LOOKOUT
IDEAS AND TRENDS ON THE HORIZON FOR CREATIVE PROFESSIONALS
WHO OWNS THE CHARACTER OR SLOGAN created for a communications campaign? Right now it is generally the client, of course. But advertising agencies and design firms who create the characters and slogans are beginning to battle for ownership rights. With the 15% commission practically passé, agencies are trying to claim a piece of the licensing action. Example: TBWA Chiat/Day's contract with now defunct Pets.com calls for the agency to receive some revenue related to licensing of the feisty Sock Puppet for toys, cards, key chains, coffee mugs and the like. Another sign: Fallon is establishing a unit that will originate its own characters and license them to clients. Still, the more common situation is the one Goodby, Silverstein finds itself in. Although their 'Got Milk?' campaign has generated more than $10 million in royalty revenue for the California Milk Processor Board, the agency is out in the cold. Jeff Goodby was recently quoted as saying "We advertising people are stupid about this. In the heat of winning the business or doing the new campaign, we sign contracts that aren't necessarily equitable." Allen Adamson, managing director, Landor Associates, agrees: "It's insane not to be able to capture the value you're creating... a value far beyond advertising."
NOT YET 30 YET SUFFERING A MIDLIFE CRISIS. That's what's happening to disillusioned dotcommers as the new economy undergoes a reality check. As income drops and dreams of instant wealth fade, career goals start to blur and questions about life priorities that are usually reserved for midlife begin to surface. Counselors and religious groups are reporting a growing number of 20-30 year olds chanting, figuratively, the old Peggy Lee ballad: "Is That All There Is?"
WHY DID E-TAILERS FLOOD THE MAIL with print catalogs during the past holiday season? Better aesthetics, for one thing. Firms like Amazon.com, eToys, gifts.com find the pictures in a catalog do better justice to their product than when shown on the web. The catalog, they say, can also use romancing language that the web does not often lend itself to. Further, the catalog helps e-tailers build brand recognition. Mostly, the catalog gives consumers another opportunity to buy. About half the catalogs feature a 1-800 number for orders, bypassing the web altogether. Where do the e-tailers find their expanded holiday catalog budget? Most is said to have come from money previously allocated to expensive television advertising campaigns.
THE BURDENS OF THE NEW POSTAL RATE increases can be lightened if companies follow these tips offered by Harte-Hanks, a direct mail company. (1) Clean your mailing list to eliminate waste and ensure the highest possible deliverability rate; (2) rework mail designs to conform to lower-rate standards; (3) target mail more tightly; (4) be compatible with postal processing equipment; (5) communicate with postal contacts about rates and delivery expectations. To which can be added: check the UPS rates which are sometimes cheaper.
DUN & BRADSTREET'S ANNUAL RANKING of the best American cities for entrepreneurship is based on four factors: their ability to encourage business startups, support expansion of existing firms, attract new jobs and limit the risk of failure. This time around the top large cities/urban areas are Fort Worth/Arlington, Texas, West Palm Beach/Boca Raton, Florida, and Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill, North Carolina. (Graphic Design:usa's hometown of New York City placed a respectable, if surprising, ninth.) Top midsized cities are Tacoma, Washington, Charleston/North Charleston, South Carolina, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In terms of sheer economic growth, Las Vegas, Nevada topped the scale with Austin/San Marcos, Texas, Orlando, Florida, Riverside/San Bernardino, California and Phoenix/Mesa, Arizona rounding out the top five.
DATING IN THE OFFICE has become more frequent and acceptable — especially at companies such as the dotcoms packed with younger, less formal employees. Has the workplace become an extension of the singles bar and coffee shop? Not quite. Yet Mari Florence, author of 'Sex At Work' believes that "entrepreneurs tend to be greater risk takers by nature, so one finds many startups breeding an 'anything goes' ethos." Paul Falzone, author of 'A Singles' Guide To Finding The Right One' explains the women-to-men ratio is now nearly equal offering the chance for increased socialization... With the work hours dotcoms keep, people find the only relationships they have time for is with co-workers." An American Management Association poll found that 74% of its members approved of office romances and 21% took the controversial position that dating between a supervisor and an employee would not be a problem.
THE MONA MUSEUM glows with a dual purpose: exhibiting art objects made with neon and showing vintage signs to new generations. Formally known as the Museum of Neon Art, the Los Angeles institution has a permanent collection of about 40 large signs and an array of smaller objects. Artistic borders are crossed between commercial and abstract art. Says founder Lili Lakich: "MONA has given artists a place to show their work, encourage them, act as a catalyst."
REFLECTING THE RISE in the number of men who are primary caregivers to their 14-and-under children, a newsletter called 'At-Home Dad' has been introduced. The publisher is Peter Baylies out of North Andover, Massachusetts. Baylies says: "Twenty years ago it was almost freakish. Now it is just considered unusual. So we're making some progress." Any man considering the proposition, he notes, should test his patience with children and willingness to live with a lower income.
TELECOMMUTING IS NO LONGER ALLOWED by many firms who once encouraged the practice. Others allow only proven leaders to work at home. Several reasons are given for telecommuting's fall from favor. Foremost is the belief that it causes resentment among office-bound employees. Work-at-homers also can miss out on last minute meetings, they cannot interact as readily with other workers, and corporate loyalty is said to be weakened. Still, there are currently more than 20 million part or full-time telecommuters so the practice is not likely to end any time soon.
