I am NOT Maverick Marketing Sydney

What can anyone say about these lyrics?

Fun fun fun fun (repeated over and over)
Party and Party and Party and Party
It’s Friday, Friday, getting down on Friday…

And then, I’m saving the best for last (drum roll please…)

Yesterday was Thursday… Today it is Friday
Tomorrow is Saturday… And Sunday comes afterward.

AND WE LIKE THIS STUFF?

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The eldest daughter of the family whose escape from Nazi-occupied Austria inspired The Sound of Music has died.

Agathe von Trapp, whose film counterpart was 16-going-on-17 Liesl, who had her heart broken by Rolf, the post boy turned Hitler Youth member, died from heart failure at a hospice in the Baltimore suburb of Towson, her friend Mary Louise Kane said yesterday.

Von Trapp was the eldest daughter of Austrian naval Captain Georg Ritter von Trapp. His seven children by his first wife, Agathe Whitehead von Trapp, were the basis for the singing family in the 1959 play and 1965 film.

Agathe von Trapp (right), pictured in 1948.

The widowed captain had three more children with his second wife, Maria Augusta Kutschera. They performed together as the Trapp Family Singers.

Von Trapp was far more reserved than her film counterpart, Kane said. She admired the film, but felt it misrepresented her father as too strict and not as the loving parent he was.

“She cried when she saw it because of the way they portrayed him,” Kane said. “She said that if it had been about another family she would have loved it.”

Von Trapp wrote her memoir, Memories Before and After The Sound of Music, published in September, to set the record straight, Kane said.

Johannes von Trapp, the youngest of the children, said his sister was a talented sketch artist. She would be buried at a family cemetery in Vermont.

Agathe’s death leaves four surviving members of the Trapp Family Singers.

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A major milestone was reached for Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic service during the weekend, as the maverick entrepreneur inched closer to realising his dream to launch the world’s first commercial space-liner.

As Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo landed after its first solo glide flight, told reporters that he expects the first test flight into space will happen within the next 12 months.

“There are a number of quite big deals on the way to getting commercial space travel to become a reality and this was a very big step. We now know that the space ship glides. We know that it can be dropped safely from the mother ship and that it can land safely.”

The SpaceShipTwo is intended for tourists taking suborbital trips and Branson hopes to bring his family on board the first flight into space, expecting this will be possible within 18 months to two years.

The latest milestone was recorded for the premiere of National Geographic Channel’s (NGC) highly anticipated four-part series, Virgin Galactic.

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Rumour is doing the rounds that Australia’s Channel 7 Network is looking to squeeze another $10 million out of the AFL grand final replay on Saturday.

Last Saturday, Channel 7′s audience was estimated to reach 2.76 million nationally.

The result, a draw, required a replay rather than an allowance for time on, a rule that has received mixed, and largely negative, reaction from the Australian public and other sports affected by the decision.

Despite this, it is expected that a large TV audience will watch the replay and club ticket allocations are sold out.

For every five minutes of advertising, Channel 7 will earn around $1 million. A 30 second slot will cost advertisers up to $100,000 according to a seasoned media buyer.

Under the terms of the AFL agreement between Channels 7 and 10, the windfall is all Channel 7′s since the deal for Channel’s 10 and 7 means each channel can broadcast the grand final in alternate years.

Ten is focusing on the Commonwealth Games which is itself controversial due to the state of construction and security in India. Ten’s coverage is due to begin on Sunday evening.

Photo: Herald Sun (check out the rest of its 2010 Photo Grand Final Gallery)

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If you’ve ever wished celebrities like actress Demi Moore or tween-star Justin Bieber would follow you on Twitter, now’s your chance — but you’ll have to cough up some cash for the privilege.

EBay Inc. is hosting a charity auction called TwitChange, through which people can bid to have celebrities follow them, retweet their posts or tweet their username on Twitter for three months.

Money raised from the auction, which runs through Saturday, will go to aHomeInHaiti.org and its efforts to rebuild the Miriam Center, which is based in Haiti and houses special-needs children.

More than 180 celebrities are involved in the auction, ranging from Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine to actor Zachary Levi.

As of late Monday, Dana White, president of mixed-martial arts group Ultimate Fighting Championship, was in the lead with $15,600 after 86 bids. Levi, who plays a computer nerd implanted with spy secrets on NBC show “Chuck,” was behind him with $14,900 raised.

