We just keep getting cooler and cooler! The other week we went to the SB.TV Xmas party, and then on Friday, Marketing Zone’s Robin attended comedy gig, Kojo Live N Kicking, at Hackney Empire.
It’s all part of our celebrity product placement service, that saw us rubbing shoulders with England footballer Carlton Cole, and British rapper Angel.
Live N Kicking was also attended by UK sports and entertainment stars, among them songstress Jamelia, and stars from Eastenders and the music world.
As advocates of good copywriting, we couldn’t believe our ears when we heard that book chain Waterstone’s is denouncing the apostrophe in their company name. Giving the reason that ‘in a digital world of URLs and email addresses, a more versatile and practical spelling was required’; Waterstone’s will now be known as Waterstones.
We’re up on our high horses here! For a company that sells books and encourages reading, surely they can’t spell their own organisation name incorrectly. If McDonald’s and Sainsbury’s can cope, there is no problem.
We can understand that Waterstone’s is a brand name now, rather than traditionally known after its founder, Tim Waterstone. So we can see that for their website address, having an apostrophe isn’t essential, but nor have they ever been in urls. And apostrophes can create broken links on website headings as they are not picked up by the website’s coding system. But to alter the company name and spell it incorrectly within the copy on their website is just not on!
Here at Marketing Zone we’re young at heart! So tonight we’re heading to Camden for the SB.TV Xmas Party. We’ve arranged a sunglasses product placement at the event for one of our clients, so we’re attending the party to show our support, and to listen to the likes of Tinchy Stryder, Cher Lloyd Mr Faizer and Labrinth.
As the UK’s leading youth broadcaster, SB.TV has come along way since its humble beginnings, when its founder Jamal Edwards started filming gigs and broadcasting them on YouTube.
Today that’s all changed. SB.TV has 50+ million YouTube views and tens of thousands of subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers, who view the interviews, music videos and viral adverts of some of the world’s most highly respected, globally recognised artists.
Always ready for a challenge, I jumped at the opportunity to spend time with my sixteen year old son, as he took on a 229 mile endurance cycle challenge. The route took us from our home town of Buntingford to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast, and so far this sponsored cycle has raised over £1,500 for cancer charity, Yes to Life.
Training began six weeks before the event, with long distance cycle rides through the countryside, to prepare us for the mountainous terrain of Wales. After a painfully slow start in wet weather things began to look up. With just one puncture along the way, it was great to complete the ride in the 4 days we set ourselves, with compulsory fish ‘n’ chips and hot chocolate on route.
Cycling through thick fog and up Welsh mountains was made that bit easier knowing my son had the backing of everyone at his college and the Mercury newspaper, who reported our success. A big thank you to all those individual sponsors, tutors and businesses including C&Y Scaffolding, LEKA, GPNunn, Buntingford Mowers, J Oliver Radley and Interviewing Services for their generosity and support.
So which do I prefer – a day spent pedalling or a day at Marketing Zone? I’m going to carry on doing both.
We’ve been working with British fashion designer, Alex Seroge Ignatian, to design and develop a portfolio style website to showcase his collections.
Alex wanted his website to represent his unique designs and to clearly display his latest collections. We developed a high fashion website which is simple to navigate and directs potential fashion buyers seamlessly to his most recent creations.
Alex is delighted that he received enquiries through his new website from fashion buyers on the day it went live!