| EVENT REPORT 10.14.09 5:04 PM |
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Movie Pictures: A Look at Meatballs, Zombieland, Law Abiding Citizen, and Whip It Premieres
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 | Food props on the red carpet of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Photo: Line 8 Photography |
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FROM LOS ANGELES
In some parts of the world, fall brings crisp weather and colorful leaves that crunch under foot. In Los Angeles, it brought a hyper-busy event calendar filled with parties that included movie premieres packed with ideas—like an army of zombies, oversize donuts that hung overhead, and decor that begged to be admired but definitely not touched. Here is a selection of photos from the arrivals scenes and bashes for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland, Whip It, and Law Abiding Citizen.
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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland, Whip It, Law Abiding Citizen, Sony, Fox Searchlight, Overture Films, Columbia Pictures, Derby Dolls |
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| EVENT REPORT 10.08.09 1:46 PM |
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Sony Launches New VAIO Notebooks With a Racy Performance, Permanently Branded Guests
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Last night Sony unveiled the newest additions to its VAIO laptop line at Guastavino’s, promoting its four key marketing pillars—create, serve, perform, and innovate—with a multimedia event featuring live graffiti, tattooing, and an alternative circus. Innovations in the new computers, such as touch-screens and the Windows 7 operating system, prompted internal planners to design a presentation that was suitably progressive.
The vaulted ceilings of Gustavino’s—a landmark space—were chosen as a backdrop to give the evening the drama Sony and its public relations partners sought to create. “We wanted to show people what the VAIO lifestyle was all about,” explained Paine Public Relations client service manager Amy Hamaoui. “That’s design, innovation, ultra-performance—and it’s really very sexy.”
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Sony, Sony VAIO |
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| Q & A 07.16.09 9:00 AM |
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Microsoft's Rosalind Murphy Targets New Clients With Female-Focused Events
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 | | Rosalind Murphy |
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As executive engagement manager at Microsoft’s New York office, Rosalind Murphy is something of a social liaison between her account managers and the Fortune 500 clientele they serve. She produces activities and meetings to develop brand relationships, with guest lists often limited to C.I.O.s and other I.T. executives—not surprising in the tech sector. But Microsoft desires to deepen its business ties, and part of Murphy’s job is to increase her company’s contacts within its client base.
Used to working with male-dominated technology departments, Murphy expanded her brand’s network with a series of quarterly events just for women. In the two years since she introduced the Women’s Executive Forum, she has already established it as a popular event series, buoyed diversity at other Microsoft functions, and increased contacts within clients such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Sony.
What sparked Microsoft’s push to seek out more female clients?
We just wanted to reach out to women. The staff at Microsoft is about 75 percent male, and one of the things we found in our accounts was that when you get to the customer base, the chief information officers are also typically men. We wanted to develop other executives, so we made this a push to find people beyond the normal I.T. roles in different areas like marketing and finance. We wanted to seek out the developing female executives, women who might be in director or vice president roles now but are up-and-coming in our client base.
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Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Sony |
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| EVENT INTELLIGENCE 06.02.09 9:00 AM |
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Guerrilla Marketing Guide: Where to Stage Stunts in Six Cities
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 | Tennis pros Venus Williams and Andy Murray stopping traffic in Miami
Photo: Getty Images |
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Chicago
Where to Go: One of the Windy City’s most iconic locales, the Daley Center, allows marketers to reach consumers—including the lunching masses—under the watchful eye of a 50-foot untitled Picasso sculpture. A few blocks northeast, and just outside the Loop, is Pioneer Court. The petite, extremely busy plaza sits where the Chicago River meets Michigan Avenue and sees most of the 40 million tourists who visit Chicago annually.
What It Takes: The Daley Center’s plaza is owned by MB Real Estate (312.603.7981), which prices permits individually. Pioneer Court is controlled by the Equitable Life Insurance Company and the Chicago Tribune Company, but any event using the streets around it would require permits from the City of Chicago (Office of Special Events, 312.744.0626). Months of red tape and a 28-page application packet might persuade you to go guerrilla instead.
Recent Stunt: When More put future first lady Michelle Obama on its October 2008 cover, the magazine deployed 100 readers to the streets around Pioneer Court to pose with issues—and it didn’t spend a penny on permits.
Who Can Help: Based in Chicago, Legacy Marketing Partners has earned a lot of attention from experiential campaigns like the Stoli Hotel and the mobile Burger King/NFL Challenge.
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Guerrilla Marketing, More Magazine, Sony, DirecTV, Budweiser, Ikea, Ikea, Sony Ericsson |
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| NEWS 02.19.09 12:04 PM |
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Fashion Week Sponsors Score Attention With Quieter-Than-Normal Branding
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 | Sony's guerrilla promotion
Photo: Courtesy of Jack Morton Worldwide |
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Much like many shows this week, the current crop of Fashion Week sponsors are adopting a low-key tone with their marketing strategies. While the news that McDonald's was setting up shop inside the tents caused a flurry of media coverage, curiously enough, the multinational chain's signature golden arches are absent from Bryant Park. With the exception of Mattel's pink parade of Barbies, this season's sponsors, including Sony and YKK, have found more subtle ways to grab the attention of attendees.
