In our continuing bid to get as much yummy goodness out of our self introduced 'Food Month' we've collated a veritable raft of facts about one of our favourites here at Prezzybox.com... PIZZA!

History

There is no doubting that as a nation we love pizza with it ranking 5th as our favourite food and round the world it’s estimated that 5 billion pizzas are consumed every year, that’s enough pizzas to reach to the sun and back 4 times! In fact pizzas popularity around the world is now such that it even has its own National Day, so if ever you needed an excuse to enjoy a slice then National Pizza Day on the 18th May is it!

But, where did it all begin? Italy? No, while what we now consider to be the traditional pizza did originate in Italy, the first incarnation of a pizza; bread covered with oil, herbs and cheese, was the brainchild of the Ancient Greeks. This initial idea was then developed by the Romans, who came up with a sheet of dough covered with cheese, honey and bay leaves. The Italians then adapted their Neapolitan pie, dough topped with tomatoes, to include cheese in 1889, and the modern day pizza was born. Then in the same year, on a visit to Naples, the Queen of Italy, Margherita was served this “New” Neapolitan pie with the addition of basil leaves to represent the red, white and green of the Italian flag and the pie was named the Margherita. Splendid!

Pizza Types

Italian immigration in the 20th century meant the global spread of this now classic Italian dish, Pizza, with different countries adding their own twists. The most famous adaptation being the Chicago-style pizza, which with its deep-pan base and heavy toppings is pretty far from the original crispy thin based Italian pizza. In Australia along with the traditional tomato and mozzarella they like to add bacon and egg to their pizzas, while the Brazilians like to sweeten their pizzas by adding banana, chocolate and pineapple and in Sweden their favourite pizza topping is doner kebab!

In the UK the favourite pizza topping is Pepperoni, followed by farmhouse (ham and mushroom) and then Hawaiian. It’s not only the UK that favours Pepperoni, with it also being the favourite pizza in the states, in fact it’s estimated that 114 million Kg of pepperoni is consumed on pizzas annually, that’s the same weight as 600 Blue Whales!

Recent years have seen the emergence of a totally different type of pizza, the Chocolate Pizza, as its name suggests it’s a pizza made out of chocolate. With a solid milk chocolate base and an assortment of toppings from fudge, to honeycomb to popping candy it’s the perfect marriage between two of our most popular foods, pizza and chocolate!

Record Breaking Pizzas

The largest ever pizza recorded was 37.4 meters in diameter and covered in 800kg of cheese, that’s the same width as 4 tennis courts and the equivalent to the average cows weight in cheese!

The most expensive pizza ever sold in a restaurant was £2,150 and was topped with smoked salmon, venison, cognac marinated lobster, champagne-soaked caviar and edible gold, for the same money you could buy 4 x iPads (32GB) and have enough left over for a Pizza Hut meal for about 20 people!

So there you have it folks... If that hasn't got you salivating we don't know what will

Sources: www.oxfam.org, www.yourguidetopizza.com, www.guinessworldrecords.com, www.pizzahut.com

If our yummy Pizza facts have your mouth watering, you may be interested in our fantastic competition to WIN a food-lover's dream holiday to Alabama worth £4000 to celebrate the Year of Food with Prezzybox! Simply click here for details of the competition and how to enter.

You may not know, but the top brass at Prezzybox hail from England's 2nd city Birmingham. By some miraculous coincidence Alabama is home to the US's namesake so we thought it only proper to compare the 2 Birmingham's to see which one out does the other!

We all know that the original is famous for its distinctive Brummie accent, birthplace of Ozzy Osbourne and home to the glorious Aston Villa, but how much do you know about the one in Alabama and when it comes to stats how do they compare?

Thankfully our intrepid researcher and design combo have collated all of these 'need to know answers' on the natty infographic. Allow Battle of the Brums to commence...

So there you have it... an honourable draw which is quite fitting

Sources: 

Wikipedia / www.visitbirmingham.com / www.yourtownalabama.com / www.bullring.co.uk / 2010 Census UK / Census bureau of Alabama / Birmingham Heritage / www.birminghamal.gov / www.birmingham.gov.uk

As Mother’s Day is just around the corner our intrepid research and design combo thought it would be an interesting experiment to actually price up the ‘Job of Mom’ and see how many of you would actually apply…

Advertisement - Mom Required

Looks pretty attractive on first glance doesn't it!! Almost £90,000 for a year’s work and I’m guessing many of you are already reaching for your resume…

But don’t be so hasty! What does the job of Mom entail, what are the hours and is it really as attractive as it looks at first glance?

Childcare

The role of Mom to pre-school children is a full time one in every sense of the word as she needs to be on call to provide childcare 24hrs a day, 365 days a year.  However, the average child sleeps 8 hours a night, so that only equates to a mere 16 hours a day actually working, with the other 8 hours being ‘on call’. Child's play!

Caring for children in your own home is a service similar to that of a Nanny. On average a Nanny is paid £8 per hour, and normally works 37.5hrs a week, has two days off a week, is entitled to paid-holidays and only works evenings after prior arrangement. Unfortunately our Mom has no such luxury as for the first 4 – 5 years of the child’s life, she has to work 7 days a week, has no holiday time (unpaid or otherwise). At 16 hours a day, this equates to 5840 hours a year or 112 hours a week dedicated to Childcare alone.

Once the little one makes his or her way into the world of education then the job of Mom becomes a little easier as Children spend 38 weeks of the year in school, which is a minimum of 836 hours. This means that the quota required for childcare is a mere 5000 hours annually (96 hours a week) once they are donning their school uniform.

Household chores

Cleaning

The average Mom spends 69 minutes a day cleaning, which totals 8 hours 5 minutes a week or just over 420 hours a year.  With the average cleaning service costing £10 an hour, Mom completes £4,200 worth of cleaning a year.