WITH TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING agencies reporting a more difficult time finding trained talent, especially in smaller markets, Ken Sossaman, president and ceo of Memphis-based Sossaman & Associates, is fighting back. He has started The Launching Pad, an apprenticeship program which provides students with carefully supervised on-the-job environments that will train them to move into the advertising industry in the areas of art direction and copywriting. Led by Rikki Boyce, president of the Memphis Advertising Federation, the program is described by Sossaman as an investment in the future of the industry and he asserts that "the entire Memphis marketplace will benefit from a more qualified pool of job candidates." Says Boyce: "Our number one priority is to mentor these students and teach them how to think creatively. It will provide real-world learning..." Contact: www.321launchingpad.com
THOUGH JOB-HOPPING ABOUNDS, employee loyalty appears to remain steady. The share of workers with at least 10 years on the job has remained stable since 1983 at around 30%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Why do workers stay at their companies? A Fortune Personnel Consultants Survey finds: 25% are challenged by the work, 24% say the ability to balance work and family,17% point to compensation, and 9% point to the corporate culture, 25% other.
HOW ARE THE 800,000 EMPLOYEES doing who relocated to new cities and towns for new jobs in the past year? A study of transfers by relocation consultants Forward Mobility discloses that one-third are already unhappy, many over related-to-the-move family problems. By 2003, the consultants predict more than 250,000 of the original group will have quit, three times the rate among workers who have not moved.
COMMUTER BENEFIT PLANS HAVE MULTIPLIED since the IRS proposed new regulations "clarifying and simplifying how employers can set up these plans by salary reduction." A variety of approaches have emerged to help cover employee costs of parking, transit fares, van pooling. Employees can choose to reduce their salaries, up to certain limits, to pay the costs on a pretax basis, or employers can simply pay.
THE CENTURY-OLD NEW YORK CITY BAN on mobile billboards is being challenged by two billboard companies who cite the constitutional right to free speech. San Francisco suspended enforcement of a similar ban last June after it was challenged, but plans are underway to reinstitute it because new tighter legislation has been drawn that specifies as its goals "to cut traffic congestion, truck emissions and assaults on aesthetic sensibilities." The legal battles in New York continue.
AIRPORTS HAVE SPAWNED a bevy of additional ground services to meet the needs of often-delayed travelers. Among the newest are gyms and health clubs where frustrations and calories can be worked off. Here the delayee can rent workout clothes, use the equipment, shower and sauna for an average cost of around $10. Some clubs go so far as to offer aerobics classes, massages, and sports nutritionists to pack healthy snacks for the plane.
HUNDREDS OF TRADITIONAL UNIVERSITIES and private institutions now offer online advanced courses or graduate programs. Here working professionals can take courses on their own time, their own laptops, and often save money over in-class courses. An estimated 1.6 million students are already enrolled in these "distant learning" programs.
THE NUMBER OF WOMEN BETWEEN 40 AND 44 giving birth is up 23% since 1995. The surface reasons: an economy that allows two income families to drop one income and the increase in women starting families later in life. A deeper theory: the yearning for youthfulness as the fertility clock winds down. While marketers of new baby gear and services are profiting, others such as fancy restaurants and travel agencies are hurt.
POP-UP BOOKS ARE MOVING into the adult market. Once the preserve of children, lavish illustrations and inventive mechanics appear in newly devised flaps, foldouts, pull-tabs to attract consumers and professional audiences. Exhibitions at museums and libraries — such as a recent 'Brooklyn Pops Up' at the borough's Public Library — and fresh book publisher investments have sparked the movement. To fill the training void, paper engineer and designer David A. Carter has published 'The Elements of Pop-Up' to teach the intricacies.
BUYING AND SELLING FINE ART ONLINE is at a crossroads. While most sites have failed, those remaining report the average price people pay for their online art purchase is steady. One art site entrepreneur says his average sale is about $1,500 for paintings for a first-time buyer, with the price rising 50% the second time around. Amazon and Sotheby's have closed their joint-venture site, though Amazon is now linking customers to the higher-end Sothebys.com.
A QUIET RESURGENCE OF THE SMALL FARM is being seeded by a new generation who never grew up on a farm but crave the lifestyle. For them, internships are being made available by the New England Small Farm Institute and other organizations which entail living on a host farm in exchange for a stipend and the experience. Interns are also taught the business side of farming so that their future can be financially successful as well. Interns, reports The New York Times, run the gamut from recent college grads to burnt-out executives.
WITH E-DIET SITES MUSHROOMING, Tufts University's Nutrition Navigator ( www.navigator.tufts.edu) provides ratings and descriptions of nonprofit diet and nutrition web sites, as well as links. Most are free, but some charge as much as $199 to register, receive customized meal plans and other take-it-off counsel. Online diets are popular because of convenience and anonymity. Sins can be confessed in no-name, non-visual chat rooms. This is a growth area, considering that the National Institutes of Health says half of all Americans are overweight to some degree.
AROUND 3 PM EVERY DAY, phones ring off the hook all over America. That's when millions of employees make personal calls to see that all is well with their just-home-from-school children. This anxiety is raising questions about early afternoon school release time, which originated when most families lived on farms and where before-dark chores and a summer hiatus were a necessity. Proponents of a longer school day say that it would end the 3 pm jitters.
WITH YOUNG TEENAGERS LOGGING ONTO THE WEB three times more often than the web population as a whole, marketers are probing just where they click. A Wall Street Journal Market Data Group analysis reveals that teens spend most of their time on games and entertainment, followed closely by e-mail, then auctions, then sports sites.
THE FINANCIAL COMMUNITY DEEMS ART AS A GOOD INVESTMENT. The art-advisory department at Citigroup recently doubled in size. Others are buying art and selling shares to investors. Still others are setting up art mutual funds and raising money for art investment banks. Artist Ben MacNeill says he bypassed financiers entirely, minting 800 shares at $5 each in his Artshare project. At one point, they traded on his web site at $43 per share.