Almost hidden behind a car from title sponsor Mercedes-Benz, McDonald's corner booth, dubbed McCafé, is appointed with modern furniture in gray, green, and pink hues, and artwork decorates the brown walls. Constantly mobbed throughout the day, the coffee spot is fully staffed with servers and brand representatives eager to furnish visitors with free cups of hot (or iced) brew, as well as to explain the new menu of specialty drinks.
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Fashion Week, IMG Fashion, Mercedes-Benz, McDonald's, YKK, Sony |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.12.09 8:00 AM |
The International Revisits Set for Premiere After-Party
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 | Recreating the set of The International
Photo: Roger Dong |
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It is a rare occasion to see the likes of Salman Rushdie and Olivia Palermo sidle up to the same bar, but that’s the sight that greeted several hundred moviegoers Monday night, when they arrived at the after party for the premiere of Columbia Tristar’s The International at the Guggenheim Museum—one of the film’s prominent shooting locations.
Among the crowd mingling on the blue-lit ground floor of the museum rotunda were the film’s stars, Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. A custom bar and centerpiece, built to resemble an installation featured in the film’s Guggenheim scenes, anchored the busy room. Columbia TriStar senior vice president of special events Alison Bossert tapped Chris Benarroch of Benarroch Productions to execute the event, and Bennaroch, in turn, reached out to designer Keith Greco to construct the bar and installation.
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The International, Columbia TriStar, Sony |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.04.09 11:16 AM |
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Guerrilla Models Cover the City for Sony's Notebook Launch
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 | One of Sony's "live mannequins"
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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Sony plans to market its pint-size Vaio P Series notebook to the fashion set over the next two weeks by sending laptop-toting models to bars, hotels, and other public spaces around the city. Visitors to Grand Central Terminal caught the first glimpse of the stunt Friday afternoon.
Wearing the styles of six up-and-coming designers—Threeasfour, Elise Overland, and Libertine among them—Sony’s so-called “live mannequins” will infiltrate different venues in demonstrations ranging from the obscure to the mundane. In spaces like Grand Central, choreographer Johnny Byrne had the models posing with the laptops in unusual, synchronized contortions, but in more intimate spots like Lower East Side bars Spitzer's and Libation, the models silently used the computers as Sony’s targeted customers would, checking Facebook or communicating with friends.
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Sony, New York Fashion Week |
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| EVENT REPORT 12.03.08 2:10 PM |
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Rock Hall of Fame Annex Opens With Carnival, Debbie Harry
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 | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex opening
Photo: Alison Whittington for BizBash |
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Museum openings aren't typically rowdy affairs—at least in New York. But last night, to celebrate the opening of its new local outpost, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame hosted a noisy, crowded party where guests snacked on funnel cakes, tagged bars with graffiti, and head-banged along to some rock 'n' roll tunes. Approximately 2,500 guests (double the expected turnout) toured the new Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Annex before heading upstairs to the main event, a fete produced by Relevent in collaboration with Running Subway Productions and Alison Brod Public Relations. Overseeing the affair for the foundation was Joel Peresman, president and C.E.O. of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.
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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, Garnier, Maybelline, Jack Daniels, Citi, Best Buy, Gibson, Kohler, Continental Airlines, Sony, Rolling Stone |
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| NEWS 07.16.08 11:18 AM |
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Sony Partners With Wylie Dufresne for Press Event
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 | Dufresne
Photo: BizBash |
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Rather than a cut-and-dry press conference with the standard food and drinks, Sony Electronics wanted to make a splash with food that would underscore its marketing message and give guests at its media presentation something a little different. At Monday night's three-hour event at Highbar to introduce several new products in its VAIO notebook line, the San Diego-based technology company brought in chef Wylie Dufresne of WD-50 to cook some dishes for the gathered press. The idea, thought up by Sony VAIO's PR team, was designed to highlight Sony's innovation and creativity, something Dufresne—a chef noted for his scientific approach to food and its preparation—is known for.
In addition to sampling some of the chef's unusual hors d'oeuvres, each guest also received a DVD from Dufresne in the gift bag. On the disk was a video titled "Knot Foie," showing the process behind creating a pliable foie gras piece that can be tied into a knot. —Anna Sekula
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Sony, Sony VAIO, Wylie Dufresne |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.01.08 5:15 PM |
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Audi, Hyde Offer Refuge From Super Bowl Storm
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 | The 2008 Audi R8 is the focal point of the event layout.
Photo: BizBash |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. After a 20-year absence from the Super Bowl commercial mania, Audi returns this Sunday with a 60-second spot in the first quarter. To add to the marketing push, the brand took over a nine-acre estate in Paradise Valley's upscale hills, offering celebrities and V.I.P.s a place to lounge Wednesday through Saturday. Dubbed the Audi Forum, the program also mixes lots of mini-parties and cosponsors.
"When deciding how we could leverage our television ad, it came up that the Super Bowl certainly attracts our target audience," said Audi business and East Coast communication director Andrew Lipman. The forum concept is not a new one, as Audi has 10 permanent locations worldwide. "Basically, they are brand-experience centers, not traditional showrooms," Lipman said. "The design is sleek, sophisticated, and on par with what we consider Audi to be."
The venue, a traditional Arizona home (complete with terra-cotta shingles and creamy stone walls), went through a massive redesign and build-out. "The objective was to create an Audi-esque space out of a Southwestern home," said Tony Berger of Relevent in New York, who produced the event.
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Super Bowl, Audi, Marquis Jet, Sony |
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