What could Mom do with those 420 hours if she wasn't busy ‘mothering’? Swim the 140 miles of the Thames from Lechlade to the South Bank, twice, or climb Mount Kilimanjaro with time to spare for a wildlife safari. A tempting alternative I’m sure…

Cooking

Moms spend around 13 hours a week preparing meals which equates to 28 days a year or 2.3 days a month. To employ a domestic cook for this period of time would cost £5,746 yearly.  If Mom was actually paid for this service she could afford to eat out once a week at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck restaurant or have a weekly tipple of Dom Peringnon champagne.

Washing & Ironing

In a year a mum of two will do 125 loads of children’s washing, which is around 680kg and would cost £3,740 if sent to a laundry service.   This is the same weight as the original 1967 Mini Cooper S with driver and if laid out piece by piece would cover an entire Rugby pitch. Approximately 2hrs 10 minutes a week is spent on this chore including ironing.

Shopping

Mom spends about 2.5 hours a week shopping for food, including the big weekly shop and several smaller shops for essentials, add to this time spent buying clothes, school equipment, birthday gifts for friends etc , Mom spends 156 hours yearly shopping which is an average of 3 hours a week.  If Mom was to have this chore done by a personal shopper it would cost around £105 a week (£5460 a year) which alternatively could be spent on 7 pairs of the latest Jimmy Choos!

Chauffeurs service

9 hours a week of Mom’s time is spent chauffeuring kids to and from school, clubs, friends etc.  To hire a chauffeur to drive your own car would cost £15.60 an hour, a total cost of £7,300 a year.  If Mom did her yearly driving all in one go she would be able to travel from London-Paris-Brussels-Berlin-Warsaw-Budapest-Vienna-Madrid-London and have time to spend a day and a half in each city.

Nursing and well being

The average child will suffer 6-8 respiratory infections and 2-3 stomach upsets a year, which means Moms spend an average of 56 days a year caring for sick kids.  With Healthcare assistants earning from £7-£10 an hour, mom is providing a service worth around £10,000 a year.  It’s not only physical well being Moms have to take care of, there is also mental welfare.  It’s estimated that Moms spend 3.7 hours a week counselling their children, dealing with issues such as lost favourite toys, first heart break, broken friendships to more serious issues like bullying.  Counsellors charge from £10-£35 per 1hr session, so Mom is providing a service valued at around £4,233 a year.  If Mom was paid for these duties, she and her fella would be able to take a 2 week break in a top suite at an all-inclusive Caribbean resort with butler service and still have some spending money left over.

Now, those of you who are used to reading charts for a living (and to be fair those of us who can do 7 days x 24 hours) will know that there are only 168 hours in a week, whereas Mom’s workload mounts up to a gargantuan 176 weekly hours! She’s not got time to have fun, wash, eat or have a little 'me time'! In short, Mom actually needs a 54 ½ week year just to get all her chores completed as her daily routine is 25.14 hours. When does she sleep?

What of the cost?  18 years at £87,399 equates to whopping £1.5 million that you'd need to fork out to employ good old Mom! For this you could buy 5 Rolls Royce Phantoms or Kate Middleton’s engagement ring 17 times over and have enough left to buy her wedding dress as well.

If the value of Mom is well on the way to a 6 figure income, what other jobs are there with this kind of pay?  Chief Execs, Directors and Managing Directors all earn £100,000+, with duties involving overall running of a company, leadership, negotiation and strategy - all of which are key skills required by our role!  This aside they only work a paltry 40 hour week and get around 6 weeks holiday a year.  Aircraft pilots earn slightly less than a 6 figure income with an average wage of almost £72,000, but they do have the chance to see the world and cheap/free flights and they have a minimum rest period of 12 hours after a shift. What Mom would give for 12 hours of rest a week, let alone after one shift!

The bar chart shows the value of our hypothetical paid Mom and our typical non-paid Mom and compares the wage with other professions, like nursing, policing and teaching to name a few. Aye karumba!

Conclusion

So there you have it! If Mom was a paid she’d earn a not too shabby £87,399.  But then she’s be working  176 hours a week and not have much respite – at least for the first few years of childhood, so even that mammoth wage wouldn't actually work out at that much... It's a little over £9.50 per hour.

Now consider the fact that this role actually receives NO financial remuneration. Not a penny… and whilst you’re considering this mind blowing fact, think about getting her something extra special and lovely for Mother’s Day to show her exactly how much you love and value her!

It just so happens we know a smashing website where you can buy lots of lovely Mother’s day presents!

*The average number of children per family in the UK is 1.8, with 2 children being the most common family size.  Therefore calculations will be worked out based on 2 children.

Sources used; babycentre.co.uk, netmums.com, Merry maids, jobcentreonline, washandiron.co.uk, fyldeexecutive.co.uk, Department of Education, CNN Money, BBC.co.uk, Daily Mail, NHS Direct, The Independent, carbonfootprint.com, The Guardian, prospects.ac.uk.

Embed our infographic!

</p> <p><a href='http://blog.prezzybox.com/files/2012/03/Mom_Blog_Infographic.png'><img style='width: 700px;' src='http://blog.prezzybox.com/files/2012/03/Mom_Blog_Infographic.png' alt='The value of mom by Prezzybox' /></a></p><br /><br /> <p><span>Infographic by <a href='http://www.prezzybox.com/'>PrezzyBox</a></p>

Pancake Day

Without doubt one of the finest celebrations the UK, nay the western World has on its calendar - Pancake Day! Hurray for Pancakes. Steeped in religious tradition, Shrove Tuesday on its way, the days are getting longer and thrown into the mix we get to eat lots of yummy food. Splendid! But where did Pancake Day Originate? Why do we celebrate it? And as is traditional with our blog posts what weird and wonderful facts can we find out about Pancake Day.

