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Neff Associates provides marketing services in the areas of advertising, branding, public relations and social media and we just celebrated our 25-year anniversary on December 11, 2012.
Since our founding in 1987, Neff Associates has served a vast array of industry sectors with initiatives ranging from media relations and social media to advertising and branding on both the regional and national level. The company, founded by David Neff, currently services clients as diverse as Hutchinson Plumbing Heating Cooling – the Delaware Valley’s largest HVAC provider, REX 1516 – a Southern-inspired restaurant on Philadelphia’s South Street, and Wurzak Hotel Group – a hotel developer and operator for the newly opened Sheraton Valley Forge as well as Westin Mt Laurel and Hilton City Ave.
On December 11th, Neff Associates celebrated our 25th anniversary at client Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse in Philadelphia. The lively event is sure to go down as one of the best parties of the holiday season. Guest like Howard Eskin, Marc Summers, Mike Jerrick and Sharon Pinkenson packed into the private vault space and bar area to cheers Neff on the huge accomplishment. Here’s to our company’s 26th year and making 2013 the best one yet!
Happy New Year from everyone at Neff Associates!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! As everyone is preparing the turkey and the sides galore, let Jill Weber, owner of Jet Wine Bar and Rex 1516, make the beverage selection for you! Jill provides her expert insight to get you the best wine pairing with every part of your meal.
“If you are searching for a single wine to go with the whole meal – from cheese ball to pumpkin pie – then you really can’t beat a lighter bodied, earthy, slightly fruity wine with softer tannins such as come from gamay. Gamay is the grape found in Beaujolais, whose wines are a bit more fruity and a bit less acidic than their Burgundian neighbor with its Pinot Noir.
But, since it is a celebration, why not have three wines!
Try a great sherry with appetizers and cheese and crackers – how about a bright, slightly apple-y, manzanilla?
As for the main meal, lots of wines would be good with turkey; the sides are the tricky part. Again, gamay/beaujolais would work with most. My mother’s traditional bread-stuffing of sausage, sage, and celery is at home with an austrian red, and I love them all: St. Laurent, Blaufrankisch, Zweigelt. A chestnut stuffing – with all that great earthiness – works the same way and would be very happy with a wine from Italy’s Piemonte, like Dolcetto.
If you are having mushrooms in any quantity, get a local wine from near Kennett Square – preferably Stargazers Vineyard’s Dornfelder. Those vineyards close to the mushroom center-of-the-universe have palpable mushroom and umami characters.
Perhaps your family uses an oyster stuffing? Try a fun and classic Soave from northeastern Italy, or a more saline Assyrtiko from Greece.
What about pumpkin pie? Skip the whipped cream and pair it with a barrel-aged bourbon.”
—Jill Weber
Now that the winds have died down and the floodwaters have receded, most of the attention in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy is being devoted to the restoration of many towns and homes in the coastal Mid-Atlantic region. And rightfully so.
However, it would be remiss to ignore some of the other turmoil that was present during the super storm, most notably from retail brands looking to make a quick buck off of it.
Urban Outfitters, Steven Alan and other retailers took to their email blasts to offer customers discounted merchandise or shipping during the storm, but it was American Apparel who incurred most of the wrath via Twitter. Their 36-hour offer for 20% off everything in the online store, for those in the affected East Coast states, touched too close to home for many who were witnessing the damage firsthand. Also, naming the discount code “SANDYSTORM” lacks a certain sensitivity with which such matters should have been handled.
Outrage followed with a number of angry Tweets that included “Really @americanapparel? Sandy Sale email blast? really? The lowest of low. RT this if you are insulted,” wrote David Honig; “I just received a ‘Hurricane Sandy sale’ email blast from @americanapparel. I will forever boycott their stores. RT if you’re with me.”
In response, an American Apparel spokesperson vowed that the email blast was not meant to offend, and justified their actions by stating that they were simply trying to make up for lost revenue from their many closed retail stores in the region, also noting the “sake of our employees and shareholders.”
Now that the storm is in the rear view, and the damage and devastation is at the forefront of the media it is easy to label this as a callous marketing maneuver. But then again, a large part of advertising is remaining current and finding ways to connect with your customers. Certainly a natural disaster is a controversial subject to use as the base of a promotion, but when it was in the news as much as Sandy was, creating buzz words like “Frankenstorm,” must it be completely off limits?
Pastry Chef at Rex 1516, Shamus Moriarity, gives us his spin on the Banana Split.
