Overnight sensation..Amazon Eve

The worlds tallest model stands at 6ft 8inches, amazon Eve has become an overnight sensation since November last year when a magazine put her in a bikini on a cover of a magazine.

Eve, from Turlock, California, is a full time model but also wrestles with men for $400 an hour. Take a look at some of the pictures below:

Please share your comments below.

Race row over Elle's front cover shoot after Bollywood actress' skin is 'whitened'



Elle magazine has come into a race row after supposedly whitening the skin of a Bollywood actress on its cover. Many readers are angry and upset after it was ­suggested that the fashion bible might have digitally ‘bleached’ the skin of Bollywood actress ­Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

The 37 year old appears on this month’s cover of the Indian edition of the magazine. Though, her skin appears to be much lighter than her normal colour (seen left).

Inside the magazine, she has a series of shots which again all show her with pale skin. It’s not the first time that Elle has been accused of appearing to lighten the skin of its non-white models.

In September this year, black actress Gabourey Sidibe appeared on the cover of an American edition of the magazine with a much paler skin tone. On that particular time Elle said they had not altered the star’s skin.

Skin lightening is a controversial issue in India and those with a lighter complexion are perceived to be rich and successful. Skin-lightening products in India aimed at young men and women now form a multi-million-pound industry.

Elle is seen upon as a fashion bible and should not be lightening models skin. They are portraying to their readers that lighter skin is always in fashion and this is wrong, and they should not be sending out this message.

Please share your thoughts and opinions on this subject. Do you think its right for magazines to lighten model’s complexions?

CIPR Awards 2010 Counties South Gold winner

Title of entry: The Butterfly Effect
Client Name: Holland and Barrett
Agency Name: Pegasus Public Relations

The CIPR Pride Awards are a yearly award given to great PR campaigns all over the UK.

For my PR Strategy, Campaign Planning and Evaluation unit, I was asked to give a presentation to my class on a Pride Award winner from 2010 from Counties South region. I looked through all the winners and i decided that 'The Butterfly Effect' was the one that stood out in my head.

Background

Linking the banning of plastic bags into a 25 year support of a butterfly project positioned Holland & Barrett on the way of a major environmental concern that spoke directly to their target audience of green conscious customers and threw down a challenge for the rest of the high street to follow them. The campaign delivered a news splash across the media reaching an audience of 55 million championing the health food chain for being the first major retailer to ban plastic bags and showcased their green credentials to a consumer, business and industry audience.

Strategy

• A campaign theme ‘Butterfly Effect’ playing on a well known phrase to show how small changes, such as those Holland & Barrett’s is making as part of Plan-It-Green policy, can have a big effect.
• Increase profile of key spokespeople and develop Holland & Barrett environmental credibility among their eco target customers.
• Utilise range of media activities to ensure campaign is made relevant.

Implemention

The campaign ran in October- December 2009 in the run up to the plastic bag ban on January 1st 2010.

Butterfly Effect Press Briefing: 12th November 2009

• London Zoo was chosen as the venue for the briefing allowed interviews and photos to take place in the Butterfly paradise enclosure to tie into the butterfly effect theme.
• The venue was used earlier by Gordon Brown to deliver manifesto on Global warming and would therefore be familiar to target audience.
• High profile business, consumer affairs, environmental and industry journalists were invited to the briefing were Holland and Barrett's CEO Peter Aldis unveiled the retail chain's Plan it green strategy and introduced the new butterfly bags.
• Professor Jeremy Thomas discussed his conservation work the large blue butterfly and how Holland and Barrett supported his project to bring back the species from extinction in the UK.
• All attendees received exclusive signed copies of Sir David Attenborough's book 'Life Stories' inside with the new jute butterfly bags with a full press pack.

Evaluation

The campaign met all the objectives which were stated in the strategies:

• Using independent media evaluation, the three month campaign created over 55million opportunities to see through 26 items of coverage with an equivalent PR value of £554,623 representing a 18 to 1 return on investment.
• Two distinct waves of press coverage followed the press briefing in mid November and on the 1st of January.
• Press briefing was attended by 13 broadcast, national, business and consumer journalists including the Daily Mail and Radio 4’s The Today Programme.

Raise awareness of Holland & Barrett as an environmentally aware retailer and communicate social responsibility.

· 70% of the coverage cited Holland & Barrett as being the first major retailer to ban plastic bags.

· Grabbed attention of Dimoldenberg Labour Group leader at Westminster council who commented about the ban.

Increase profile of key spokespeople and develop Holland & Barrett environmental credibility among their eco conscious target customer.

• Holland and Barrett CEO Peter Aldis was quoted in 3 quarters of the press coverage.
• Eight articles across eco and environmental specific media congratulating Holland and Barrett for banning plastic bags.
• Numerous tweets were seen across twitter again congratulating and supporting the ban at Holland and Barrett.

Utilise range of media activities to ensure campaign is made relevant for health pages, business targets and consumers to maximise campaign reach.

• Coverage across a wide variety of media from daily national newspapers such as The Daily Mail and The Guardian, to specialist eco titles such as Green My Style, business titles such as Real Business and industry publications including Health Food Business and Retail Week.

I believe that this was a great campaign full of creativity which matched the strategy and deserved to win a Gold award. Well done Pegasus PR.

My questions to you are as follows:

• Do you think it deserved a Gold award?
• What did you think about the briefing being held in London Zoo: Butterfly paradise a good or bad idea?
• Did you like the creativity of the campaign?
• Finally, what would you rate this campaign out of 5? And why?

Your comments and feedback please.

Thank you.

Digital Death: RAISES $1,000,000

On the 6th of December 2010 only 5 days after this campaign was launched the celebrities have come back to life after raising $1,000,000 for World Aids day: Keep a child alive.

Well done everyone who donated money and keeps donating :) Great campaign!

Ultra slim Ann Ward Wins America’s Next Top Model

Ultra slim Ann Ward, has won cycle 15 of America’s Next Top Model. When she was first seen to be competing on the show, her extremely thin figure was used in the trailer, showing one of the male judge’s hands encircling her waist (yes, it really is that small!)
The show’s boss, Tyra Banks says she does not endorse the idealization of thin women, the fact that Ann Ward won her show sends a completely different message.



What message is Tyra Banks sending ? 

A lot of small young girls, aspiring models who are struggling with their body image watch America's Next top Model, and what messgae did Ann Ward winning send to them??

Digital Death: 01.12.10 Celebs 'die' for charity

There have been all sorts of interesting awareness campaigns happening across the world to support World AIDS Day. In the US they’ve been running a campaign called “Digital Death”
were the worlds top tweeters are making the ultimate sacrifice by leaving their 30 million followers in the dark until $1,000,000 is raised to buy their digital lives back.

I think this is a great idea from all the celebrities which include Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, Kim Kardashian only to name a few but its not working fans have only donated $181, 260... nowhere near what they want. Of course, US fans are only just starting to feel deprived. Imagine how much more money they’ll donate in another 24 hours when they start going into gossip withdrawal! I'm having widrawal symptons from Kim Kardashian's twitter!! I'll keep you posted when they reach $1,000,000!

Here's how you can help visit: www.buylife.org and donate.

What are your ideas on this campaign?