Origins of Pancake Day

Pancake Day or Shrove Tuesday to give it its correct name is the first day of Lent and was traditionally when households used up foods, like flour, eggs, fat and sugar, which were restricted during the 40 day period of lent. But why called Pancakes? Pancakes derive from the ancient Greek Teganites which come from their Tagenon meaning “Frying Pan”. These Teganites were made using similar ingredients to the ones we use for pancakes and were first described by Greek poets in 5th Century BC. They were first mentioned in English cooking in 1430, so they are pretty old!

All things Pancake

As is traditional with these blog posts, we like to bring you a whopping great load of facts about the chosen subject. Think of it as a refresher course for if ever you feature on Mastermind and you need a specialist subject. In this instance it would be…erm… pancakes.

Who holds the World record for eating the most pancakes? Andrei Smirnov of Russian descent ate a mammoth 73 pancakes in one hour. That’s more than 1 a minute. Woah!

What’s the biggest pancake ever made? The World’s biggest ever pancake measured in at 15 meter in diameter and weighed in at a whopping 3 tonnes. In an ode to the animal kingdom this giant pancake if stood up on its end is as high as 3 giraffes and weighs in at the same as a large hippo. It is however slightly less ferocious. Delightfully this gargantuan pancake was constructed in Rochdale in 1994.

How many pancakes do we eat? On average we consume 2 pancakes per person on Shrove Tuesday which means that we devour 117 million pancakes in one day. This requires enough milk to fill over 93 Olympic Swimming Pools and almost 13 million kilos of plain flower which weighs around the same as 55,319 Sumo wrestlers.

Toppings. It may be different strokes for different folks, but the weirdest pancake toppings have to be sour cream and caviar, ketchup and mustard, peanut butter and ice cream, coco pops and cream, cream cheese and strawberries.

What’s the difference between the types of pancake? Compared to English pancakes, American ones are the same as Scotch ones and contain a raising agent and batter is thicker with different ration of eggs/flour/milk. Crepes are pretty much the same as English pancakes but can sometime have higher proportion of eggs to flour and milk. Crepes and English pancakes have the filling rolled inside whilst your Scotch/American pancakes have the filling on top sometimes layered between a number of pancakes. So there you go…

Step by step guide to making a pancake

So how do you make the perfect pancake? Our intrepid culinary research team have scoured high and low to find the perfect recipe…

Makes 12-14 pancakes

• 110g plain flower
• 200ml semi skimmed milk
• 75ml water
• 50g butter
• 2 medium eggs beaten
• Pinch of salt

Add flour and salt to a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. Pour the beaten eggs into the well and whisk into the flour. In a jug combine the milk and water. Gradually add to the flour while continuing to whisk. Whisk until all liquid has been added and batter is the consistency of single cream. Melt butter in a frying pan over a high heat, reduce to a medium heat then add a ladle of batter and swirl pan to spread mixture evenly over the base. After 30 seconds the bottom should be lightly browned, use a spatula to ease off the pancake off the bottom of the pan and then flip.
Cook the other side for a few seconds and then slide onto a plate and serve with a filling of your choose.

Fillings

• Traditional
o lemon juice and sugar
o Orange juice and sugar

• Sweet toothed
o Lemon and Honey
o Golden Syrup

• Chocoholics
o Nutella
o Mashed and melted chocolate
o Melted chocolate and marshmallows

• American style
o Bacon and Maple Syrup
o Fruity – Strawberries and whipped cream
o Raspberries and ice cream

• Savoury
o Scrambled Eggs and Smoked Salmon
o Fried Leeks with Blue Cheese

Things you might need

We wouldn’t be a true retailer if we didn’t suggest some of our goodies which you might need to make the perfect pancake would we? Here’s a few kitchen gadgets which not only do we love, but also aid the production of the cake of the pan?

The Russian Doll Measuring Cups, will not only will they help you measure out the flour for your pancakes and look great in your kitchen, but due to the Russian Doll concept they’ll also take up minimum space.

The Apron Guides is a great way to keep stray batter off your clothes and keep handy cooking tips, like numeric conversions, close at hand.

Marshmallow fluff is a delicious goo that makes a great pancake filling either on its own or combined with grated chocolate.

The M-Spoons. These cute measuring spoons are the perfect addition to your kitchen! Each one fits into the other just like Matryoshkas do, or in laymans talk just like Russian Dolls do!

But why do we celebrate St Valentine's Day? Where did it come from? Was it just a commercial idea dreamt up by entrepreneurs of yesteryear (and if so why didn't they invent a LOT more similar celebrations? Grrrr!) or does it have some more deep seated mystical relevance? Oooohhhhh (spooky mystical ghost sound).

And whilst we're on this journey of enlightenment, why do we celebrate it in the way we do? Why cards flowers and chocolates? Why only the 1 day and why this particular day? Thankfully we tasked our analytical brain box (Amanda) with these questions and she gleefully scurried off to find the answers for your delectation's...

The Origins of St Valentine's Day

The origins of Valentine’s Day are thought to date back to the time of the Roman Empire around 300AD and the martyrdom of a Roman Priest called Valentine with festivals linked to fertility taking place in mid February (what is it about those Romans? Everything was about killing and sex!)

These festivals are far removed from the current notion of Valentine’s day, as they included the sacrifice of goats and involved boys wearing the resulting hide slapping women in the face!  In a precursor to Blind Date, another ritual was the placing of girls names in an urn, boys then drew a name and the matched couple spent the year together to see if they fell in love. They could have saved themselves 364 days 23 hours and 59 minutes by simply using our Love Compatibility Test on the Little Love Bot (blatant plug number 1 for our new website!).

