DIGO, the agency that builds brands and businesses, is now getting to build out some new space due to building its own business. The lease of new space contiguous with the current agency offices at 220 East 23rd Street has both architects and agency team-members delighted. The new space will contain more offices and project rooms, a common area. Rumors of a wet bar are all wet, however the agency ping pong table will remain. Clients and visitors will enjoy a new reception area, and Lee will finally achieve his dream of a state-of-the-art conference room. If you haven’t been to the space lately, may we suggest stopping by for a visit and a tour in the next few months.
Has Technology Become a Drug? Providing Balance with Offlining, Inc.
A new initiative has been launched — Offlining, Inc.— that urges (initially) parents to turn off their mobile devices and computers, and focus more quality attention on the people that matter most in their lives. The ‘Offlining’ founders are Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo, the innovative marketing entrepreneurs behind the environmental movement Tappening and the political and educational Read To Vote campaign. In our technology-obsessed modern world, Offlining offers an opportunity to foster more balance between technology and our humanity, by encouraging us to incorporate traditional communication modes into our everyday lives.
Says DiMassimo, “Eric and I have spent most of the past two decades convincing people to click, log on, trade stocks in their underwear, go shopping online, and spend more time with their digital friends. We’re still doing that. But now we’re also selling the Off Button! We don’t believe we’re starting a trend.’ To read more click here.
CNN has fired senior editor of Middle East affairs Octavia Nasr. As Daniel Halper pointed out the other day, Nasr wrote on Twitter on July 4 that she was “sad” to hear of the death of Hezbollah’s Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah–a man for whom she has “respect.” Fadlallah had justified suicide bombings, is believed to be responsible for the Marine barracks bombing, and had said that “Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this Holocaust beyond imagination.”
Mark DiMassimo, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of DIGO and Eric Yaverbaum, CEO of Ericho Communications, talk about their new movement, Offlining on ABC TV.
NEW YORK (WABC) — A new campaign to spend more face to face time is called “Offlining”. Eric Yaverbaum is a PR head, and Mark DiMassimo is a marketing executive. They frequently work together, but these days, they are the client. “We got together and said what’s bugging us about the world, and we said the off button. No one is selling the off button,” Yaverbaum said. In other words, everyone is yapping, texting and typing away. So, Eric and Mark are spending their own money to get people to turn off those devices, they call it Offlining. “We would like to accelerate a conversation of building offline time into life, that’s basically it,” said DiMassimo. To read more click here.
‘Tappening has got to be the best flipping anti-bottled water campaign ever created. Tappening was covered at the New York Times last year but I just learned about them today.’Tappening targets bottled water companies with a simple tactic – they lie about them. One of their posters claims “Bottled Water: 98% Melted Ice Caps. 2% Polar Bear Tears” and another reads, “Bottled Water is the Primary Cause of Restless Leg Syndrome.” My favorite poster is the puppy poster though. I think it should be on an organic shirt that I could wear all the time!”Now, in case your morals are in a bunch over Tappening keep in mind that they based their idea to lie directly on the fact that water bottle companies lie continually.’ To learn more about Tappening click here.
There’s not really much more to say here… the mustaches have an eloquence beyond our poor power to add or detract. But I suppose I will add that it’s not everyday that you can fight prostate cancer with something you grow on your face. So, when the opportunity came along, we put our upper lips, our relationships and our dignity on the line. And, once again, the results are as plain as… well, you get it.
“The reality is that good agencies are a dime a dozen. But great agencies – the kind that transform the way we see, buy and experience things – are few and far between. The World-Changing Agencies described below deserve credit, because what they do each and every day moves the market and improves people’s lives for the better. Their passion and purpose, their goals and strategies, their mediums and messages, encourage each of us to step back and see the bigger picture.
World-Changing Agencies encourage people to think twice before they buy. Through their work, we can redefine ourselves:”
“The advertising world is undergoing a considerable transformation. About five years ago, many large agencies began investing in environmental, social and cause-related practices areas to capture what they perceived as a growing niche market and to complement their existing core services. Today more agencies (albeit just the smarter ones) recognize that such moves are limiting. What’s really needed is a sophisticated new worldview that incorporates essential social, cultural and environmental intelligence into the core organizational capacity. World-Changing Agencies possess this worldview, and it shows up in most everything they do.
World-Changing Agencies exist for a purpose: to assist clients in reaching positive social and environmental outcomes, thereby helping to create a better future for all. Through groundbreaking creative work, such agencies offer people new ways of seeing the world, and new ways of defining themselves within that world. That’s what the term “World-Changing,” originally coined by Alex Steffen on his environmental website WorldChanging.com, essentially means.
The List:
Saatchi Pakistan True Blue
Saatchi S
Cone
Global Change Network
Emotive Brand
Frog Design
Green Order
DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO)
According to the New York Times, the recent ads spun out of DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO) might be doing to the bottled water industry what antismoking ads did to the tobacco industry back in the 1990’s – causing major headaches. In case you’ve missed the unfolding “Tappening” campaign, the interactive and print ads are designed to encourage consumers to drink tap water whenever possible. They are deliberately outlandish, poking fun at the bottled water industry’s environmentally wasteful and often misleading nature. One poster claims: “Bottled Water Causes Blindness in Puppies.” Another reads: “Bottled Water: 98% Melted Ice Caps. 2% Polar Bear Tears.” All the ads are supported by an informative website, Tappening.com, where people can learn about the hazards of bottled water and what they can potentially do about them.
“We’ve spent these two years using our marketing and public relations abilities to un-sell bottled-water hype,” agency head Mark DiMassimo recently told Brandweek. “But I still see cascading waterfalls on labels that do not list the source of that water.” The agency is on a mission to help reverse the tides, and is using its arsenal of social media, web and advertising tools to do just that. In addition to promoting unbottled water, DIGO also helps organizations like Memorial-Sloan Kettering and ThinkorSwim to reach people with messages that resonate at the deepest levels.
