Activity kicked off with issues hijacking during Energy Saving Week on the 19th October and has been followed up with extensive outreach to key eco-chic bloggers, forums and of course media.

Judges commented: “The Flip Mino has torn a gaping hole in the market, which is testament to Kaizo’s sensational work”. Hopefully, the PRCA judges will feel the same when judging the ‘Best Technology’ and ‘Best Media Relations’ categories, for which we’re shortlisted, on the 3rd of November.

Image source: www.prweek.com

The (very intelligent and obviously insightful!) judges deemed that we made the grade for both ‘Best Media Relations’ and ‘Best Technology’ categories.

This campaign has also been shortlisted for the PR Week Awards ‘Marketing Communications – Consumer’ category (which takes place next Tuesday 20th October) and was also selected for the CIPR and Sabre awards earlier this year.

The awards will be held in London on the 3rd November 2009. Come on Kaizo – bring it home!

That is one of the questions Adam Boulton, political editor of Sky News, will be addressing at this year’s Tom Olsen Lecture, held at St. Brides Church Fleet Street, the spiritual home for journalism.

Kaizo is delighted to once again support the lecture which will take place on Wednesday 4 November at 7pm. For information and tickets please contact admin@stbrides.com or phone 020 7427 0133.

Rhodri Harries, Managing Director of Kaizo, said:“The current economic climate means that consumers are looking even harder for products and services that provide the best value overall. If brands are honest and provide helpful customer service, whilst also offering true value for money, then they will be consistently recommended, no matter how much money is thrown into expensive advertising campaigns.”

The Kaizo Advocacy Index is a biannual study that measures the online reputation of 20 brands across Food, Software, Airline and Mobile sectors. The study examines independent links on four Google search engine tools – Web, News, Groups and Blogs, as well as posts on Twitter and Facebook Groups. Content is assigned a positive (Promoter), neutral (Passive) or negative (Detractor) sentiment score and an index is created by subtracting the percentage of Promoters from the percentage of Detractors.

To read the full report click here.

The Campaign ‘Now Playing You – launching the Flip Mino’ is one of the shortlisted entries in the hotly contested Marketing Communications category. This latest accolade follows shortlisted positions in the CIPR award and Sabre awards earlier this year.

Rhodri Harries, Managing Director of Kaizo, said:
“Whilst clearly we are delighted to be nominated in a pretty amazing line up, we really hope to go one better than other awards this year”.

The awards are held in London on 20 October.

Created by Kaizo for relationship service eHarmony.co.uk, the mixtape generator at www.perfectmixtape.co.uk, allows users to select ten tracks that they believe form the perfect mixtape.

Mixtapes can then be shared with friends via email, Facebook, Twitter or blogs and the highest rated mixtape each week wins an iPod Touch.
eHarmony.co.uk spokesperson, Helen Melluish commented: “We thought it was time to bring mixtapes back to life with a digital make-over. Receiving a mixtape of songs from a loved one can be as special today as it was 15 years ago, which is why we’re challenging Britons to create their perfect mixtape.”

The Perfect Mixtape Challenge celebrates the launch of eHarmony’s relationship service within the UK. The site is responsible for an average of 236 marriages a day in the US thanks to its Compatibility Matching System®, which matches singles on key areas of compatibility, such as values, beliefs and interests in order to help people find lasting relationships.

The internationally recognised Consultancy Management Standard (CMS) is the industry’s quality certification system for public relations firms, and only about 109 of the UK’s 2,000+ PR consultancies have passed the rigorous independent audit required. The Standard is an assurance to clients that Kaizo adheres to strict quality standards in management, communication and service delivery.   The CMS is an independently-audited set of eight tests which a consultancy must pass before it is eligible for membership of the Public Relations Consultants Association. It combines elements of ISO 9000 and Investors in People with criteria specific to the public relations industry.  Kaizo is one of over 160 PRCA members based throughout the UK. These consultancies are of all sizes, working for clients in all business sectors. Together they employ around 5,000 people and generate more than £400 million in each year in fees from clients.

Kaizo, the independent PR and Digital agency, has been appointed to launch vufone, a new mobile service that enables users to share and manage their social media content and organise their online identities through one simple interface, in the UK.

Bridging the gap between mobile and web applications, vufone’s pioneering service allows users to automatically synchronise personal mobile content with photos, videos and other multimedia across the spectrum of popular social media websites. Accessing their personal profile via mobile handset or the web, vufone members are able to organise and share content on Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, Gmail and more from one location.

Roy Timor Rousso, Vice President of Marketing for vufone, said “For most mobile phone users, their handset isn’t just a phone – it’s a camera, a social networking tool, a personal organiser and a source of entertainment. It’s the centre for a lot of life’s activities.”

“People want to unify their various online identities and all of the content they generate for both work and play, easily, quickly and without compromising on security – vufone is the first ever service to deliver this. It’s an automatic sharing companion that makes sure personal mobile content gets to where users want it to be, every time.”

Rhodri Harries, Managing Director of Kaizo said:
“Our task is to drive user numbers, by stimulating conversations online and offline within both the mobile community and also classic consumer media. The campaign will integrate media and will investigate the role the mobile plays for the average consumer, and what happens when it, and all the valuable content it contains, gets lost.”

As well as being able to post content to their desired online social networks and services, vufone users can share their mobile pictures, videos and calendar appointments with friends and contacts through the easy-to-use mobile interface. Text messages can also be viewed, stored and sent via vufone, unifying mobile and web functions under one identity.
vufone’s key features at a glance include:

Share: Users can upload and send their camera phone images and videos to their favourite social networks like Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Picasa and soon even Twitter with one update. This can even be automated to make syncing pictured, videos and other information with your social networks even easier. Online vufone albums can also be created to share with contacts via the web.

Synchronise: Microsoft Outlook or Google Calendar meetings, tasks and contacts can be automatically synchronised with user’s mobile phones. Again, by automating this service users can ensure they are always up-to-date with key dates and appointments.

Backup: Valuable mobile phone content like SMS messages, calendars, photos, videos and Smartphone documents can be easily safeguarded through regular and automated backup. This feature is set to put an end to the stress caused by lost or stolen handsets. Personal content like photos or text messages can be deleted from one web access point so you do not need to worry about private information falling into the wrong hands.

Other innovative features allow users to upload songs to their handsets from the web or listen to their mobile music when online. The MyPersona feature lets users have their profile picture appear on their friend’s phone when they call. Cheap texts can also be sent from vufone’s web interface and images can be forwarded to your friends’ mobiles free of charge – eliminating the need for costly MMS messages.

vufone is supported by major handset providers including Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola, Samsung, LG and soon on the BlackBerry. The service is now available worldwide at www.vufone.com at a special subscription offer of only £9.99 per year – a small price to pay for added connectivity.

- Ends –

The innovative integrated media and social media campaign ‘Now Playing You’ which helped the brand destroy all competition in the pocket video camcorder category is nominated for best European Consumer Product Launch.

The awards take place on 21 May in Stockholm.