What makes for a perfect banana split? For me, it’s the classic combination of malt shoppe staples and neapolitan ice cream– creating an instant bit of nostalgia with this childhood classic.
What you will need:
Chocolate Ice Cream
Strawberry Ice Cream
Vanilla Ice Cream
Strawberries
Brown Sugar
Confectioner’s Sugar
Candied Walnuts
Condensed Milk
Dark Chocolate
Whipped Cream
Cherries
Bananas
Hot Fudge Recipe:
Melt 12 ounces of dark chocolate via your preferred method (a microwave is totally fine), stir this into one can of condensed milk and bring to your desired temperature. It will be ooey and gooey while warm, but if left out it can double as a decadent base for any homemade fudge (I suggest laced with any leftover cherries one may have from this!)
SUPER EASY Candied Walnuts:
Put some walnuts in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then drain. Gently and evenly coat the walnuts in confectioner’s sugar, then fry in a pot of hot oil (350F works ideal if you have a deep fryer). Foolproof each time, no more needing to watch over a pot of boiling sugar!
Strawberry Sauce:
Hull and cut a few strawberries and cook down with some dark brown sugar to bring out the sweetness in them. Spoon warm over whichever version of this sundae you decide to make!
Got extra bananas lying around? Substitute the vanilla ice cream for homemade banana ice cream!
1 lb frozen, peeled bananas
2/3c heavy cream
1/4c light corn syrup
1T flavoring of your choice– I prefer a vanilla bean for the kids, a shot of bourbon for the adults
Blend these simple ingredients together and run through any standard ice cream maker. It makes for a luscious and creamy natural banana ice cream the whole family can enjoy.
In a bowl, dish out one scoop each of the three ice creams and then border them with slices of banana, cut into quarters length-wise. Pour hot fudge and strawberry sauce over them, then top with some whipped cream, walnuts, and cherries. Let your friends, family, children, or whoever is around dig in and devour!
It’s August and the last thing you are probably thinking about is Christmas (or Hanukkah!) gifts and holiday plans. However, “long lead publications” like magazines start to plan and fill their calendars months in advance. Keep in mind that editors get tons of pitches, so in this case the early bird has a much better chance of “getting the worm.”
Check out our top three tips to ensure your clients-and their products- end up on the must have list this upcoming holiday season:
We can’t decide whether we love or hate how Twitter is affecting the way we are experiencing the Olympics this year. It’s great to hear from and interact with the Olympians, but getting results before the game/race has aired may be ruining the fun.
Hey, don’t hate! She needs real-time results of the men’s skeet shooting finals!
But forget about the spectators, Twitter has also influenced athletes’ experiences in London. American soccer star Hope Solo took to Twitter to criticize Brandi Chastain’s criticism of the Americans’ play. Solo called Chastain “out of touch,” but was not punished for her online actions. A second athlete, a Swiss soccer player, was actually expelled from the games due to an insensitive tweet. Michel Morganella, we understand your frustration after losing to South Korea… but calling South Koreans “mentally handicapped retards,” really?
Social media is all about sharing, we know. But there are some thoughts that probably shouldn’t be shared with millions of followers on Twitter. Olympians, let’s keep those tweets positive, deal?
Good move, Adidas. But we want to know whose idea was this, anyway? Athletic-shoe retailer Adidas recently shelved plans to produce the JS Roundhouse Mid, a pair of high-top basketball shoes designed by Jeremy Scott which features a gold and purple color scheme. And, oh yeah, a fake pair of shackles that attach to the wearer’s ankle.
Adidas posted on Facebook: “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?”
The company pulled the shoe before it’s planned release, amid social media outcry, saying in a statement: “We apologise if people are offended by the design and we are withdrawing our plans to make them available in the marketplace.”
It’s no secret that Neff staffers love going “down the shore” in the summertime.
Check out these top restaurant picks from the seasoned beachgoers at Neff Associates:
This is too, too good.
If you’re looking to spice up your post-work happy hour or spend time with friends that are just a little too attached to their iPhones, this game is for you.
Enter The Phone Stack (thanks getkempt.com.) The premise is simple: everyone at the table places their phone in a stack in the center of the table. Then you wait. As the stack buzzes, vibrates and blinks, no one touches the phones. Tensions build, and the first person to give in to temptation and dive for their phone buys dinner/drinks/whatever for the whole group.
(A few exceptions are allowed in cases of childbirth, aging relatives and the 36 hours after a first date, according to Kempt.)
Which of your crew would be the first to crack?
Can you tell we work in a creative industry? #appleproductlove