IT’S the song that made thousands of fathers feel guilty.That would be Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle,” which, as any baby boomer who ever owned a radio can tell you, recounts the story of an overworked dad who’s too busy to spend time with his young son, and lives to regret it. Since Chapin wrote the song in 1974, digital distractions have created a whole new universe of ways to be an inattentive parent. And that’s why Chapin’s hit has been on the minds of Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo, marketing executives who last year launched a campaign called “Offlining, Inc.,” urging people to put their digital devices down once in a while and reconnect with their kids and other living, breathing humans. For more click Here.

For Immediate Release
Media Contact:
Danielle Nacco
Ericho Communications
(347) 248-1677
danielle@erichopr.com

OFFLINING FOUNDERS LAUNCH CAT’S IN THE CRADLE REBOOT COMPETITON
THIS FATHER’S DAY

Marketing Gurus Mark the One-Year Anniversary of Offlining, Inc.
by Asking Singers and Songwriters to Rewrite the Famed Father-Son Song for Today’s Digital Relationship

NEW YORK (June 7, 2011) – New York City-based dynamic marketing duo and serial entrepreneurs Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum, who started the famous Tappening movement, an environmental campaign to “make tap water cool,” and the political and educational ‘Read to Vote’ initiative joined forces for a third time and created Offlining in 2010. This highly talked about and very viral campaign encourages people to go offline, by turning off their mobile devices and computers in order to devote time to the traditional face-to-face conversation that we have all grown to miss in the wake of Blackberries, iPhones and working twenty-four/seven.

The initiative highlights America’s ever-growing addiction to technology and to mark the one-year anniversary since its conception, DiMassimo and Yaverbaum are thinking BIG again. They are calling all singer/songwriters to rewrite the famous Cat’s in the Cradle song – originally sung by Harry Chapin, which shows how a father and son grew up without ever having time for each other, with a modern refresh for the Facebook generation. more after the jump

Mark DiMassimo, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of the DIGO brand and business building agency says, “An era of great temptations and great distractions deserves inspired and hauntingly creative warnings too. That’s what this song was in the ‘70s, and arguably this decade needs them even more. Eric and I spend our days selling ever greater engagement with media, and with Offlining we put those skills to work to sell you the Off Button.”

To kick-off the reboot contest, Offlining will introduce a $100,000 marketing campaign that features call-to-action print ads and iChat cards (i.e., images of a record trying to fit into a laptop, an attempted re-write of the song, and a record updated for the digital age). The ad campaign includes tongue-in-cheek copy like, Make this Fit and Think you can do better? They can all be viewed at www.OffliningInc.com. The campaign will include wild postings in New York City, Miami and Los Angeles, as well as social marketing efforts through the web via Twitter, Facebook, and other online media. Additionally, the two are declaring Father’s Day 2011 a “No-Device Day,” and respectfully request that no one visit the site that day.

Quoted as a “fast-talking, quick-moving New York public relations guru” by Forbes this past year, Yaverbaum adds, “We don’t want to have our lives flash before us and our children married with their own kids before we realize that we didn’t devote enough real attention to the people that matter most in our lives, because of our pressing business demands and the distractions of our tech devices.”

Contest Details:
Whether you think it’s a LAME pop artifact of the fey singer-songwriter era, or a classic and HAUNTING story song about fathers and sons that can still make you cry, IT’S TIME TO REWRITE “CAT’S IN THE CRADLE” for the device-distracted generation. Create our generation’s Let’s Not Miss The Father-Son Relationship anthem.

Applicants can go to offlining.com/ANTHEM to upload their entry or sign up to audition live on Father’s Day, June 19, 2011.

The winning songwriter will get a public relations push from one of NYC’s premier pr agencies, Ericho Communications. It’s a great way to make connections and get your career going. And maybe even make a difference while you’re at it.

Yaverbaum concludes, “We are looking for the best person to bring the classic song that has made millions of Father’s cry into the 21st century. The goal of the contest is to highlight how much time we AREN’T spending with our families and persuade dads – starting with Father’s Day – to spend a little more time offline and a little more time bonding with their families.