Seems that 300AD was a popular year for all things 'naughty' as it is also thought to be the year when the Kama Sutra was written! Bazinger!

Why do we send Valentine's Day Cards?

The first recorded Valentine’s card dates back to the 1400s, with the first manufactured cards appearing in the 1800s. But why send cards in the first place? Well, in 'Ye Olde Times' people used to sing to their Valentine in an demonstration of their love. Then, in the 1400s some bright spark had the notion of jotting down these verses and adding drawings and embroidery and before you knew it the Valentines Day card was born!

Seems us humans are a soppy lot! Last year over 1 billion Valentine’s Day cards were sent in the world, which marks a whopping 14.2% of the population. The average card costs £3 which means that as a species we spend a gargantuan £3billion’s on cards!

Why do this? In its place we could buy 18 Octopus yachts like the one owned by Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen? FYI the Octopus comes complete with 2 helicopters, a swimming pool and a 10 man submarine and you’d still have a bit left over for the £20m a year maintenance costs.

Sadly 1 billion cards equates to 500 tonnes of card, which would use 12,000 trees - enough to cover the UK  4 times over. Instead spending billions on cards this Valentines Day we recommend everyone saves their money whilst still conveying a romantic message. How? Simply leave a message of love on the Little Love Bot (blatant plug for our awesome new website number 2!). The money saved could buy Buckingham Palace 3 times or rebuild the White House a whopping 31 times. In your face American buildings of importance. Ours are soooooo much better!

Flowers and Chocolate - the way to a womans heart

By far the most popular Valentines gift is flowers with 2.3 million bunches being sold in the UK last Valentines, enough to fill 77 football pitches and equating to £34.5m.  For £34.5m you could have bought Ireland on Dubai’s famous World development and still had a bit left over for a Bugatti Veyron.

The red rose is a flower synonymous with love, which is probably why it is the most purchased flower at Valentines and the most expensive.  Part of the expense is down to the time taken to produce the perfect single stem, which is 50-70 days, by which time you could have rowed the Atlantic or completed the Tour de France 3 times!

What do you do if you’re not expecting to receive any flowers this Valentines?  Well you could do what 15% of American women did last year and send them to yourself. Britain 2, America 0!

After flowers, chocolates are the next most popular Valentines gift with £29m being spent on them last Valentines, which is roughly 5.8m boxes.   If all these boxes were stacked side by side they would reach from London to Moscow.

Struggling to find the perfect gift? (I think you know where this is going...) Then why not check out the 'Gifts of Love Generator' on our awesome new website the Little Love Bot (blatant plug number 3 yada yada yada!).

How much should you spend on the other half?

When it comes to how much to spend on a valentines gift men are the most generous with 33% spending more than £20 on a gift compared to women who tend to spend less than £20 #gomen!

But what about going that extra yard (or 0.9144 metres for those who prefer metric)...

If you’re looking to splash out this Valentines, how about snapping up Castle Carbonana in Italy?  This castle, which dates back to 400BC comes with its own helipad (added much later) and makes a perfect get away if you have a spare £10m lying around.  It would take the average person in the UK 365 years to earn enough to buy it but based on current salaries and bonuses RBS banking chief John Hourican could buy it from 2 years work and still have £1.8m in loose change. In fact if all the RBS chiefs pooled their bonuses for the year they could buy it 50 times over!!!

If a castle is a little bit out of your price range how about your own private island in Brazil? A snip at only £1.6m.  You could have the money in 59 years, or alternatively you could ask David Beckham to give you 24 days pay or Wayne Rooney a gargantuan 49 days earnings.

Other gifts of exuberance... How about the World’s largest cut emerald the size of a watermelon valued at $1.15 million (obviously not THAT popular as it recently failed to sell at auction), a diamond encrusted bra by Victoria Secrets for $10,000,000, a night in the imperial suite at President Wilson Hotel in Geneva for  £20,800,  or a cute little pedigree German Shepard puppy for between £2,000-£15,000! Woof!

What do Celebrities buy one another?

When it comes to expensive Valentines gestures then take a look at how the celebs do it.  Before they were married Katy Perry bought Russell Brand a Lilac Bentley Brookland for around $341,000 and when Courtney Cox was married to David Arguette she gave him a carousel horse costing around $630,000 and George Clooney treated his then girlfriend to a romantic $40,000 hotel suite.

But does money buy you love and happiness?  Based on these examples, no.  Brand and Perry split this year, Cox and Arguette split in 2010 and Clooney and Larson went their separate ways in 2008.  Maybe best to stick to flowers and chocolate!

So there you have it... Next time you leave it till the last minute to buy your nearest and dearest a Valentines Day card from the local garage with a bunch of manky old flowers remember that you're potentially disrespecting 100's years of tradition. Not to mention the Little Love Bot.

Sources: BBC, CBNC, The Telegraph, Professional Florists UK, Office of National Statistics, British Musuem, www.history.com, In style, www.celebs.com. Forbes, www.conservatree.org, Daily Mail

As the winter draws in (wasn't it summer like 3 days ago??) then there's not a lot better on a Saturday night, than popping open a bottle of vino, snuggling up on the sofa with your slanket and Giant slipper and popping on the Factor. Splendid!!

The only thing that enhances this already 'delightful' experience is the possibility that you're going to win a pretty packet on the eventual winner and thus a super-dooper X factor Sweep Stake is required. But where to find one? (Oh the suspense!!!)...

Evidently our designer was a little bored on Friday morning ... erm... The marketing team, rather than driving copious amounts of sales to the website felt that an X Factor Sweepstake kit was required and before you could say 'wibble' Laura in Design had knocked up this impressive sweepstake kit.

