Let’s Party… Best of Philly 2011
Every year, Philadelphia Magazine unleashes their Best of Philly issue, offering up their take on the best services, styles, and stores that this diverse city has to offer. The award is relatively prestigious. I say “relatively” because there were 253 winners this year. Nonetheless, there is prestige, and two of the clients I work for won Best of Philly awards this year. Most importantly, my boss brought me along to the release party. You know what that means — open bar, free hors d’oeuvres, and a chance to schmooze with the who’s whos of the Greater Philadelphia Region.
A little backstory: Not that you particularly care, but I’m Brad. I’m an intern at MilkBoy Communications. Our fair and mighty creative director/president is Craig Kaplan, the man known for establishing former Philadelphia Eagle (and sitting U.S. Congressman) Jon Runyan as a celebrity spokesman with several brands. Craig is a great marketer. Craig is old-school. Yet he’s very open to new media, so he brought me in to spearhead the social media engagement for a number of clients. One of those clients: Zama Sushi Bar. Click the link and check out the zBlog, where you’ll enjoy the fruits of my writing labors (hopefully).
So, for Zama, MilkBoy Communications created a really fun campaign. The Celebrity Roll series pairs the culinary interests of area celebrities with the expertise of Chef Zama, resulting in uniquely delicious sushi rolls. Marc Vetri, Phillies pitcher Ryan Madson, and Eagles lineman Winston Justice are among those with their own signature roll. The most recent installment pits Questlove, of the Legendary Roots Crew, with Zama in the creation of the Questlove “Drum Roll,” a premium cheesesteak-inspired roll. I posted the MilkBoy-created video to YouTube, wrote and distributed a press release to news media, posted information and links to Facebook and Twitter, and wrote a blog post for the roll.
Fast forward to this weekend. Because of my involvement with the campaign, Craig asked me to join him at the Best of Philly event (shh…don’t tell the other interns). Zama Restaurant was awarded “Best Replacement for the Wall at The Palm” for the Celebrity Roll campaign. When we were there, we quickly perused a few of the magazines that were lying around the party to find that one of our clients, Vetri Family, had won Best Chef for Jeff Michaud’s work at Osteria, and Best Italian at Vetri Ristorante. So congrats to those guys on the win. And thanks, because without you, I would’ve had to buy dinner last Thursday.
