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SAN FRANCISCO - Air New Zealand is delving into the gay and lesbian market with a special themed flight featuring drag queens, pink cocktails and a cabaret performed by flight crew. The destination for the airline's one-time "Pink Flight," on Feb. 26, ex San Francisco, is the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia, one of the world's most well-attended gay events, said Jodi Williams, an Air New Zealand marketing director. "We're tailoring inseat entertainment with gay-friendly movies, contests, different music and things like that," Williams said. The airline also plans to throw a going away party for passengers,...

The following is the primary text of an e-mail I recently received from Amazon.com, from whom I regularly purchase conservative reading material. (Living here in the People's Glorious Republik of Seattlestan -- where the typical bookstore, whether chain unit or privately owned, is stocked on the presumption that it's next customer is most likely to be Hugo Chavez -- this is, quite literally, my only consistently reliable option, both cost- and availability-wise.) ********************* "Dear [xxxxx], "We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat by Zell Miller have also...

ATLANTA, Aug. 30 — In a stark departure from past practice, the American Cancer Society plans to devote its entire $15 million advertising budget this year not to smoking cessation or colorectal screening but to the consequences of inadequate health coverage. The campaign was born of the group’s frustration that cancer rates are not dropping as rapidly as hoped, and of recent research linking a lack of insurance to delays in detecting malignancies. Though the advertisements are nonpartisan and pointedly avoid specific prescriptions, they are intended to intensify the political focus on an issue that is already receiving considerable attention...

EVER since “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore has been the darling of environmentalists, but that movie hardly endeared him to the animal rights folks. According to them, the most inconvenient truth of all is that raising animals for meat contributes more to global warming than all the sport utility vehicles combined. The biggest animal rights groups do not always overlap in their missions, but now they have coalesced around a message that eating meat is worse for the environment than driving. They and smaller groups have started advertising campaigns that try to equate vegetarianism with curbing greenhouse gases. Some backlash...

"As privacy experts, we are frequently asked about "opting out", and which opt outs we think are the most important. This list is a distillation of ideas for opting out that the World Privacy Forum has developed over the years from responding to those questions. The list below does not contain all opt outs that are available. Rather, it contains the opt outs that we believe are the most important and will be the most useful to the most consumers. Many people have told us that they think opting out is confusing. We agree. Opting out can range from the...

Israel, Sex And Tourism By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Tel Aviv Beach ----June 24......."The pictures aren’t anything you wouldn’t see at a pool or a beach. Israel is always mentioned in the context of wars and violence. We want to show there is a normal life. Among the beautiful things we have are our women. We came there from 120 countries. Anytime you have a mix from any continents, you get very beautiful people. We don’t see having beautiful women as a problem." These were the wise words of Ambassador Arye Mekel, Consul-General of Israel in New York, responding...

Our daughter (recent HS grad) received a letter today from Vector, a marketing company. They market knives from a company called Cutco. Apparently, people who work for them do telemarketing to generate leads, then make appointments to visit prospective customers to show and (if possible) sell knives. The student workers have to pay about $140 (as a deposit) for a sample set of knives that they show. The worker gets paid about $15-$18 per appointment they make, regardless of whether a sale occurs. If they do make a sale, they get a percentage as a commission. I have my suspicions,...

A large retail chain had a problem. It sold three similar power drills: one for about $90, a purportedly better one at $120 and a top-tier one at $130. The higher the price, the more the store profited. But while drill know-it-alls flocked to the $130 model and price-fretters grabbed its $90 cousin, shoppers often ignored the middle one. So the store sought advice from a new breed of "price-optimization" software from DemandTec Inc. What followed offers us a clue about important shifts that technology is bringing to retail shopping. After analyzing an array of variables, including sales history and...

An image campaign breaking this week prescribes a daily dose of the NBC Universal-owned Hispanic cable channel Mun2 [pronounced "Moon-dos"] to prevent bilingual, bicultural young Latinos from becoming too much like gringos. Like a lot of the irreverent work from highly creative U.S. Hispanic shop La Comunidad, Miami, the ads may offend some. Three humorous commercials ask the question, "Are you becoming too gringo?" and recommend Mun2's music videos and TV shows as a cure. But they also touch on Latin stereotypes. In one spot, two young Latino men operating an ice-cream truck pursue girls who run off with their...