Both auctions offer to follow the winner on Twitter for at least 90 days, repost one of the winner’s own postings and broadcast the winner’s username to the celebrity’s list of Twitter followers.

There were also plenty of celebrity Twitter opportunities below $100: A listing for comedian, talk-show host and actor George Lopez to retweet a message from the winner was going for $38 after 19 bids. A listing for rapper Snoop Dogg to do the same rose to $67.55 after 7 bids.

Source: The Associated Press

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Have you met Apple Ping? A social network for music?

At Apple Ping, you can follow your favourite artists and friends to discover the music they’re talking about, listening to and downloading.

An update to iTunes now allows you to interact with Ping directly from your music player, instead of having to make a visit to Ping itself.

So now you can recommend songs to your friends, and see the music they recommend, at the same you’re actually listening to songs.

While Ping lives in a quarantine from other social media, it’s only a matter of time before it integrates into Facebook and Twitter.

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HEADING INTO its third weekend, “Avatar’’ had already earned more than $250 million at the US box office and more than $475 million overseas.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the cost of making and marketing this magnum opus from “Titanic’’ director James Cameron was $430 million, though some have suggested $500 million.

Either way, this state-of-the-art blockbuster about an evil 22d-century corporation raping a pure, utopian planet is turning a healthy profit, with DVDs, action figures, books, video games, and sequels still to come.

Predictably, most US media chatter focuses on the film’s domestic market, with barely a mention of its receipts in France ($25.8 million), Russia ($13.8 million), Germany ($12 million), and more than 90 other countries.
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What are the elements that will likely make This Is It bigger than Ben Hur? Like every successful marketing campaign, there are formulas to follow. Lets take a brief look at the ones used here.

The Two-Week Window.
“It’s only on for two weeks” the ads screams out to me. No mention of extensing the deadline or putting the film onto DVD. My heart skips a beat. Gosh, I’d better grab tickets. I feel the sense of urgency.

The Advance Sales.
“Gosh” I think aloud. “Tickets are about to go on sale. The good ones will be snapped up if I don’t move quickly.” I wasn’t the only one that believed the same. So far, since the Sept. 27 American on-sale date, there have been reports of 1,600 advance sellouts.
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So here is an interesting story, and (as a mother) one that’s close to my heart, Forbes has declared its pick of who made it to list of Most Successful Children’s Book Characters In Hollywood.

The biggest cross-platform success is Shrek.

Yep, the big, green ogre has been a box office blessing for DreamWorks, spawning three films that earned an average of $343 million each at the American box office and a thriving franchise.

Although William Steig’s 1990 book never became a leading title, the film’s popularity propelled several movie tie-in books to land on the category’s bestseller list.

In second place on the Forbes list of most successful screens stars from children’s literature is Dr. Seuss’ legendary character the Grinch.

The green creature with a heart “two sizes too small” was introduced to generations of children and adults in 1957 in the pages of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, which has sold over 3.5 million copies since.

The character became a big-screen star in 2000, portrayed by Jim Carrey. The film earned $260 million at the domestic box office.

Rounding out the top three is Larry Daley from Night at the Museum.

Milan Trenc originally published the story as a picture book in 1993, to be followed in 2006 by a bestselling, novelized version penned by Leslie Goldman.

The film version and its sequel, starring Ben Stiller as Larry, the hapless father who becomes a night guard at the American Museum of Natural History, earned an average of $214 million at the domestic box office.

To compile its list of the most successful children’s book characters on the big screen, Forbes considered movies released after 1980 based on children’s books with prominent lead characters.

Adaptations of young adult fiction–for the over-12 set–were not considered.

Rankings are based on domestic box office earnings; in instances involving one or more sequels, box office results were averaged in order to gauge the overall “star power” of each children’s character.

(While the production of a sequel is a clear indication of a character’s proven financial potential, an increase or decrease in popularity is evident using an average, rather than cumulative box office totals.)

So why does Hollywood continue to churn out kid-fiction films?

Simple: merchandise.

With steady ancillary revenue from coloring books to sleeping bags to adult T-shirts, classic characters bear incredible brand value.

Check out more at Forbes.

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