As the deadline looms to enter the new calendar awards, The Calies, there could be a couple of last minute contenders – neither of which would ever have been in the fray a year ago.
Danilo swooped in to sign Kem Cetinay, the winner of the runaway success reality TV series Love Island, with the race now on to complete the photo shoot (in the sunshine island of Majorca) and hit retailers shelves in October in time for the calendar season.
Commenting on the latest signing, Daniel Prince, operations director of Danilo told PG Buzz: “There has been no escaping the huge popularity of Love Island over the summer, this, coupled with the likability of Kem among girls/ladies made him a strong calendar contender”. Daniel also suggests that there is “room in the male glamour market for a new pin-up star and we are confident Kem is going to be a big star.”
Heart throb Kem said he was “really excited” to have his first ever official calendar. His last “crazy few months” are likely to continue now with his fame, the release of a fitness campaign and of course his 2018 official calendar.
As the Danilo social media campaign is being meticulously planned by the company’s marketing maestro Claire Bates, so fellow calendar publisher, BrownTrout is riding on the back of PR of a different kettle of fish entirely.
Already causing quite a stir among retail buyers is Andrew McMeel’s Trumpisms day-to- day desk calendar that has been launched by BrownTrout.
Explaining the rationale behind the title, Jack Straw, md of BrownTrout said: “We had great success with ‘Bushisms’ 10 or so years ago and sold 3 million calendars worldwide. We never thought that this could be beaten…. and then along came ‘The Donald’. The man is on fire, so we had so much material so quickly and he is working on future year’s calendars already – he never stops!”
The Calies, the new UK calendar awards that have been launched by Max Publishing (owner of Progressive Greetings) with the support of the calendar community have now opened for entries. The deadline for publishers entering their 2018 calendars and diaries, as well as the 2017 Advent calendars is Monday 11 September.