....Ta daaaaa!

For those of your who are not 'au fait' with the ways of the Sweepstakes they are as easy as pie! All you need do is:

1. Print out the attached PDF.
2. Cut up the squares with peoples names on.
3. Fold them up.
4. Put them in a cup or some similar storage device (hat, bowl or any other recepticle is fine).
5. Allow interested parties  - be it family members, colleagues, friends - whoever. You decide! (Ed - wrong programme - that's Big Bro!) to pick their name from the recepticle.
6. Make sure you collect the pre-determined monetary denomination from each entrant. Don't do IOU's. It gets messy!
7. Jot down the entrants name next to the contestants name that correlate with their selection from the afore mentioned recepticle.
8. Each week - when one of the contestants is 'booted off' the show then cross that person off the list.
9. On the final week you'll be left with 2 or 3 finalists and the suspense will be...well...unbearable!
10. When the winner is announced hand over the dosh to the person who picked out the winners name (point 5).
11. Simples!

So there you have it guys. My money is on Janet or the Two Essex girls. Unfortunately I picked out Kitty from the PB.HQ Sweepstake, so I'm guessing that was a waste of £1.

Oh well, there's always the Strictly sweepstake...

Are you planning to do your Christmas shopping online this year?

If not then you bloomin well should be!!! Obviously we've got a vested interest in encouraging people to get out their lap tops as opposed to donning their overcoats but we need more than just ghusto. We need good hard evidence. So, we tasked super statto - Amanda - to look into the effects on your ticker, your wallet and the World in general of high street shopping and she came back with some pretty alarming stats which you can see below...

Health Impact

When it comes to the stress caused by high street Christmas shopping, it can have a very real impact on your health. Here's some alarming stats:

• 50% of shoppers experience an increase in blood pressure that can be classed as dangerous. According to NHS Direct blood pressure levels of 140/90mmHg are classed as high so beware!
• 10%  of shoppers increase in heart rate.
• 47% of shoppers suffer from headaches.
• More likely to come into contact with cold and flu germs

It gets worse!

According to NHS Direct numerous injuries incurred during Christmas shopping include cuts from packaging, strains and sprains from carrying heavy bags and bruises from other shoppers, whilst a women had her arm broken at a Toys R Us store in the US after being trampled by other shoppers during post Thanks Giving sales (www.angelfire.com).

So, has anyone actually died Christmas Shopping?

Unfortunately YES!

A 75 year old women died in Oxford in 2008 after being knocked to the ground while Christmas shopping (Daily Mail), whilst in the US in 2008 several people were trampled to death by eager shoppers in shopping malls (ABC news).

The Weather

If the potential of getting seriously injured is not bad enough there's the cold weather to contend with as well...

Last Christmas snowfall increased in 2010 by 45% on 2009 at an average snowfall of 8.4cm throughout the entire country (NOAA)! 76cm of snow fell in the Peak District on 1st Dec 2010 and snow fell on 12 days between 1st Dec and Christmas Day.

whilst the average maximum temperature was a paltry 4.5 degrees centigrade and minimum of -1.2oC (Met Office). In fact, 2010 was the coldest December for 120years! The maximum temperature in Dec was 12C, whilst the lowest was -21.3C, with a shocking average temperature of -0.6C. The temperature fell below -18C on 10 nights. Brrrr!

Strangely enough 7 out of 10 people say online Christmas shopping is more relaxing than the high street. Go figure!

Stress

So, what is it about Christmas shopping that people find stressful?

In short this is pretty obvious (but we've made a nice graphic for it anyway!). Things that people find stressful are:

1. Crowds
2. Queues
3. Not knowing what to buy
4. The cost
5. Not finding what you want. Grrrrr.

With all this "stressfulness" people become agitated and then bad things tend to happen!

A Walmart worker died during Black Friday in 2008 whilst 2 men were shot at ToysRus in California during the same 'festive' season (CNN News). Thankfully there were no deaths in 2009 but there were a number of stabbings whilst at a Memphis store shoppers threatened queue jumpers with tazers and pepper spray (consumerist.com). Last year 7 people died, one of whom was a man stabbed by a fellow shopper to prevent him buying the last Xbox 360, whilst another was a women bludgeoned to death for a doll (www.uncoeror.com).

Don't believe us? Check out some of the links on Youtube here and here which aptly demonstrate the madness!!!

Whatever happened to 'Goodwill to all men'?

Wealth Impact

If you compare the cost of doing your Christmas shopping on the High Street compared to Online, it would look something like this:

The High Street

Petrol - The average cost of fuel is 133.8ppl Unleaded(AA). The average journey in to a town is 12 miles – so this is going to cost £2.09 each way in petrol. Cost = £4.18.

Parking in city centre for 6 hours  = £7.50

Refreshments e.g. coffee = £2.80

Lunch - sandwich, crisps and drink = £3.30-£6.05

Total = £17.78 - £19.53

Online

Delivery Charge = £4.00 average

Refreshments e.g. coffee = £0.23

Lunch - sandwich,  crisps and drink = £1.80-£2.00

Total = £6.03-£6.23

Plus products are on average 15-20% cheaper online and sometimes even 50% cheaper and it's easier to compare prices.

But what does this mean in real terms?

Savings would be £13.30 per person, which are gargantuan £812 million based on the adult population of the UK which could buy 17,500 units to house the homeless or could pay the salary of 37,600 newly qualified teachers for a year, or if the mood take you 10 Cristiano Ronaldo's!

Environmental Impact

Every year we throw away 100,00 tonnes of carrier bags. This is the equivalent weight of 14,285 male adult elephants (each weigh a splendid 7 tonnes) or 500 Boeing 747s (which come in at a huge 200 tonnes each).

