Anthony Hilton | Voice of the City

Anthony Hilton is City commentator on London's Evening Standard newspaper

Anthony Hilton: Tesco loses out in likeability stakes

Perhaps companies do reap what they sow.

Anthony Hilton: RBS' Hester learns to play PR game

It was obvious at the time that Stephen Hester, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, was unprepared for the storm that broke over his pay at the time of the bank's results and that led, after a few days, to his having to turn down a £1m bonus.

Anthony Hilton: Bahrain F1 sponsors on a crash course

During the early stages of the Arab Spring a little over a year ago, Vodafone attracted a huge amount of negative publicity for appearing to co-operate with the old Egyptian regime of President Mubarak and against street protesters in the weeks befor...

Anthony Hilton: Hijacked by the Budget agenda

It never fails to surprise me the way sophisticated companies allow politicians to use them for cheap publicity stunts.

Anthony Hilton: Business people need political skills

Someone I know moved recently from being a Spad - a special political adviser to a senior politician - to taking a job in a PR and marketing consultancy. Nothing special in that but he said something that gave pause for thought.

Anthony Hilton: CPP shows power of persuasive PR

Everyone with a credit card will at some time have been asked if they want to buy insurance against the loss or theft of their cards and the possibility of them being used fraudulently. For around £30 a year customers are told one phone call will can...

Anthony Hilton: Just admit when you are wrong

It is ironic that many of those who are vociferous about the merits of the free market and how business will always do better if Government keeps out of the way tend to be very bad at leaving things alone themselves.

Anthony Hilton: Web culture leads to lazy journalism

I was reminiscing with someone who for years has been one of the leaders in investigative financial journalism, when he caused a surprise by saying how much easier the job had become. These days, he said, so few journalists have the time or the incli...

Anthony Hilton: Tesco pays price for neglecting PR

Everyone knows stock markets can be brutal when companies disappoint them.

Anthony Hilton: Lloyds leak helps bank save face

A few days after this column made note of how poorly in PR terms Lloyds Banking Group was handling the enforced absence of its chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio (PRWeek, 2 December), who is currently on a leave of absence to recover from stress an...

Anthony Hilton: Sustainability is good business

There was a theory in the 1970s that you could chart Britain's economic decline by the growth in numbers and influence of accountants.

Anthony Hilton: Reading a room is now a dying art

One of the UK's most successful businessmen told me he has banned BlackBerrys - in fact smartphones of all descriptions - from his meetings, because he is fed up with people reading emails when they should be taking part in the meeting. His next step...

Anthony Hilton: Is social media tracking worth it?

Print and broadcast journalists have the laws of libel drummed into them and are aware of the expensive consequences when their copy is a bit too close to the line.

Anthony Hilton: Ministers put in a spin by the fringe

I had forgotten how damaging it is to your health to attend all three main party conferences.

Anthony Hilton: Journalism is not advertising

Private equity funds have a ten-year life cycle, meaning they are expected to have returned investors' cash, hopefully with profit, at the end of that period. Because it takes time to find investments, funds are seldom fully invested much before year...

Anthony Hilton: Lies can keep PR industry busy

When I spent a brief period of my early journalistic life as a stock market reporter, the trick was to spot the lies.

Anthony Hilton: Speaking truth unto power

Writing in the Financial Times recently Lucy Kellaway said what made Roland Rudd, the founder of Finsbury, such a success in financial PR was that he - together with Alan Parker at Brunswick - had been early to spot how the business was changing.

Anthony Hilton: Quality content demands a filter

A few days ago I heard one consultant enthuse about a company in Japan whose internal PR department had created a film unit.

Anthony Hilton: Public will not allow moral bankruptcy

What the financial crisis told us was that no matter how powerful a global commercial bank appears to be, it is nothing if public confidence evaporates. This was something earlier generations understood well but we had forgotten it because until thre...