Women must have control over their own bodies." "Safe and legal abortion is every woman's right." "Who decides? You decide!" "Abortion is a personal decision between a woman and her doctor." "Who will make this most personal decision of a woman's life? Will women decide, or will the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington?" "Freedom of choice – a basic American right." In one of the most successful marketing campaigns in modern political history, the "abortion rights movement" – with all of its emotionally compelling catch-phrases and powerful political slogans – has succeeded in turning what once was a heinous crime...

It's not often you can compare Internet addresses with clothing, but a growing practice comes close, contributing to a global shortage in good names. Entrepreneurs have been taking advantage of a five-day grace period to sample millions of domain names, keeping the relative few that might generate advertising revenues and dropping the rest before paying. It's akin to buying new clothes on a charge card only to return them for a full refund after wearing them to a big party. The grace period was originally designed to rectify legitimate mistakes, such as registrants mistyping the domain name they are about...

Queer eye for this Brady guy: Ladies man Tom is gays’ fave, too By Laurel J. Sweet Friday, January 19, 2007 - Updated: 12:28 AM EST Tom Brady still has a ways to go before celebrating a fourth Super Bowl title, but gay men across the country have already embraced him as their champion Gay-oriented sports Web sites from coast to coast are ablaze with desire for Tom Terrific. “It’s equal rights. We get to look at him the same way women do, we get to want him the same way women do,” said “Robert,” a 41-year-old gay South Shore...

TUESDAY, Jan. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Before you take to heart any research about the health effects of beverages such as milk, fruit juice or soft drinks, find out who paid for the study. If a beverage manufacturer or industry group funded the research, the finding may be biased, researchers report."When a food company sponsors a study, it is much more likely to be positive" about the health effects of the product, said Dr. David Ludwig. He's the study's senior author and director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston, the pediatric teaching hospital for Harvard...

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 16 — Wanted: investment adviser — the younger the better. In a nod to the wisdom of youth, many wealthy, highly connected and well-educated technology investors are taking counsel and investment tips from their children, summer interns and twentysomething receptionists. These venture capital investors say there is good reason to ask young people to help them assess new technology: as the investors themselves are aging, the technology — including social networking Web sites and mobile gadgets — is designed for, used by and sometimes built by people half their age. “Children are a secret weapon in my...

A PROFIT WITH HONOR Walk into any Gap clothing store this holiday season and expect to see red T-shirts, red hats and red bracelets. Of course decorating with red is nothing unusual this time of year, but the merchandise is meant to remind customers of something not often associated with the holidays: the global AIDS epidemic. Gap is one of a number of companies this year who are tapping into consumers' growing desire to do good deeds with their purchasing dollars. Other retailers selling products to benefit humanitarian causes include Bath & Body Works, a division of Limited Brands Inc.,...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government's annual accounting of hunger in the United States reported no hunger in its last outing. Instead, it found "food insecurity." Likewise, no one is even considering retreating from Iraq. "Redeploying" the heck out of there is, however, an option. In Washington, words are a moving target that conceal at least as much as they reveal. Doublespeak runs through the discourse on Iraq, terrorism and domestic matters to a point where it's hard to tell what is going on. The libertarian Cato Institute recently took on the rising tide of fuzzy words in the fight against...

  A few minutes ago, Bill O'Reilly spent the first two segments of his Fox News Channel program, The O'Reilly Factor, condemning the upcoming Fox Network interview program featuring O.J. Simpson's quasi-confession to murdering Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. O'Reilly's guests criticized Simpson, Judith Regan, Harper-Collins Books, and the Fox Network. O'Reilly also criticized Simpson and threatened to personally stop buying any products of companies sponsoring the program. However, O'Reilly himself did not criticize Regan by name, nor did he himself make a single negative remark about the Fox Network for broadcasting the interview. Also conspicuous in its absence...

