What'sTappening?

Trend Setters of All Sizes Make a Statement With Spring’s Most Fashionable Accessory: The water bottles that brand their users

TAPPENING--An initiative created to promote tap water - continues its meteoric rise in interest and education… while planning a big welcome for incoming Coca Cola CEO Muhter Kent in asking the general public to send them one million empty water bottles with a message for him.

(NEW YORK; January 20, 2008) Colorful, reusable water bottles saying “Think global, drink local” or “What’s Tappening?,” from the creators of Tappening (www.tappening.com), offer bottled water loyalists an eco conscious fashion statement and a dash of disturbing education. Trend watcher Jane Buckingham appeared on "Good Morning America" in its first show of the New Year to give a glimpse into what will be ‘hot’ in 2008. Amongst the several items featured were these “hip new reusable water bottles” from Tappening Tappening is a campaign designed to encourage the public to drink only tap water, and to send a message to the bottled water industry about its extreme waste of fossil fuels and resultant pollution of the Earth. The acknowledgment of Tappening’s “hotness” on national television capped a wild, whirlwind ride that began five weeks before, when the campaign was launched.

Tappening co-founders,Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo, thought they had seen it all in their 25 year careers. Yaverbaum ran the 11th ranked “best PR firm in the country to work for” for 21 years, and currently runs PR agency hot shop Ericho Communications (www.erichopr.com). DiMassimo founded and has run buzz and brand-building ad agency phenomenon DiMassimo Goldstein (DIGO - www.digobrands.com) for over a decade.

The partners found themselves in a surprising position only 36 hours after their website was launched. The site www.tappening.com was developed to be a resource and wealth of up-to-the-minute information and facts about the damage to the environment caused by the bottled water industry. The bottles that they invested in to sell over the course of the first year to self-fund their environmental crusade sold out a little faster than originally planned…on their second day! (Thirty nine thousand of them!)

The decade-long business associates and friends--Yaverbaum and DiMassimo--have represented some of the world’s most memorable brands, including IKEA Home Furnishings, Sony, H&M, Crunch Fitness, Jet Blue and Progressive Insurance, to name a few. And they always like to add… Glacaeu Vitamin Water, “long before we knew any better.” They now find themselves in a unique situation. They have become one of their own clients. Their Tappening water bottles became trendy the day after their launch. Celebrities like Cameron Diaz, Eva Longoria, Adrian Grenier, Rachel Bilson, and Scarlet Johansson were just a few of the first to get their bottles. Their website was trafficked with just over a million page views. The first product they owned themselves became a sought after eco-friendly holiday gift…and you couldn’t get a bottle. They were all sold out!

National television appearances, coast to coast radio interviews, newspaper articles and bloggers alike touted both the information from the Tappening website and the bottles themselves. Coca Cola responded to their initiative on its second day. Scam artists tried to knock off their site, as well as the Tappening bottles. Schools and universities called. Yaverbaum and DiMassimo would need their own jet to go everywhere they’ve been invited for Earth Day! Their product line extended to include Stainless Steel. With a line of new bottles being designed…the pace is dizzying.

Yaverbaum and DiMassimo are asking the public to help them send a message to the bottled water industry by sending them an empty water bottle with a note inside committing to drink only tap water and letting the bottled “tap water companies” know how you feel! The first one million empty water bottles will all be delivered to incoming Coca Cola (marketer of Dasani bottled water) CEO, Muhter Kent, on his first day on the job this July. All the messages will be posted on the Tappening educational website (www.tappening.com). Empty water bottles with their messages should be sent to “Tappening” c/o DIGO, 220 East 23rd, Street, New York, New York 10010.
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Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo are available for interview.
www.tappening.com