There is an 18% increase in carrier bag usage at Christmas compared to the rest of the year.

Traffic pollution increases in the run up to Christmas due to increase use of cars and increased journey times due to congestion. The average emissions per 12 mile journey is a huge 0.01 tonnes of CO2 based on average petrol car! (www.carbonfootprint.com)

Time Factor

You'll also save time shopping online.

The average time online shopping in total is 6 hours (ISACA), whilst shopping on the high street on average time is 3 times this at 18 hours over several trips. The average length of 1 shopping trip according to a recent John Lewis Christmas Survey is 3 hours. Online shopping therefore equates to 840hrs time saving per shopper per lifetime which they could spend flying to New York and back 60 times, Cycling from Land’s End to John o’Groats and back with a few days spare. Alternatively you could read War and Peace (twice), or watch all the James Bond, Harry Potter, Lord of Rings and Star Wars films 9 times each!!!

Conclusion

So there you have it folks. Conclusive proof that it is detrimental to your health, wealth and the environment if you shop on the High Street this Christmas. We suggest you stop it pronto!

Disclaimer: Prezzybox disclaims any inaccuracies in the content contained in this blog post/release. Our analyst spent days and days toiling over the content and to the best of our knowledge it is all correct. If it’s not then you have our humbug apologies!

Sources used include www.BBC.com, www.NHSdirect.com, Daily Mail, ABC News, CNN US, www.carbonfootprint.com, ISACA, Met Office, www.boeing.co.uk, The AA, UK Crime Stats, www.consumerist.com, www.angelfire.com, www.prnewswire.co.uk.

OK. So, last Christmas, Prezzybox embarked on the production and launch of our first ever TV advert.

It  evoked emotions from total excitement through to one which had us totally papping it.

At this point I have to point out .... We had ZERO experience in making a TV advert. None. nada. zip...

This apparent lack of knowledge was exacerbated by the fact that there is no independent body which gave noobies like us a guide to producing & launching an advert. Was this a conspiracy by TV companies to keep 'telly ad's' the play thing of a select few marketeers?

If this was the case then fear not people as we have therefore taken it upon ourselves to produce a super-dooper guide to making your  TV advert.

Why do a TV advert?

Having traded for 10 years online (read about Prezzybox through the ages here) we've pretty much exhausted all of the online avenues of promotion. From SEO, PPC, Affiliates and Partnership promotions - we've done the lot! We therefore wanted to chance our arm at something a little different, totally out of our comfort zone. "Let's do a TV advert" shouted one over-enthusiastic member of the team and before we had time to say "diddle" we'd embarked on the journey of getting our name out there in lights on the big screen.

If you're in the same boat and are looking to make an advert following these 5 simple steps will REALLY help!

Step One - The Budget (Can We Afford it???)

Pretty obvious question but it soon became apparent that we had no idea how much it was going to cost us. Good start! However we quickly found an organisation called Thinkbox who are the marketing body for commercial TV who became a great contact. In short, it was evident that you could spend anywhere from thousands to millions of pounds. Expenditure is split into 2:

• The production of the advert

Having worked with Company Grrrr! initially (see bottom of the page) we had a ball park figure for the production of an advert and having spoke to others were confident that we could produce an advert for around the £10K mark. This was cheaper than we expected. Smashing!

• The booking of the media space

Media space is not sold in adverts, it is sold in TVR's (Television Viewing Ratings). So - it's not as simple as saying "we want to have 200 adverts on Channel X".

TVR's measure the popularity of a programme or advert by comparing the number of target audience viewers who watched against the total available as a whole. One TVR is equivalent to 1% of a target audience. If an ad in Coronation Street gets a Housewives TVR of 20, that means that 20% of all Housewives viewed the ad. We calculated that we could afford 13 TVR's which would mean that over the 16 day period approximately 13 million people would see the advert for £20K.

The more popular the programme the more TVR's it has and vice versa. So - if you want your advert to appear lots of times you need to choose programmes/channels which are less popular.

Another point to consider is whether or not you can get contributions from suppliers. In return for you featuring their product they may be prepared to contribute financially or give stock for free.

Total Cost - Approximately £30K

With supplier contribution/a decent ROI we could afford it - just! On to step two...

Step Two - Producing the Advert

The production of the advert is determining everything from the concept, through to the script, the visuals and the key message you are trying to get across. As the advert was focussed on Christmas and alongside the fact that we sell gifts for everyone we wanted to ensure that this message was put across. Simples!

My first piece of advice when making an advert is to allow yourselves plenty of time. After the near disaster of working with company Grrrr!, we had less than a month to plan, execute and deliver the advert. Not good.

Luckily we found ourselves an awesome production company called PMA Digital, who held our hand through the whole process.  A company like PMA Digital are worth their weight in gold.

As we only had around 3 weeks to get the advert produced and over to the TV stations, PMA recommended that we made it completely CGI with no actors and made it completely product focussed. We agreed and thus it was go go go!

The Making of the Advert

PMA very quickly put together a story board which we loved. The concept was fairly simple - to show products being wrapped, and then transported by a crane to sit under a Christmas tree with loads of other Christmas gifts accompanied by the dulcet tones of a sexy voice over artist. We wanted to look classy al 'a John Lewis/Marks & Spencer as opposed to some cheap brand.

Here's one of the early perspectives (showing a product coming out the ground ready to be wrapped) which really whetted our appetite!

Whilst that was going on, we'd negotiated contributions from 10 lovely suppliers to help pay for the advert. BOOM! In return we agreed to feature their products on the advert which would go out to over 13 million people.