Greg is a 30-year-old regional manager for Rite-Aid, and he and his wife make about $60,000. They don't have any children, but they plan to soon. Greg shops at The Gap and Target. Phil, a marketing manager, is a little older than Greg and a little better educated. He and his wife pull in $85,000. Phil buys his clothes at Banana Republic and drinks Samuel Adams beer. When Ford unveils the redesigned Escape in Los Angeles next month, think of Greg - Ford designed it just for him. When you see a Ford Edge, a new car-like crossover SUV, that's...

'Che' Guevara's iconic image endures By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National Writer Sat Sep 23, 3:37 PM ET There's something about that man in the photo, the Cuban revolutionary with the serious eyes, scruffy beard and dark beret. Ernesto "Che" Guevara is adored. He is loathed. Dead for nearly 40 years, he is everywhere — as much a cultural icon as James Dean or Marilyn Monroe, perhaps even more so among a new generation of admirers who've helped turn a devout Marxist into a capitalist commodity. Of all the pop culture images that surround us, it is Guevara's face — immortalized...

Like many other baseball fans, Joe Kosa, 28, is spending his Sunday glued to a TV. But relaxed he's not. Instead, the ESPN (NYSE:DIS - News) production assistant is stationed in front of dozens of flat-screen TVs tuned to global sporting events at the headquarters of the Disney-owned network. He's furiously jotting down notes to weave into a storyline that will be read in 60 seconds flat on tonight's 6 p.m. SportsCenter broadcast. With the San Diego Padres leading the Chicago Cubs 9-0, the outcome is hardly in doubt, and writing the highlights should be easy. Then, Clay Hensley, who...

Wireless retailing is growing beyond mere point-of-sale service and inventory management, as new displays are coming to market that interact directly with customers in the shopping aisles, experts tell UPI's Wireless World. These systems, which integrate hardware interface technologies, application software and wireless infrastructure, are poised to play a direct role in the in-store shopping experience of consumers. These systems have the potential to improve store operational performance by influencing the purchasing behavior and buying habits of shoppers. By Gene Koprowski http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20060724-123351-3637r.htm

A group of stunning Brazilian stewardesses from the former airline Varig are negotiating a contract with the Brazilian edition of Playboy magazine for the publication of nude photographs. Sources from the magazine in Brazil revealed the idea is a repeat of the Playboy 2002 experience in the United States with former personnel from the scandalous bankruptcy of the Enron Group. According to ER Communications, which manages Playboy's public relations in Brazil "a negotiation is on" with Varig staff, but no agreement has been reached yet, and if an agreement is reached, "there's no timetable for the publication of the pictures."...

How Thirsty Are Consumers For New Ice Cubes? (CBS) CHICAGO -- There are designer shoes and designer clothes, but have you ever heard of designer ice cubes? As CBS 2’s Jon Duncanson reports, two companies hope you’ll warm up to a very cool idea. At a scorching $2, a liter of bottled water already takes more from your pocket than the cost of the gas you put in your car. So perhaps times are ripe for purified ice cubes. Canadian entrepreneur ice maker Jean-Jean Peltier flew in from Toronto just to show CBS 2 News his mineral Ice Rocks. “Right...

Anyone who thinks there is no such thing as a free lunch has never visited 3003 New Hyde Park Road, a four-story medical building on Long Island, where they are delivered almost every day. On a recent Tuesday, they began arriving around noon. Steaming containers of Chinese food were destined for the 20 or so doctors and employees of Nassau Queens Pulmonary Associates. The drug maker Merck paid the $258 bill. A deliveryman carrying trays of gourmet sandwiches sashayed past patients at Advanced Internal Medicine. The bill showed that Takeda Pharmaceuticals was picking up the bill. The doctors in the...

