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[ Marketing news and other sick stuff ]

It may look like just another department store, but American Wilderness Experience promises shoppers something new--a retail-nature hybrid, complete with "animal gated attraction." Created by Ogden Corp.--a New York company better known for catering airplane food and incinerating waste--American Wilderness targets consumers who want the look and feel of nature but don't really have time for it.

According to a senior VP at Ogden, an average American Wilderness visit--which averages about an hour--compares favorably to the average Grand Canyon visit, which lasts 22 minutes. A $9.95 adult admission ticket buys a tour of five "biomes" recreating California landscapes (complete with hidden scent canisters emitting a forest fragrance) plus a chance to play in the Wild Ride motion-simulator theater, shop for nature bric-a-brac at the Naturally Untamed Boutique and eat nature-like delicacies at Wilderness Grill. (Wall Street Journal, 7/8/97)

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Rachel Pendergraft is outraged. "There's a lot of wackos out there that call themselves Klansmen," says the spokesperson for the KKK in Harrison, Arkansas. So the Knights have applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for protection of its official logo--a white diamond and Celtic cross. The Knights sell it on flags and are worried about pirating by unsavory others . . . you know, like all them anti-Christ faggots and Jews. (New York Times Magazine, 7/6/97)

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"I've gotten a lot of mail saying, 'I wish I'd known you were like this. I would have voted for you.' "

--Bob Dole, commenting on the success of his "uproariously, dryly funny" American Express commercials (Advertising Age, September 15, 1997)

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According to the Wall Street Journal, more and more lawyers, disenchanted with their profession, are turning to alternative careers. Among the options cited as preferable to legal work: horse trainer, airline mechanic, talent agent, and psychologist. (WSJ, 7/15/97)

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"Sometimes big rock bands get scared of being eaten up by the big corporate machine; we swallowed it before it swallowed us." --Bono of U2, Forbes, 9/22/97, explaining the $100 million marketing budget behind the band's PopMart release.

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"It's okay to wear logos in the '90s if you do it with a sense of irony."

--unidentified shopper on E! TV contrasting the '80s, when designers slapped logos over everything, with the more refined approach of the '90s (November 1997)

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USA Today's coverage of Lilith Fair: "Guys Like the Odds at Lilith Fair" (8/5/97):

One man feared tar and feathers. Another had to calm his father's nerves. Some immediately announced themselves as heterosexuals and said they were scoping out babes. One guy was hoping to meet his future bride. The men attending Lilith Fair . . . came for great music, they said. And the artists--Sarah McLachlan, Jewel, Joan Osbourne--delivered. But the expectations of male concertgoers enjoying the all-female headliners were as diverse as the crowd... Ticket-holder John Baum expected to see mostly women at the Merriweather Post Pavilion. And he did. "Looking around," he said, "I think it's three girls for every guy."

"I like those odds," added Matthew Nisenoff, 30.

"I don't understand why every single guy in the D.C.-area isn't here," said Michael Wellman, 32 . . .

The audience was mostly lesbian when it started, said one concert vendor. Now, halfway through the tour, she estimates, homosexuals make up about half the crowd . . .

"Save water. It's precious." --Coke billboard in Zimbabwe, where the Wall Street Journal (8/25/97) reports the product has become a staple in the wake of a water shortage.

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Raj Reddy is fed up with the system, but rather than resting on his laurels, the dean at Carnegie-Melon University is taking action. Reddy has waged a one-man crusade against boot time--the couple of minutes it takes a computer to start up. By Reddy's calculations, the one or two minutes per worker add up to $25 billion down the tube; as much as 1,000 "man years" a day of lost time. "There is absolutely no reason that I should be waiting to see if I have [email] for more than an instant," Mr. Reddy says. (WSJ, 3/11/97)

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Engineers at ParentNet Inc. have come up with a way to help parents feel closer to their kids--by watching them over the internet. Special video cameras in daycare centers take real-time photos of kids every few seconds and display them on the web. Users of the setup say it offers many advantages, such as providing parents with a sense of security and teaching kids how to act in front of cameras at a young age. Another company, Simplex Knowledge, has similar cameras in Connecticut preschools and is negotiating a partnership with IBM. Guess mom and dad won't be the only ones watching. (WSJ, 4/3/97)

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Now that "focus group" has become part of our standard vocabulary, researchers are having an increasingly difficult time eliciting candid responses from their subjects, but not necessarily because they're more media savvy. According to one account in the Wall Street Journal, consumers "display an alarming tendency to regurgitate ad-world language, saying they like a beer because it's full-bodied, for example."

To get marketing procedures back on track, researchers are looking for new ways of uncovering unconscious consumer responses. Greenfield Consulting Group, for example, has investigators run into shoppers in stores and mumble, "Gosh, I don't understand, there are so many brands" to try to get them to talk. Another agency, Leo Burnett, has researchers knock on test subjects' doors at sunrise to discover "what drives a dynamic choice at 7:30 a.m." (WSJ, 5/30/97)

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Could there actually be an unexploited inch of public space in New York City? Well, New York City Council thinks it may have found it. Under a new bill, the Council is considering allowing ads on the hoods of taxicabs. "It's a great idea," Committee Chair Norach Deas said. "I like it, it's cute, it's New York."

