For Immediate Release                                    Contact: Fern Marcya Edison
845.679.6319 * fern@erichopr.com

New ‘Tappening’ advertising campaign pays homage to a bad word:
“Greed”…but,  not the Gordon Gecko type!

Marketing Veterans and Tappening Co-Founders Let Public Judge –
Are they “Greedy Entrepreneurs” or “Selfless Environmentalists” (or both) - ??

(New York, NY; March 19. 2009) While never apologizing for the fiscal success of their ‘Tappening’ (www.tappening.com) campaign to discourage the use of bottled water and to promote and brand tap water, co-founders and ‘marketing activists’ Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum have contributed to a liquid revolution -- with bottled water sales declining for the first time in history…all the way to the Senate holding hearings. The joint venture between the NYC agencies they run -- ad agency hot shop DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO) and high profile PR firm, Ericho Communications -- was launched 17 months ago.

The marketing duo’s environmental message has been heard loud and clear and continues to sound…as does the sound of the cash register, with just under 400,000 of their trendy, eco-friendly, BPA-free, reusable Tappening bottles sold to date.  From ‘Good Morning America’ calling their bottles the eco-product of the year, to People magazine featuring the bottle…to a debate in Business Week…to the cover of magazines and national television appearances, the pair and their message have been ubiquitous.  Now, their new ads directly address both the social impact and the cash register, in their latest campaign conceived, designed and creatively directed by DIGO.

"We’ve spent the last year and a half using our marketing and public relations abilities to un-sell bottled water hype,” says Mark DiMassimo. “Typically, people who drink bottled water are doing so because they believe it's superior to tap water, because that’s what billions of dollars of bottled water advertising has claimed or implied. The thing is, that's simply not true."  Yaverbaum adds that “while educating the public on our website and doing good for the environment, we’re certainly not going to apologize for making money. We’d actually like to promote Tappening as a business model, and hope many more corporations, large and small, will find doing good for the environment while making money to be an attractive idea”.

 The pair have budgeted $400,000 for this campaign which will include wild postings in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami and Las Vegas. A downloadable viral ad (http://www.erichopr.com/releases/recentreleases/tappening/ws.htm) already has just over 20,000 downloads and votes have been cast by about 30,000 people from their daily traffic and core of loyal followers. This downloadable ad includes an automatic link to vote on the Tappening homepage as to whether the pair are “Greedy Entrepreneurs”, “Selfless Environmentalists” or “Both”. The campaign will also include comprehensive e-marketing, local community newspaper buys and some limited online advertising.

DiMassimo said “we’ve always said that one of our primary goals was to inspire other social entrepreneurs and companies. We are in the ‘influence’ business, after all. But it’s true that we have gotten our fair share of e-mails asking what our motives are. We have never been bashful about running a for-profit business we simply believe is the best model for lasting change of this kind.” Yaverbaum added that, “We’d love to say we knew this would be a successful business model from day one, but we didn’t. Nor was it the reason we started Tappening. And while I certainly hope that voting results from this campaign won’t result in “greed” being why people thought we were doing this, if that turns out to be the case and 400,000 less people are drinking bottled water, we’ll accept that label. We’re proud of what we have accomplished so far.” DiMassimo added, “with emphasis on so far!”
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About Tappening:  Tappening (www.tappening.com) -- founded by  Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum -- is an educational campaign designed to encourage the public to drink only tap water, and to send a message to the bottled water industry about its unnecessary and extreme waste of fossil fuels and resultant pollution of the Earth. 

About DiMassimo Goldstein: DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO) is a NY-based marketing strategy and integrated communications agency focused on creating, inspiring and maintaining brand advocates, in order to drive customers to their client’s worlds. DIGO’s “digital brand direct” approach provides strategy, design, innovation, advertising, direct, digital, brand advocacy and social marketing for clients ranging from blue chip to entrepreneurial marketers, such as Crunch, Citibank, Gateway, Vitamin Water, The Plaza Hotel, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Mission Skincare, ESPN and The American Red Cross and RARE Conservation  among others. For more information, visit www.digobrands.com.

About Ericho Communications:  Founded in 2007 by bestselling author, Eric Yaverbaum, Ericho Communications is a full-service public relations firm “where green meets the latest that technology has to offer,”  ranging from the recent launch of the first-ever video text messaging company and new peer-to-peer video-sharing collegiate  search site, to Tappening and work with Tibet. Yaverbaum is the former president of Jericho Communications, where he managed a ‘who’s who’ of brand names for 21 years, including IKEA Home Furnishings, Domino’s Pizza, Subway Sandwiches and Salads, Progressive Insurance, TCBY, Sony, H&M, Bell Atlantic, American Express, and many more. Yaverbaum is also the author of four books, including “PR for Dummies,” which is required reading in marketing classes at 57 U.S. universities.  His fourth book, “The Everything Leadership Book,” was published in 2008.  Ericho Communications has offices in New York City, White Plains, NY and in Tampa, FL. For more information, visit www.erichopr.com

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Yaverbaum and DiMassimo are available for interview.