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday his movie-star celebrity and his boundless enthusiasm for all things California make him a great international salesman for the state's products and services. Speaking to the Commonwealth Club of California at the Herbst Theater, the governor said he will go anywhere to tout California's wares, "to go out there and tell our story" to buyers in any nation. "They want our products, they need our environmental know-how ... and our state-of-the-art technology." Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides' campaign Wednesday issued a pre-emptive memo outlining Schwarzenegger's foreign-trade failures: fewer exports now than in...

Turning Away Customers to Maximize Sales The glass door of Le plus Joaillerie, a jewelry shop in Seoul’s affluent Cheongdamdong, is always locked, though the inside is brightly lit. When a curious customer knocks on the door, a manager in a designer suit comes out and politely tells them to go away unless they have an appointment. Well-heeled Gangnam, the area south of the Han River, is seeing more of such snob appeal from savvy businesses. Instead of luring customers, they are more likely to turn them away, as if to say we don’t need you. Surprisingly, it works. Le...

More and more companies are developing ads with specific gay and lesbian themes -- at no small expense -- in a bid to capture a piece of a market with $640 billion in buying power. "Typically, companies would come in, run their regular ads to get their feet wet, the same ads (they run) in other consumer books," said Todd Evans, CEO of Rivendell Media, a New Jersey company that represents gay media companies. "As they get more comfortable with it, they realize they don't have backlash, and they go that next step to have specific creative (content). ... That's...

The next billion is the potential PC market in the developing world. We know they won't be buying MACS because Apple's Steve Jobs has admitted it won't be worth it to his company. A lot of different companies are trying to come up with affordable PCs that businesses, families, schools, and students in developing countries can buy. But everyone is having a hard time pinning down just what it is they will want. 1. What traditional features do they keep and which are kept out? 2. Will users be offended if they feel they are getting a dumbed-down version? 3....

DALLAS (AP) - Companies have been racing to attract business from the nation's fast-growing base of Hispanic consumers - but experts say many marketing tactics miss the point or are flat-out wrong. With an estimated population of more than 40 million, Hispanics held a buying power last year of about $736 billion, according to the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth. But those consumers represent a variety of populations, including U.S.-born residents, recent immigrants and a range of Hispanic nationalities. Grouping those segments into a single bloc makes it easy for businesses to fail in reaching many Latinos,...

WASHINGTON - With the demise of charismatic terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaida will be looking for a new sales approach in its worldwide fundraising campaigns. Al-Zarqawi had become a key part of al-Qaida's marketing: He was a terror operator who stole headlines with jarring, gruesome attacks carried out by a network of foreign and Iraqi fighters. For more than three years, he evaded an international manhunt. Counterterrorism officials have said al-Zarqawi served as a worldwide jihadist rallying point and a fundraising icon. "The terrorist celeb, if you will," said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., a former FBI agent who serves...

Juan Valdez is retiring. Long live Juan Valdez! The ambassador to the world for Colombian coffee, Carlos Sanchez, is hanging up his trademark poncho after four decades of playing the role of ''Juan Valdez.'' Now the national federation of Colombian coffee producers, owners of the Juan Valdez trademark, is searching for a man to inherit that poncho. Sanchez and his trusty mule Conchita have promoted Colombian coffee since 1969 with a leather bag, bushy mustache and straw hat typical of rural Colombia. That Juan Valdez trademark has become one of the world's most recognizable, and the fictional figure has become...

Vanity - request for comments from Americans regarding strange translation of town name.

CHICAGO, May 17 (UPI) -- A significant shift is under way in online marketing -- one that is finally enabling major brand advertisers to more accurately measure the value of their Internet traffic, and even cleverly customize content for specific customers, marketing experts tell UPI's The Web. So-called Marketing Performance Management solutions have emerged, providing metrics, or measurement tools, for an array of demand channels, from e-mail to Internet site visits. By Gene Koprowski

CHICAGO, May 5 (UPI) -- Every year U.S. women spend $5 billion on magazines, movies and other lifestyle "content." Now, marketing experts tell UPI's Wireless World, the mobile-phone industry is eyeing the women's market as a new niche, hoping to provide customized content, whether it is ringtones, personalized "wallpaper" or other features exclusively for female customers. The number of women age 15 to 45 who download content for mobile phones is expected to reach 20 million. By Gene Koprowski http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20060505-093740-3057r.htm