The advert was going to focus on the gifts that we sold, getting across the fact that we had a wide range of products. Something for everybody.

Our involvement in the production of the advert was minimal.  All we needed to do is send PMA the products for them to photograph and then give the thumbs up to various aspects of the ad - be it the voice over artist, the music and the script.

For example here's a version of the logo which PMA had made to look all snazzy and 3D. We really felt things were happening!

From here, PMA went about putting more "meat on the bones" and actually mocking up the ad in stills so we could see what it looked like visually. Here's a number of examples:

and...

and...

Woweee!!!

Advert Draft 1

Finally we had the advert first draft. Meggggaaaaa exciting - all we needed now was the voice over.

Selecting the Voice Over Artist

This once more was done in conjunction with PMA (there's a common thread here!). Finally we whittled it down to 2... Did we go for the sexy girl voice or the masculine fella.... Here's the 2 artists we had to choose between. You can click on each to have a listen (but please be aware they are nowhere near as devilishly handsome in real life).

We had to opt for the sexy chic didn't we???

Music

We'd opted not to have a jingle (maybe a bit too tacky) so the music was important. We'd whittled it down to a shortlist which you can hear clicking on the image below. Pretty snazzy eh!

Finally we had an advert

After what was literally no more than 3 weeks we had a Christmas advert. Wow! We'd grown from a company selling gifts from a bedroom in a house to a company that had a TV advert. A proud moment. We think you'll agree the advert is an absolute belter!!!!

Step Three - Media Planning

The 3rd step to consider is the Media Planning. Where and when you want to air the advert.

You obviously need to consider the demographic you are hoping reach as well as time you want the advert to go out. Adverts in the middle of the night are dirt cheap, but I'm guessing not that many people of your chosen demographic will see it. ITV 1 will have a lot more viewers than the Biography channel, but this will eat in to your TVR's.

Other useful points to consider are the fact that channels with a +1 actually count as showing another advert (it's one out of your allocation) and you may also want to avoid programmes which don't sit well with your brand - generally those about death!

We found another awesome company to work with called Village Green. Village Green handled all of our media buying and dealt with everything from which channels would work best for us, which times/programmes to avoid and generally where to air the advert.

Step Four - Legalities

Obviously there's a whole raft of legalities which need to be adhered to. Clearcast are the organisation who approve the advert and you need to liaise closely with them. They provide a 'Six Step guide to getting your ad on the air' which is really good to read and gives a good guide to all of the points you need to adhere to. Your script needs to be accurate (we had to say "sponsor" a meerkat as opposed to "adopting one" as technically one doesn't come to live with you, for example) and there are certain rules which need to be followed, such as putting the price on products over £30 and getting the brand owners permission to display licenced products.

Step Five - Analysis

Being a cyber-geek this (and having to answer to the rest of the Directors) this was the most important aspect of the advert - namely DID IT PAY?

Being an online retailer we can track EVERYTHING we do online. We can see where a visitor comes to the site from, how they navigate through the site, which pages they visit and how much they spend. We can therefore attribute sales to certain marketing channels and determine how succesfully they are performing and what the ROI is for each channel. This is perfect as it allows us to focus on the marketing areas which are proving to be most profitable.

This however is not the case with offline marketing. As it was our biggest ever marketing promotion we therefore needed to devise a plan of action which would enable us to analyse the ROI from the advert. We did this in 3 ways:

• Real Time Analytics

As we knew to the minute the time that each advert was aired, we could analyse real time tracking to see what impact the advert had on visitor figures. We used a software called Chartbeat which enabled us to watch people visiting the website.

Findings

Very often the visitor levels would rise between 33% and 50% as the advert was being aired. This increased customer level would then last for a period of approximately 30 minutes.

• Site-wide Sales uplift immediately after each advert

We knew the exact time each advert was aired. So, we devised a plan to examine sales 30 minutes before each advert, 30 minutes after each advert and then the 30 minutes after this (our analyst LOVED us for this!). From this information we could determine the uplift for 30 minutes after each ad was aired and plot it against the previous/subsequent 30 minutes. From this we compiled an average uplift, which we could pretty confidently attribute to the airing of the advert.

Findings

• Sales of the specific products on the advert

We couldn't differentiate sales of the products driven by the advert against those not generated by the advert. However, not to be defeated we monitored the sales of specific products on the ad, to see which ones proved the most popular. This would help to determine which products we used for future adverts.

Findings

It's apparent from the chart that the newer and more unique products proved to be the more popular with 3 of them accounting for 71% of product sales attributed to the advert.

This is confirmed when you look at the graph below detailing the top 20 sales on the site. 3 of the products featured in the advert appeared in our top 20 (highlighted in red) which is really pleasing. Please note we've removed the product titles/figures to stop our naughty competitors finding out what sells best

Conclusion

So, there you have it folks, our super-dooper guide to producing your first TV advert. If you're looking to produce your first TV advert and don't know where to start, then you really should have a look at our starter guide. It will help a lot.

Would we do it again? Well, that really is the $64m question... Answers on a postcard.

Toodle pip.

Zak.

* How it nearly went oh so wrong...

We started on this advertising merry-go-round as we'd been approached by a company who I'll refer to 'Company Grrrr!' about helping us produce and promote the advert. Their concept was simple. Because they have a 'relationship' with lots of Sky TV channels they would "make us an advert for  £14,000 and give us 50 free adverts tabutt. A match made in heaven we thought. Not so!

Company Grrrr! on the outset seemed like the perfect partners. They were going to make us a TV advert for the price of a small hatchback car and give us 50 adverts for free. They seemed unconcerned that there was little over a month till the advert was due to air (the start of December) as they "had done things on a quick turnaround many a time before".