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Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum are available for interview.
“Offlining” ads and Father’s Day iChats cards are available upon request.

About DIGO:

Founded in 1996 by Mark DiMassimo, DIGO Brands is a brand-driven growth network. Our companies work together seamlessly to help ambitious organizations grow. DIGO Brands have partnered with visionary leaders in many of the extraordinary growth successes of the past two decades, including: Comcast, Crunch Fitness, JetBlue, thinkorswim, Island, ESPN, HBO, Citi, Gateway, McKinsey, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

DIGO Brands include DiMassimo Goldstein, a leading full-service brand, advertising, direct and digital agency; PROOVE accountable media planning and buying, DIGO/Ericho Public relations and social marketing, brand-driven content, entertainment and digital products, and the Tappening & Offlining movements.

For more information, visit http://www.digobrands.com.

About Ericho Communications:

Founded in 2007 by best-selling author Eric Yaverbaum, Ericho Communications is a full-service public relations firm where green meets the latest that technology has to offer. Ericho’s projects range from the launch of the first-ever mobile video text messaging company to a highly acclaimed identity-theft software launch to the introduction of the largest peer-to-peer video-sharing college website and the first-ever direct-to-consumer title insurance company. Ericho’s roster of clients are consistently covered in the news.

Yaverbaum is the former president of Jericho Communications, where for 21 years, he managed a who’s who of brand names that included IKEA Home Furnishings, Domino’s Pizza, Subway Sandwiches and Salads, Progressive Insurance, TCBY, Sony, H&M, Bell Atlantic, American Express, and many more.
Yaverbaum served as President of CollegeClickTV.com and is also a co-founder of Tappening, a “drink local, think global campaign,” whose products were credited by GMA as the “hottest of 2008.”

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 sixth book, Life’s Little College Admissions Insights, was published in January 2010. Ericho Communications has offices in New York City and White Plains.

For more information, visit www.erichopr.com.

Joe Burby, an amateur songwriter and former actor and playwright who works in sales, is the winner of the Cats in the Cradle Reboot contest. The contest challenged songwriters to update the Harry Chapin classic to reflect today’s always-online culture. Burby, who accompanied himself on acoustic guitar (unplugged, of course), is featured in an article covering the contest in the New York Post.

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, had a difficult challenge for the students in her honors seminar on the psychology of technology: Go a full day without texting, tweeting, posting on Facebook or otherwise surfing the Web.
Of the 31 people in the class, only 14 made it. One student failed first thing in the morning when he started his day the usual way, checking his e-mail. Another lasted until the afternoon, when she was stuck in a long, slow-moving line (“Angry Birds” was also on the “don’t” list).  To read more click here.

PR guru Eric Yaverbaum was at a Yankees game when he noticed more people were staring at their BlackBerries than were watching        the field. For Yaverbaum, president of Ericho Communications and author of “Public Relations for Dummies ,” it confirmed what he has  noticed around the dinner table: Technology is taking over our lives. Even couples out for a romantic evening are often more interested in their smartphones than in gazing into each other’s eyes.

Offlining.com suggests dedicating 10 device-free days by Feb. 14, 2012. Mark DiMassimo and Eric Yaverbaum, co-founders of Offlining Incorporated, persuade for a living by convincing people to call or click, which has created an addiction to cellular devices. Despite their love for marketing and respect for its power, the duo developed a way of giving back to the community. DiMassimo and Yaverbaum first introduced Tappening, by promoting to make drinking tap water more popular.
Then they followed a similar pattern by encouraging others to have a “No-Device Day” on Sept. 18 in honor of Yom Kippur. The Jewish New Year is a time for Jews to reflect on how they have lived over the past year and seek forgiveness. Advertisements with celebrities were used to influence others to take part in the device-free day, despite their religion. From CNN Belief blog, “If only Mel Gibson had put down the phone. If only Tiger Woods hadn’t had such easy tech access to other women. If only Lindsey Lohan had kept her thoughts, and tweets, to herself.” to read more click here.