With the support of IPR Team, companies can conduct international PR campaigns, without having to find and brief suitable partners locally. “Agile and client-oriented PR experts with local roots prove to be the best choice not only for global organisations, but particularly for small and medium-sized businesses who want to become active in selected countries,” says Griffiths.

Under the new leadership, the IPR Team will keep expanding. This year, the network already added a partner in China, with offices in Beijing, Shanghai and Hongkong, as well as a partner agency in Singapore.

The network was founded in 2002 and consists of owner-managed PR and communications consultancies who want to provide companies with fast access to international markets. Through one access point at home they form a global, creative PR team for strategy development and implementation, which combines the benefits of local knowhow with the efficiency of global set-up.

Griffiths Consulting is an award-winning PR and Social Media agency in Munich. The agency has particularly broad experience with the family, kids and youth target group and works across industry sectors, for instance tourism, fashion, toys and hobbies The agency’s core competencies include strategic consulting, corporate and creative brand PR, social media as well as crisis PR in cases such as litigation or product recalls. It was founded in 2004 by Ulrica Griffiths, who previously ran Public and media relations for toymaker LEGO in Central Europe.

By far the majority of Germans (88 per cent) trust recommendations from friends above anything. Online consumer reviews get the second-best rating. Editorial content, such as for instance newspaper articles, came third. Even brand websites and self-subscribed email newsletters (note the self-subscribed) enjoy more trust than advertising, namely 36 and 26 per cent respectively.

In a nutshell, this survey is a clear vote for recommendation marketing and PR. It looks like those who don’t intensify and professionalise their efforts in these areas will have to prepare to confront one question: Which century does your marketing knowledge come from?

„We are proud to be demonstrating again our competence in reaching out to young adults with Vivid Sydney “, says agency founder Ulrica Griffiths. „This year, while still having a focus on tourists, we also want to make a stronger connection with our colleagues in the communication and creative industries, as Vivid Sydney is also a unique showcase for creative professionals from all over the world.”

The highlight of the festival has also been put into German hands: The prizewinning artist’s group URBANSCREEN from Bremen is showing a breath-taking light installation at the kick-off of the event, the ”Lighting the Sails” – a virtual theatre on the sails of the Sydney opera house. The opening show on May 25th will give a foretaste of the 3D illumination by URBANSCREEN that will light the opera for 18 nights.

Vivid Sydney shows the city’s role as a hub of the creative industry:  Around 150,000 people are working in the creative industry in New South Wales,  82 per cent of them in Sydney. Vivid Sydney is the largest festival of its kind in the southern hemisphere and has been recently named one of the ten best festival ideas by the British newspaper The Guardian.

For the fourth time already, artists from all over the world will turn Sydney into a mind-blowing landscape of 5o light arts and numerous concerts, debates and workshops including on the opening night, the critically-acclaimed band Florence + The Machine from the UK will perform in the opera house.

The festival is being held by Events New South Wales on commission of the state government in New South Wales, Australia. IPR Team, a world-wide cooperation of owner-managed PR agencies, has been entrusted with the international PR for Vivid Sydney. The Social Media and PR Agency Griffiths Consulting is the exclusive partner in the IPR Team for Germany.

The IPR Team has 24 offices globally. While providing a quick access to international markets through one contact, the network provides its clients with a creative, global PR team whose members are continually exchanging Best Practice and work according to unified standards.

Griffiths Consulting is a PR and Social Media agency based in Munich specialising on brand communication. Strategic consulting, corporate and creative product PR, PR in the case of legal disputes as well as crisis communications are the core competencies of the agency. The industry focus is on family, youth, education and related technologies.

This is an area where things are changing rapidly: Data from a study published in spring by the Schmalkalden university of applied sciences  -  which were gathered in September 2010 – already show that virtually all newly bought mobile phones were smartphones. Looking at the data about the further market penetration of smartphones it makes sense to assume that they will be everywhere by the end of 2012. The situation with the data rates is not quite as impressive: Around 35 per cent of users still had mobile internet tariffs in 2010 which incurred costs for each time they used their phone to go online – but even here the market is moving. Now comes the last hurdle: having an app on the phone to read the codes with.  This was the case with around 50 per cent of phones already.

So far the “technical reach” – but to make users actually use the QR codes, marketing pros need to be inventive; after all soon there will be codes everywhere on adverts, packagings, mailings and labels, but users have a limited online budget through the optional tariffs mentioned, megabyte limits on flat rates or simply the good old problem of having less and less time.  The survey shows that it is crucial for users to recognise a clear added value in scanning the QR codes before they actually decide to do so – and this is where a  good familiarity with the target group and great creativity come into mobile marketing!

Pabobo is a young company whose products are being sold in more than 3.000 retail outlets in 15 countries. Illustrators, designers and model makers design and develop complete universes of lights, to enchant children. From classic night lights to shining figurines, there is something in the portfolio for everyone. The products can be categorised into the four universes: Comfort, Play, Sleep and Decorate. Pabobo’s philosophy is to make parents’ life easier – during the night as well as during the day – while the children grow up safely. The Nomade night light, which was developed in 2006, is the flagship product of the company. It was the first night light to operate completely without any cables or batteries, and whose LEDs made it safe to be cuddled under the blanket. Pabobo’s products are safe, energy-saving, have a long operating life and are designed to appeal to children.

