25th May, 2010 Press Releases

LazyTown’s Retail Partnerships create Healthier Kids

As the only children’s brands dedicated to helping children lead healthier lifestyles, it’s hardly surprising the impact the company’s licensing strategy has had directly on its core audience’s eating habits.  This is a pure and natural extension of the brand because the characters of LazyTown actually eat “SportsCandy” (fruits and vegetables), drink water and milk and engage in sports and activities in each episode.  Now LazyTown is actively licensing partners who share their vision of a healthier world.

LazyTown leverages this unique and relevant edge with strategic retail and healthy consumables partnerships.  As an example, LazyTown’s retail alliance with ASDA (the UK Wal-Mart) that has been using Sportacus to promote its Great Stuff range of products has seen the range sell a whopping 41% more fruit and vegetables during a kick-off promotion last year than it had the previous year, which included over 2.5 million incremental packages of Great Stuff Sports Candy!

In Mexico, the company’s tie-up with dairy company Lala that also featured Sportacus on pack achieved a significant double digit sales growth of white milk, proving the brand can carry a consumable other than Sports Candy. This was historic for LazyTown as it was their first major win in a territory where they are not on Free TV and where sales of white milk to children are virtually zero (children have been reported to drink soda for breakfast!). Parents even called the 1-800 customer service lines at LALA and left voicemails thanking them because their kids were drinking milk again.

In Columbia, Sportacus is at national hero status. During a recent visit to the country, LazyTown’s creator and star Magnus Scheving was asked by the country’s Minister of Health to help him to lower obesity in the country where it has become a growing concern. The show’s tie-up with fruit and vegetable superstore Surtifruver de la Sabana has branched into the country’s school system where children have participated in LazyTown/Surtifruver activities based around exercise and healthy eating.

In the U.S., the show is breaking new ground. LazyTown has aligned itself with Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ initiative and will be sharing with the Administration some of the ground breaking work they have done in other countries to reduce childhood obesity. During a momentous week in March 2010, Sportacus met the First Lady when he warmed up local Washington DC school children at a US Soccer Foundation clinic that she attended. A deal with Windmill will see a range of completely natural vitamins go into over 20,000 retail outlets in the country. With a new broadcast deal soon to be announced in the U.S., LazyTown is confident they can make a real difference to American children’s health.

In their native country of Iceland, LazyTown have signed a world first deal with a local water company, Nordic Water, to produce a range of naturally fruit flavoured water. Nordic is aiming for worldwide distribution.

What’s clear is one thing – when companies use LazyTown to promote health, EVERYONE WINS!

24th May, 2010 Press Releases

The Ultimate Outdoor Workout – Get Fit in the Park

Now that the sun is (just about) shining, why not take your workout into the park and take advantage of the weather whilst getting fit?

Forget about running, London fitness expert Greg Brookes has devised an innovative routine that will get your heart pumping and activate all your major muscle groups using just four simple exercises. Pictures are available or why not give me a ring about joining Greg for a session?

The Outdoor Workout

Perform the following 4 exercises. Start with 3 repetitions of each exercise before moving on to the next. Once you have completed one circuit go for a steady 2 minute jog. Now perform the circuit again this time for 6 repetitions of each exercise. Jog another 2 minutes. Next the circuit with 9 repetitions, jog and then finish with12 repetitions and jog.

You may find it difficult to complete all 4 circuits at first. In this case just complete as many as you can with good technique. As soon as your technique starts to fail, stop.

Yoga Squat

1.            Stand with Arms Overhead, feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart, toes pointing forwards
2.            Sit your hips back down into a deep squat, keep your knees out, stay on your  heels, eyes up
3.             Place your palms on the floor between your feet and straighten the legs keeping your hands on the floor. If you can’t straighten the legs don’t worry – just straighten as much as possible
4.             Sit back down into the deep squat as in 2. Then raise the arms over head as before.
5.            Return to standing position driving through the heels and looking up. Keep the arms up.

Mountain Climbers

1.            Start in the press up position. Back flat. Hands under shoulders. Feet together.
2.            Bring one leg around to the side of the elbow and touch if possible. Don’t put your foot down. Perform this slowly. Maintain a straight back.
3.            Return the leg back to the starting position and repeat on the other side.

