitted mistakes on both sides, instead she ploughed on with a confidence which says I don’t care what people think, I care only about me.

Good advice, the right opportunities, will only work if people are prepared to listen to the experts. Katie needs a reality check because she has good people around her, but only hears her own voice.

Too many celebrities become a target because they become well known in this country. Some take it, some complain, others turn their profile into a real force for good… like our client Duncan Bannatyne.

A decade ago he went to Romania and a friend suggested he visit an orphanage over there. Did he adopt a child in a blaze of publicity like Madonna? No he effectively bought the orphanage, paying for dozens of children to receive better care and a chance in life. Two weeks ago Duncan returned as a guest of honour as one of the orphan girls got married.

Back in Britain he was approached by the Well Child charity - who put nurses into our communities to help parents who have disabled children. The nurses help the parents with the care, to take a break and other practical issues. After two short meeting, Duncan signed a cheque for £165,000 to sponsor a nurse for three years - and even better the local authority have promised to engage that nurse to continue the good work after the three-year sponsored period.

This is how the huge interest in celebrity can be a force for good…

It is not British to say good things about your friends in the media, but hopefully you can on your own blog site. I believe Piers Morgan, my old editor at the News of the World (well young at 28 then!) has really come into his own in the recent series of Britain’s Got Talent.

He has done well in the previous two, but this time I felt his assured summaries and sense of humour meant he is becoming competition for Simon Cowell (watch out Piers!).

Never under-estimate the journalist’s ability to connect with an audience - even if he did called the Flawless/Diversity bout wrong! It was just about his only mis-step in the entire series.

Susan Boyle has sadly been taken to the Priory Clinic. I guess it was an emergency and she needed acute help, but wouldn’t it be better if BGT paid for her to take a nice holiday somewhere away from prying lenses, with her friends from home and not some star-struck contestant whose company she has kept recently?

She needs R and R …. RETURNED to RELATIVE normality.

Britain’s Got Talent need to sharpen up their act - or are they deliberately allowing people like Susan Boyle to self destruct because it is make headlines around the globe?It seems unreasonable to me to thrust people like her into the limelight and then not offer adequate media management.

Susan needs a calming influence around her, someone who can help the Press, give them some nice positive stories and stop her hitting the self destruct button, as seems to be happening.

The media are fascinated by the show, and by the Scottish singer with the big voice, so they are not simply going to go away. Fill their pages with good, positive stories and their appetites will be satiated. That would be my advice and it would not be hard to do.

Katie Price is one of the media phenomenas of the 21^st century. It seems everything she touches turns to gold. She connects with a generation of young women and has developed her talents from a glamour model, to book author to TV star.

Who can blame her for fleeing the country when the news broke her marriage was in trouble. She knew she would be surrounded by the media and the difficulty is when you live by the media, you can also die by them if they turn on you. So the ever shrewd Katie has bought herself some time.

The difficulty with leaving a void though is the Press will fill it with whatever they can find… and someone is dripping poison on Miss Price and painting her husband Peter Andre as a saint.

So many clients of our have tried to bury their heads in the sand when trouble comes knocking on the door. My view is if you are a media person, good or bad, that is not going to work long time. You have to address it, become proactive, there will be a few knocks along the way but the positives will win through in the end.

I guess what I am saying is it is time for Katie to come back and face the music… and with her knack for survival I have no doubt she will end up conducting the media orchestra rather than being drowned out by it!

One day I will understand the power of Twitter… and I am getting there. I have struck up an email exchange with three celebrities in recent weeks, but just where is the site going.

Today they announced they will never carry advertising, but I guess that may all change when one of the giants of the internet world comes along and gobbles them up for a few million dollars!

One of the celebrities is debating his/her PR issues and I must say they are extremely complex. Watch this space for developments!

There are few tactics more effectivein the world of PR as positive celebrity endorsement. Associating clients brands with carefully selected celebrities creates powerful partnerships. Never is this more powerful than in the world of fashion where labels and brands tam up with celebrities of the moment to create a new wow factor - most notable being the highly successful Kate Moss and Top Shop collabartion.

It’s something we understand at PHA Media and use our abundance of contacts to create succesful partnerships for our clients whether their budgets are non existent or large.

The Private Clinic have benefited from associations with Henry Blofield and Tony Cowell in respect of their leading treatment to combat snoring and the home cooking MyDish website has enjoyed success with no fewer than 13 celebrity recipes including Mel C and Gabby and Kenny Logan. More recently the Energy Saving Trust successfully delivered their important and educational message with the help of TV presenter Miquita Oliver.

Our client Irene Malin made a splash in the Daily Mail at the weekend. Chic and stylish Irene is a former Bond girl… please see the story below

I was recently asked to speak at the Schillings Reputation Management conference and chair a Q and A session with the former rugby star Kenny Logan.

As you would expect with Schillings, there was a huge turn out from top notch businesses and sporting organisations.

As the PR consultancy who have been advising Sir Fred Goodwin, it seemed appropriate to use an analogy based around the banking world.

Protecting “people brands” to me is like getting them all to sign into an account at the Bank of Reputation.

When newspapers or the media as a whole attack someone, they effectively become overdrawn in the Bank of Reputation.

The only was to correct that is to build credits - and usually that does not mean a quick fix of going out and confessing all.

Take David Beckham, for example. When he lost his way through the Rebecca Loos story he did not admit to anything. Although Max Clifford did all he could to destroy Becks with the Loos tale, the England skipper did not respond.

Instead he re-built his name by building up the credit account. He launched his soccer skills school and was seen helping kids there by coaching in person; he increased his charity commitments and was careful to do interviews with “friends” in the media he had courted during the good time.

That is the key… long-term relationships with the media offer the best opportunity of managing reputation.

Just back from two days in Marbella launching a new restaurant/bar called the Polo House - 600 people turned up, so you can certainly call it a success.

The host was James Hewitt, who has mellowed since he was pursued from pillar to post by the media in this country; post his relationship with Princess Diana.

Marbella has somehow escaped the credit crunch - largely I feel because the inhabitants - at least the ex-pats, are people who have made their fortune and retired to enjoy the golf, the weather and abundant night life.

But not all of the wealthy on Marbella’s golden mile were happy. More than 1,000 Brits face having their homes snatched away following a gut-busting deal with Landsbanki, the defunct Icelandic bank.

They were sold equity release deals on the promise that if they took a lump sum out of the equity of the property they could keep one quarter of the money and invest the rest, whereupon the interest on that three quarters sum would pay for the whole loan.

It did not… and many now find themselves in debt with the horrific possibility that the homes they intended to spend the rest of their lives in, could be re-possessed.

A number of them gathered at the Polo House last week and we are going to help them by airing their issues in the national media.