Under current law, the commission decides case by case whether to allow ads anywhere other than rooftops. So far this year, it has turned down proposals to turn cabs into Batmobiles, giant pocketbooks, and athletic shoes. The holdout: Commissioner Diane McGrath-McKechnie, who believes a yellow cab should look exactly like a yellow cab, without all the "nonsense." Medallion Media, the company that sells the ads on cabs, begs to differ. According to the company's president, "If you're talking about putting a decal on the hood of the car, you're only talking about 15 percent of the taxi. The rest of the car is bright yellow. . . . I think people will be able to figure it out." (New York Times, 11/4/97)

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Praise for What Kids Buy and Why (from the back cover):

"Finally there is a thought-provoking, child-development-based approach to marketing to kids! In a systematic, step-by-step process, Drs. Acuff and Reiher lay out the fundamental understandings that today's kid-targeting professional needs to succeed."

-- Joan Chiaramonte, PR, Roper Starch Worldwide

"Acuff and Reiher know more about the inner working of kids than anyone I know. Their approach to understanding how children behave will give marketers tremendous insight into how to target messages and products."

--Joel Ehrlich, Senior VP, DC Comics/Warner Bros. Promotions

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To drum up publicity for a new Jerry Garcia credit card, Private Issue decorated a 1959 Volkswagen microbus with the card's design and sent it out to tour U.S. concert venues and colleges. Credit card applicants--who are encouraged to donate nonperishable food items (toward what end is unknown)--are enticed with a chance to win the bus. (Advertising Age, 10/27/97)

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A small sampling of corporation-endowed professorships:

Coca-Cola Professor of Marketing, University of Georgia

Dow Chemical Co. Research Professor of Chemistry, Northwestern University

Federal Express Chair of Excellence in Information Technology, University of Memphis

Hanes Corporation Foundation Professorship, Duke University

La Quinta Motor Inns, Inc.

Centennial Professor of Business, University of Texas

Lego Professor of Learning Research, MIT

McLamore/Burger King Chair of American Enterprise, University of Miami

Nissan Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

Republic Bank Professor of Finance, Texas A&M

Rockwell International Chair of Engineering, UCLA

Sears Roebuck Professor of Economics, University of Chicago

United Parcel Service Foundation Professor of Logistics, Stanford University

(CovertAction Quarterly, Spring 1997, via Harpers)

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Long-declining farming communities have found two new ways to prop up their economies. The New York Times reports the growing prison industry has become "a tool for rural development." Small towns are now competing hard for the once feared "hotels," because, in the words of Mayor Ruth Carter of Canon City, Colorado, "We have a nice nonpolluting, recession-proof industry." At the same time, many family farms are now abandoning growing vegetables for the more lucrative field of "agritainment" or "agritourism." They are opening their farms to city slickers hungry for authentic old time experiences, and charging money for hay rides, petting zoos, u-pick fruits, and corn mazes. Says farmer Rich Hodgson, "Entertainment farming is the wave of the future for small farmers." And it took our country how many years to evolve the concept of "entertainment farming"? (NYT, 11/2/97, via Newspeak)

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"A lot of authors have gotten smart," says Warner Brothers producer Denise Di Novi. "They're laying out their books like movies." In other words, writing short, visual scenes, and roles for strong male leads. The really smart authors also create their protagonist with a particular star in mind (Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, or Brad Pitt). At least they don't have to worry about selling out. (NYT, 10/27)

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The first major rock act to sign on with a corporate sponsor sixteen years ago has raised the sponsorship stakes once again. For their Bridges to Babylon tour, the Rolling Stones have aligned with Sprint. The $5 million-plus sponsorship rights gets Sprint dibs on selling Babylon tickets, which the company made available weeks before the show's on-sale date. The catch: Stones fans must be Sprint customers or switch their business to Sprint in order to buy the tickets early. (Rolling Stone, 10/16/97)

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"[Buy Nothing Day is] in opposition to the current economic policy in the United States."

--from CBS's letter rejecting the Media Foundation's Buy Nothing Day commercial. All of the Big Three television networks rejected the paid PSA, which calls for a 24-hour shopping moratorium. (WSJ, 11/19/97)

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The British Film Institute has come up with a clever way to raise funds for its film restoration efforts: add the names of the donors to the credits. The BFI said that $8,500 will get your name on the screen by itself; $850 will get your name added to a group of other donors. Donations will be used as part of matching funds promised by the National Lottery for film restoration. (Film Threat Weekly, 11/24/97)

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Merrill Lynch & Co. is making a market where none has existed before--in PhD theses. The brokerage will sponsor a worldwide competition among new PhDs, seeking dissertations with potentially valuable innovations.

"PhD theses are undervalued assets in the knowledge economy," says Michael Schrage of the MIT Media Lab. "What we're doing is creating a new set of incentives" that will encourage PhD students to consider the commercial potentials of their research. (Business Week, 12/8/97)