Bob & Weave

1.            From a straight standing position feet together. Step out to one side. Push your hips back and keep your chest up.
2.            Imagine you are ducking under something with your whole body. Go down and then up the other side.
3.            Drive up from the one leg and stand bringing the legs back together. Repeat on the other side.

Up and Down Dogs

1.            Start with hands under shoulders and feet together. Push the hips up and back.
2.            Drop the hips to the floor under control and look up.
3.            Return to the top position by pushing back on the hands and driving the hips back up. Repeat up and down without the hips or legs resting on the floor.

PS. Don’t forget to breathe out on the hardest part of the movement!

Editors Note:
GB Personal Training is a personal training company based in Hampstead but travel throughout London, as well as running kettle bell classes in NW London. You can visit the website for further information at www.gbpersonaltraining.com
For a complimentary one-on-one session with Greg, please contact me at: suzanne@stunningpr.com, 07957 371840

4th December, 2009 Press Releases

Elly Botilda Vintage & Antiques – Carl Larsson meets Suffolk

‘Carl Larsson meets Suffolk’ crossed with your ‘Mad Maiden Aunt’s House’ is how former interior designer Anne Marie Jacob describes her latest venture, Elly Botilda, the Vintage and Antiques shop that she has recently opened in Uggleshall, Suffolk with her mother Mille.

For all those who love rummaging around in such places, this is a real Aladdin’s Cave of collectables with more and more pieces being brought in daily as Anne Marie and her mother scour the county for new finds.

Anne Marie says, “What we have done is consolidated several years worth of  finds and weekly visits to auctions to create a shop within a barn. I change everything once a week, recreating a different ‘theatre set.’ We have all  our old jazz LPs playing in one room, and a mini cinema on the TV of all the old classic movies playing from Gone with the Wind…through to The Glass Bottom Boat.

From charming patterned tea sets to Victorian day beds, lacey linen, magic wardrobes, school clocks, charming chandeliers, turn of the century postcards and prints, old school trunks the shop houses everything one would need to complete the charming country cottage look.

You will be warmly welcomed  and offered  tea and cakes whilst you browse. What could be better any day of the week?

Opening days tuesday to saturday 10.30 to 4.30

Elly Botilda
Manor Farm Barns
Manor Farm
Uggeshall
Suffolk NR34 8BD
01502 578077

Until early new year also

12 Abbeygate street
Bury St Edmunds
Suffolk IP33 1UN

For images, further information, please contact suzanne@stunningpr.com 07957 371840

19th November, 2009 Press Releases

Filthy English: The How, What and Why of Everyday Swearing

By Pete Silverton

Packed full of facts on all the filthiest words in the world, Filthy English considers how it can be that we have become more openly emotional, yet more wary about insulting others. And howit might be alright to say **** and **** but not ****** or ****.  Silverton considers why it is we have moved through the religious and sexual stages of swearing to the racial stage; why mother insults cut so deep in the Mediterranean; and how the law has evolved to police new forms of obscenity.

When the Sex Pistols swore live on tea-time telly in 1976 there was outrage across Britain. Headlines screamed. Christians marched. TVs were kicked in. Thirty years on, the same words are now almost media-mainstream – bandied about with impunity on TV and in the papers. Filthy English is the story of bad language over the last 30 years, charting its journey from the fringes of decency to the working centre of a more linguistically liberal nation. Silverton gives a clear, comprehensive and witty overview of swearing during this time, traversing the globe to pinpoint the watershed moments that have changed the public’s attitude towards rude words, including the FCUK ad campaign, and bringing us bang up to date with Ross and Brand’s on-air offences.

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Peter Silverton has been a journalist for 30 years, starting as features editor at Sounds in 1976, covering punk, going on tour with the Sex Pistols and Clash and later writing Glen Matlock’s autobiography (I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol). He has worked as an editor at Time Out, the Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Express and the Guardian, and written with asterisks for practically every music magazine and newspaper in the land. Silverton started swearing at the age of four and can now swear in many different languages, and does, on a regular basis. He lives in North London with his wife and children.

Published 22nd October 2009
Hardback, £14.99

Peter Silverton is available for interview and to write articles, please contact Lindsay Paterson for more information:
lpaterson@portobellobooks.com / 020 7605 1374