Having signed the contract and booking more media space through another company we went to visit Company Grrrr! on the 4th November (advert was going live on 4th December so it was cutting it fine) full of excitement at the prospect of seeing concepts/story boards etc.

Alarm bells started ringing when we got to their offices and they were totally ill prepared. Not only did they keep calling us 'PRESENTbox', but their only concept was to have somebody infront of a green screen using our gadgets. Storyboards and other ideas were none existent!

After a 5 hour meeting we left feeling totally shaken and annoyed withourselves that we'd signed a contract with a company who quite clearly had no idea what they were doing. We had also booked some media space with another company so we had no option to call it off. Eeeeeek!

Adamant that we were not going to work with Company Grrrr! we either had to find somebody else to produce the advert or write off the deposit we had paid for the media space - not chuffin likely! Luckily we met PMA Digital and the rest is history...

Being the type of company who like to interact with our customers (OK, our analyst/bloggers are a wee bit nosey!!) we thought we'd do a little experiment based on peoples spending habits to see if there is any correlation between the amount of money they spend on gifts for the ones they love and the duration they stay with their nearest and dearest. 

Valentine’s Day presented itself as the perfect opportunity to run such a survey as surely as a nation, this is when we are at our most generous and offer our protestations of love to our nearest and dearest in the form of a goody of one type or another.

On this premise, We somewhat ingeniously entitled this the:

"Does how much you spend on your other half determine how long you'll be with them? Survey".

Catchy.

From the outset we have to say the survey has revealed some interesting and slightly alarming results!

Out of the 168 respondents, the data shows that people who spend the lowest amount on gifts for each other stay together longer. Eeeek!

I know that this is sure to strike a note of terror into every chocolate loving; handbag toting; jewellery wearing; designer-label clad woman the World across, but the facts speak for themselves! In a nutshell, people who spend less stay together longer. (Men all over the country are rubbing their hands together with glee!)

Don't believe us? Here's  a couple of the obligatory, all important (although slightly dull looking) pie charts:

The survey showed that in the group of people spending £10 or less on their Valentine, a whopping 67% of them have been together for more than 11yrs! In the group spending £30 or less, only a third of them have been together for more than 11 yrs; and for those of us who weighed in for a prezzy between £30 and £50 on their Valentines, only a paltry 20% have been together for more than 11 years.

More alarmingly - especially for those who like the finer things in life - of  those who spent £50 or more for their "gift of luuurrrve" only a measly 15% of them have been together with their loved one for more than 11yrs and a whopping 31% of them will be moving on to pastures new relationship wise in less than 3 years. Gulp!

By now I'm sure that every red blooded woman will be sitting down in a cold sweat and men everywhere will be cheering! Unless of course they want to split up with their 'other half' as it could end up costing em!

Sylvia Edwards - content Editor for Prezzybox.com commented "Although the results were slightly surprising, the news isn’t all bad though as the survey also shows that generally speaking, men tend to spend more than women on gifts for their loved ones". Ah but, hang on a minute, from the survey’s point of view, that means the relationship will not necessarily last! Drat! Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place!

I guess the way to look at this is in a positive way and ask whether the duration of the relationship is more important than expensive gifts. A friend of mine used to test the strength of her feelings for a man by asking herself whether she would rather spend an hour with said beau or an hour perusing the racks in Marks and Spencer, and the one time M & S lost, she married the man! She was more interested in spending the rest of her life with this man than in wondering how much he would spend on presents for her on St. Valentines Day and they are still together now. Who said romance was dead?

Most women would I think agree that a single rose says so much more than a whole bunch of roses and even a cheap bouquet of flowers bought hastily from a service station for no reason at all can mean the world if it says “I love you”.

I think most men would simply utter one word. "Hallelujah".

Maybe we should all take heart from the immortal words of two of our best loved, intelligent and enduring songwriters, namely, Lennon and McCartney when they sang….

“I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love”. It seems they got it right.

Ahhhaaaa - the Day of love is upon is. Happy Valentines Day one and all.

As is becoming tradition here on Prezzyblog, we've knocked up a cheeky little Infographic to celebrate the big day. However, we're concerned that this one is slightly risque! Please read at your own risk!

Our researchers/designer were tasked with designing a blog post which celebrated "spreading the love". Unfortunately they took this a little too literally and came up with the concept of "Sex Heroes - Bedroom endurance from REAL men". Ahem!

The faint hearted amongst you may prefer to stop reading now.

Being of the "potty minded" persuasion, instead of focusing on such facts as "how many men would be buying their loved ones flowers and choccies to celebrate the Day of St Valentine", or "what is the most popular meal doting wives would be cooking for their fellas" they instead focused on finding all manner of Bedroom Antics - and record breaking ones at that.

Hoots of laughter (and to be honest whoops of amazement) were heard coming from their office as they researched the 'discipline' and discovered such answers as "who has slept with the most partners in one day?" and "who (or in fact what) has the largest... male appendage?".

Record breaking men were also recognised such as the Indian father who sired his 21st child aged 90 and the Moroccan leader who was daddy to 1042 kiddywinks with his 500 wives. We salute you gentlemen!

Some of the records are a little bit too close to the knuckle to write about, although we hope we've demonstrated them pictorially in the infographic. Simply click on it to get a closer look!!

Enjoy...

Embed our infographic!
<a href='http://blog.prezzybox.com/files/2011/02/Champions-of-the-Bedroom-real-men-real-endurance-for-blog.gif'><img style='width: 400px;' src='http://blog.prezzybox.com/files/2011/02/Champions-of-the-Bedroom-real-men-real-endurance-for-blog.gif' alt='sex heroes info graphic' /></a></p> <p><span>Infographic by <a href='http://www.prezzybox.com/'>PrezzyBox</a></p> <p>