The adjustable Jimmie Johnson "officially licensed cat collar" comes with a jinglebell and is "decorated with team colors." Want to Sell Stuff? Make It a Licensed NASCAR Product BY DRU SEFTON     The Dale Earnhardt Jr. Dental Pack offers manual and electric toothbrushes as well as a miniature die-cast car. According to NASCAR, stock-car racing fans purchase about $2 billion of NASCAR items annually. Louise Rooney is a fairly typical NASCAR fan. She and her family watch races every weekend, cheer for favorite drivers, make summer pilgrimages to the track at Daytona and have plenty _ plenty! _...

25GB recordable and rewritable discs hit the shops in the US Matt Chapman, vnunet.com 11 Apr 2006 TDK has begun shipping 25GB recordable and rewritable Blu-ray discs to retailers in the US.  The 25GB BD-R recordable discs will sell for $19.99 (£11.50), while the 25GB BD-RE rewritable discs will retail at $24.99 (£14.35). TDK is one of the founding members of the Blu-ray Disc Association alongside companies such as Sony and 20th Century Fox. The company plans to expand on the offerings with discs that hold 50GB.  50GB recordable discs will cost $47.99 (£27.50) and rewritables will be $59.99 (£34.50)....

NEW YORK (AP) - Muhammad Ali, one of the world's most recognized people, has sold 80 percent of the marketing rights to his name and likeness to a firm for $50 million. The 64-year-old former heavyweight champion, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, will retain a 20 percent interest in the business. The new venture will be operated by a company called G.O.A.T. LLC, an acronym for "The Greatest of All Time."

PHARMACEUTICAL companies are systematically creating diseases in order to sell more of their products, turning healthy people into patients and placing many at risk of harm, a special edition of a leading medical journal claims today. The practice of “diseasemongering� by the drug industry is promoting non-existent illnesses or exaggerating minor ones for the sake of profits, according to a set of essays published by the open-access journal Public Library of Science Medicine. The special issue, edited by David Henry, of Newcastle University in Australia, and Ray Moynihan, an Australian journalist, reports that conditions such as female sexual dysfunction, attention...

CHICAGO - There are far more ads for fast food and snacks on black-oriented TV than on channels with more general programming, researchers report in a provocative study that suggests a link to high obesity rates in black children. The results come from a study that lasted just one week in the summer. Commercials on Black Entertainment Television, the nation's first black-targeted cable channel, were compared with ads during afternoon and evening shows on the WB network and Disney Channel. Of the nearly 1,100 ads, more than half were for fast food and drinks, such as sodas. About 66 percent...

SAN DIEGO - Eighteen-year-old Sandra Villarda felt besieged by beer billboards on her drive down El Cajon Boulevard to San Diego City College. Every day, the ads greeted her, for Bud Light on one block, Miller Lite on the next. "Mas Calor! Mas Sabor! Mas Fiestas!" one Miller Lite billboard read. "More Heat! More Flavor! More Parties!" There are other sights along the route, too. "I see Latino kids sipping beer out of a Coke bottle," says Ms. Villarda, who recently joined the San Diego Youth Council, a group that promotes an antialcohol-abuse message. "There is a lot of pressure...

Clarence Briggs is mad. A U.S. Army veteran and chief executive of a Web services company, Briggs uses stark language to describe his experiences with those who launch click fraud schemes on search engines. "These people bleed you but they don't want to kill you because if they kill you, they can't continue to bleed you, can they?" he said. "I'm telling you, something isn't right." Click fraud is a way to scam revenue from companies that place ads with search engine such as Google. (GOOG) A December survey of 553 online advertisers and marketing firms by the Search Engine...

