August 30, 2010 CNET.com
Click, send, call, text, Like, tweet, undo, reset, delete… it just doesn’t end. Which is why a couple of marketing guys are dubbing September 18 “No Device Day” for consumers who might be too involved with their gadgets.
Though the idea of dedicating an entire day to shutting devices off may seem silly (or virtually impossible) to some, Mark DiMassimo, CEO of ad firm Digo, and Eric Yaverbaum say they believe Americans need to be reminded to turn off their electronics from time to time. Thus, their “lifestyle intervention.”
They didn’t randomly choose September 18 for the latest installment of the larger Offlining ad campaign, though. It’s also Yom Kippur, considered by many Jews to be the holiest day of the year. On this day, also known as the Day of Atonement, observant Jews disengage from things like playing on their BlackBerrys, as well as other daily activities like writing, playing instruments, and even eating. To read more click here.
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.
Blog
POSTED BY Team DIGO | August 27, 2010 5:42 pm | PERMALINK
Choose your poster child for drunk dialing — we’ve chosen ours! Mel Gibson taught the world not to mix alcohol and communications devices, and he’s generously left us many, many recordings to remind us should we ever forget. We created Offlining Inc. to sell you on establishing a sane balance between online and offline time — and, well, we just felt that when it comes to insane examples of too much digital communication, well Mel set a new standard for us all to avoid. But, he’s not alone. Lindsay and Tiger have been pressed into service in this campaign as well. Check out this poster and a few more (more…)
Tags: digobrands, mark dimassimo, mel gibson, offlining
POSTED BY Team DIGO | August 22, 2010 9:32 am | PERMALINK
LoHud.com August, 22nd 2010
In the spring, Mark DiMassimo, CEO and chief creative officer of DIGO, and Eric Yaverbaum, president of Ericho Communications residents of Rye and Larchmont respectively — founded Offlining Inc., a campaign that calls on dads to forego their wireless devices to create blocks of family-only time between Father’s Day and Thanksgiving. The following are excerpts of an e-mail exchange between reporter Patrick Gallagher and the marketing duo.
Q: What inspired you to launch Offlining Inc.?
A: We were experiencing some degree of failure to put our online lives in their place. We have kids, we have people who want our attention. Technology provides some amazing tools for connecting, managing and playing, but at some point we just started to ask ourselves — are we holding the strings or are we the puppets?
(more…)
Tags: digo, eric yaverbaum, mark dimassimo, offlining inc
POSTED BY Team DIGO | August 18, 2010 5:27 pm | PERMALINK
At kids soccer games around the country, hyperconnected Dads tweet about trivia to pass the time. Meanwhile, as you walk into a supposedly social event, people all around you pull out their devices to “check in” on Foursquare or Gowalla. Through the night, people continue sharing their real feelings and thoughts not with the person in front of them but to their audience of “followers” on Twitter, making a real life social event feel decidedly ANTI-social. Sound familiar? As technology allows us to share every moment instantaneously online, are we missing out on what is right in front us? And if so, is the only solution to turn our gadgets off, or is there some imaginary line of balance that we can strike? This session will explore those questions, and the anti-social path that our always-connectedness may be leading us towards. Most importantly, we’ll try to uncover how you might fight back and reclaim your humanity from the social media bubble around you. We like the idea, let them know what you think! … To read more click here.
Tags: digobrands, mark dimassimo, offlining, social media
POSTED BY Team DIGO | August 17, 2010 10:01 am | PERMALINK
Even though it was only a few years ago, life in the year 1999 B.C. – Before Cell Phones – is difficult to imagine now. More than a platform to play ‘Bejeweled’, cell phones have become an essential tool for communicating in today’s modern world. With text messaging, e-mail and even Twitter now used as vital modes of communication, life without a cell phone seems little more than a a Yakov Smirnoff “In Soviet Russia…” joke — or if you’re truly tech-obsessed, a total nightmare. But even with the added convenience and ease that a cell phone brings, there are some definite downsides. Some experts believe excessive use can cause us to become more impatient, impulsive, forgetful and even more narcissistic, reports the New York Times. A recent poll conducted by the paper found that people think cell phones are intrusive and increase stress levels. To read more click here.
Tags: digobrands, offlining, social networking
POSTED BY Team DIGO | July 27, 2010 12:20 pm | PERMALINK
July 26th, 2010
Mark DiMassimo’s one on one interview with the host of Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News Channel.
Tags: bp, fox news, mark dimassimo, neil cavuto
POSTED BY Team DIGO | July 27, 2010 10:05 am | PERMALINK
B2C Marketing Insider July 27th, 2010
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
Tags: digo, eric yaverbaum, mark dimassimo, offlining inc
POSTED BY Team DIGO | July 8, 2010 9:42 am | PERMALINK
MISTAKES NOT TO MAKE IN A SOCIAL WORLD.
Mediate reports 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.” To read more of this social mistake click here.
Tags: cnn, digobrands, Social World
POSTED BY Team DIGO | July 6, 2010 3:13 pm | PERMALINK
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.
Tags: digobrands, eric yaverbaum, mark dimassimo, offlining, offlining inc
POSTED BY Team DIGO | June 30, 2010 10:49 am | PERMALINK
While we are not taking credit just yet, DIGO put together some awesome ads in the May isssue of New York Magazine in an attempt to help bring LeBron James to New York. check out the article from The New York Post
June 30th, 2010 New York Post: LeBron Eyes Village Digs.
The “King” may be close to finding his castle. LeBron James has checked out several West Village townhouses, raising the hopes of city hoops fans that world’s greatest basketball player could be playing for the Knicks next season. “King James” has fallen in love with one of Manhattan’s most coveted neighborhoods — which is just minutes from his other potential future home, Madison Square Garden — said a broker who showed him the luxurious pads.”He seems to be set on that neighborhood,” big-league broker Dolly Lenz told The Post. That’s in part because the townhouses won’t make the 6′8″ Akron native worry about ducking when entering a room. to read more click here.
Tags: digobrands, lebron james, new york knicks, new york magazine, ny post
POSTED BY Team DIGO | June 29, 2010 10:06 am | PERMALINK
We love an articulate and informed fan… check this out from Growing a Green Family
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 at elephant.
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 read more click here.
Tags: digobrands, eric yaverbaum, mark dimassimo, tappening