Griffiths Consulting is a PR and Social Media agency based in Munich specialising on brand communication. Strategic consulting, corporate and creative product PR, PR in the case of legal disputes as well as crisis communications are the core competencies of the agency. The industry focus is on family, youth, education and related technologies.

Prenzlauer Berg is a part of Berlin and is commonly regarded as having the highest birth rate in Germany, but this assumption has now been exposed as a complete myth! Marketing strategists should rather look at a totally different area of Germany…

Pregnancy Hill – this is what the city magazine “Zitty” called the “in-district” Prenzlauer Berg a few years ago. Prams are rolling where once students and artists filled the coolest clubs and bars. No proof, just a feeling – the truth was far from that. And still marketing and PR managers in the nursery industry flogged to the assumed baby mecca.

An article on Spiegel Online has now uncovered that none of it was true. There is not even an unusually high number of pregnant women in Prenzlauer Berg. True, the number of births rose by around 30 per cent between 2005 and 2010, but still it is only average for Germany. The region with the highest proportion of children is Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony. To all marketing managers: Let’s go to the new baby mecca!

But now comes the real snag: The report on Spiegel Online is part of a book which is at least as arrogant as the people it accuses of being hostile to parents. The authors are lay people who by having two sons feel qualified to advise other parents on which baby products they need and which they do not. We say: One nonsense is unmasked here just to make money with the next nonsense – and Spiegel Online happily makes itself a vehicle for that!

A research from February 2011 finds that fathers of families who have internet access spent 4.5 hours on the internet with their children each week, compared with 2.9 hours for mums.
This study also shows that dads are more willing to pay for online content because 36 % of fathers spending time online with their offspring recently bought music or games on the internet for their kids opposed to 28 % of mums
 
According to the survey, one of the reasons for spending time and money online is because dads want to enjoy fun online along with their kids. Therefore 73% of dads who owned a console or handheld device played video games with their children for an hour or more each week, compared to only 38% of mums. Hence dads are a willing target for messaging related to online games and music.

Source:  Survey published by research institute Ipsos OTX Media CT, February 2011

„Scaling PR: The impact of Earned, Paid, and Brand Content“ is the title of the research, carried out by  Synaptic Digital and Kantar Video, a division of WPP, a media and marketing services company. By using video assets supplied by a major automotive maker, 1800 men and women were interviewed. The study differentiated between earned media which is typically classified as editorial coverage resulting from media relations’ efforts or social-media-advice, paid media – adverts presented like news – and classical brand advertising which is called brand media. The participants were separated into groups, whereby some of them were exposed to paid media content, some to earned media content, some to both and some to brand media.

The study’s astonishing result: It discovered that brand awareness is much higher when earned media and paid media messages are combined. This impact is mainly notable with women, whereas men did not see any multichannel lift and PR was their highest scoring format.

However, what about the cliché that men never listen anyway? The lesson is: Even men sometimes listen to things they are interested in – if you also want them to pay attention to your brand, you should use conventional PR. By contrast, women need a mixture.

But be it men or women, one fact still remains: Public Relations is necessary to place a brand properly and to raise the customer’s attention for it. Whether used in combination or alone: If it is about the brand loyalty, PR is the be-all and end-all and gains in importance in relation to traditional advertising.

Toys with educational benefits and activity toys that make children move are the top sellers: Feely parts that children can stroke help them get to know animals or toys with beads on loops support the development of motor skills. The market for outdoor toys is also growing: Be it  toy dump trucks for pushing along or ride-on toys: „Children love anything they can move”, Fischel comments and gives an outlook on the further development of sales in 2011: „The little ones can look forward to Christmas:  If the parents’ and grandparents’ mood to buy continues, the industry can again expect a sales growth of at least 3 per cent this year. This is an important time for retailers, because every other Euro spent on baby or toddler toys is spent in the fourth quarter.”

Although last year 13,000 children more were born  than in the year before, the birth rate has been stagnating in the recent years in Germany. However: Less and less children get more and more toys, Fischel says: “Germans spend 158 Euros on average per year on toys for children under 3 years – across all occasions for giving. 6 years ago, they only spent 101 Euros. They show how important their children are to them and their willingness to spend becomes more similar to that of French or British parents who tend to spend significantly more.”

 The Bundesverband des Spielwaren-Einzelhandels e.V. represents the interests of the toy retailers across all distribution channels and business sizes in Germany. The association is part of the national retailers’ association Handelsverband Deutschland – HDE – Der Einzelhandel, whose regional associations send their delegates to the members’ assembly.  The most important buying groups are associate members.

As a start stores are planned in ten big cities including  Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. Up until now Adidas Neo had its own as well as  franchised stores in Russia, China and India and generated revenues of € 400 million in 2010.