They're making macho merlot in California wine country. Hot on the stiletto heels of last year's wines-for-women trend, new releases from Ray's Station Vineyards in Sonoma County are being pitched to the Y-chromosome set as "Hearty Red Wines for Men." The bottling of the sexes seems to be part of a wider industry trend that includes cute labels and easier-to-use packaging. Vintners want to break from the pack by making wines more consumer friendly. "You face this challenge: How do you even get people to know you're alive?" said Robert Smiley, a management professor at the University of California, Davis,...

Look! It's a Bird, It's a Plane…It's an LG Cell Phone? LG Electronics announced Thursday its plans for a "2006 European Balloon Tour" for its major business partners in Europe as part of its marketing aimed at the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) market in Europe. A large LG mobile phone-shaped air balloon floats along as part of the LG Electronics' "2006 European Balloon Tour" in Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland on Thursday./Yonhap LG Electronics will invite its major European business partners from Britain, France, Germany, and Switzerland and entice them with an array of perks including a catered...

Oprah using a Windows Vista-powered PC? Crazy you say, but anything is possible in the wacky world of Microsoft marketing. Remember the Windows 95 launch? Who doesn't - unless you're one of Microsoft's younger generation of engineers being instructed by management that Windows Vista is this decade's version of Windows 95.After fanning the hype that secured coverage on the front pages of the UK's leading national newspapers - this was the time "before" the internet, when the mainstream press didn't "do" tech stories - Microsoft's spin team claimed they'd never said Windows 95 was a "cure for cancer". It was...

The world skidded to a halt Thursday when the Medway Golf Club, in Melbourne, Australia, declined the former President’s request for immediate play – believing the crude and outlandish demand to be a hoax - that he be allowed to cut in line with the full panoply of his traveling entourage during the hectic mid-week championships.

Today the Federal Trade Commission published a Federal Register notice seeking public comments on “marketing activities and expenditures of the food industry targeted toward children and adolescents.” Last November, Congress ordered the FTC to prepare a report on this subject by July 1 of this year. The FTC is now seeking “empirical data” and other relevant information for use in the report. A public comment request is unremarkable and generally unobjectionable. But the FTC's notice also states that [t]he FTC is interested in receiving publicly available information that can be used to prepare the report. However, because it is unlikely...

NEW YORK, Feb. 20 — As more and more children grow obese eating fatty foods saturated with sugar, consumer advocates battling to curb marketing by food companies are threatening to use their big guns: lawsuits and bad press. And it appears to be working. Although no lawsuits have been filed, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is talking with Kellogg and representatives for soft drink companies -- including Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. -- about the way they sell products to children, CSPI lawyer Stephen Gardner said. ''Unfortunately, many food companies maximize their profits by pitching junk...

It is probably safe to say that the marketing challenges posed by what may be the world's first municipal condom are a bit daunting. But they are challenges that may soon have to be met. The city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene announced plans on Monday to release an official city condom "with unique packaging" in the coming months, the idea being both to promote safe sex and to allow the department to track more easily who uses the million condoms it gives away each month. The specifics of the unique packaging have not yet been worked out. But...

'Roses Are Red, Viagra is Blue...' Pfizer Knows Better - Shame on You! Says AHF LOS ANGELES, Feb. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- AIDS Healthcare Foundation, (AHF) the nation's largest AIDS group and a direct provider of HIV/AIDS medical care to tens of thousands of AIDS patients in the US, Africa, Central America and Asia, issued a warning today that it expects Pfizer, Inc., the world's largest pharmaceutical company, to run a Valentine's Day-themed ad for Viagra as part of its ongoing shameless holiday-themed advertising campaign for its blockbuster sex drug. For the past several months, Pfizer has been running a direct-to-consumer...

In the never-ending quest to sell more product, corporate advertising Solons scrutinize mountains of demographic data to slice and dice market segments into assorted variables – measurable characteristics like age, income, gender, location and other factors that help to pinpoint likely future customers. There's nothing particularly wrong with this, and in fact, it usually makes a lot of sense. That's why tires, transmission and Super Bowl tickets are advertised in the sports sections of newspapers – preponderantly read by men. White sales, ads for drapes and rug clearances are generally in the women's pages. Starting in the late 1960s, when...