Tag Archives: News

News and Happenings.

CNN IN THE MONEY

Latest Poll Numbers; Some Roman Catholic Bishops Oppose Kerry, Urge Flock to Do Same

Aired October 17, 2004 – 15:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: From New York City America’s financial capital. This is IN THE MONEY.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JACK CAFFERTY, HOST: Welcome to the program. I’m Jack Cafferty. Coming up on today’s edition of IN THE MONEY — your move, now that you’ve seen Bush and Kerry square off, the next big step, of course, is all up to you. We’ll look at where the presidential race stands heading into the home stretch, and mercifully, after the debates are over.

Plus the power of the pulpits: Some Roman Catholic bishops are opposing John Kerry and telling their flock to do the same. Find out whether Catholic voters are paying attention.

And go ask your mother: Marketers are turning children into customers before they can read. We’ll talk with an author who has studied what that means for childhood.

Joining me today, a couple of IN THE MONEY veterans, CNN correspondent, Susan Lisovicz, “Fortune” magazine editor-at-large Andy Serwer.

You know, back when Ronald Reagan asked during the campaign, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago” it was a simpler question that had probably a simpler answer. But, there’s a question now being raised in this campaign, and given all of the rather unusual events, the recession, the events of September 11, it’s an issue worth addressing and I suppose it depends on, you know, what side of the economic scale you’re on, whether your answer to that question’s yes or no.

ANDY SERWER, “FORTUNE” MAGAZINE: Well, I think you’re dead right that it’s more complicated this time because from a purely economic standpoint I think you could argue the answer is no, because of the job losses, the stock market, gasoline and oil prices, which I keep saying is going to be a big issue throughout the end of this year. But, the whole 9/11 and security thing, are you better off when it comes to security, and we don’t really know. I mean the jury is still out — are we better off now? I mean, maybe our borders are more safe, the Army’s out there, but you know, it’s still uncertain if you ask me. SUSAN LISOVICZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and I think when you’re talking about “are you better off now,” we’re not just only talking about our own — whether we — the ability to put food on our table and to put gas in our car, we’re talking about a much word broader picture, the world at large. Some people are concerned about no WMDs, tries to al-Qaeda and Iraq, other people say the right thing to do, the U.S. taking charge. So, it’s a complicated question, but that’s ultimately how people vote. Are you feeling better than you were four years ago?

SERWER: Right.

CAFFERTY: Exactly. That’s the $64,000 question.

LISOVICZ: Should the CEO of the United States be rehired or not?

CAFFERTY: And if it turns out we’re not any safer because of the events involving terrorism, then it becomes a moot point whether we’re all better off economically. Because, if we’re not safe it just doesn’t matter in the end, does it?

SERWER: Yes.

CAFFERTY: A presidential race is part political theater, and sometimes not very good theater, at that. And we’re closing in on the final act in this one, mercifully. The conventions are history and as of Wednesday, so thankfully are the debates. So, we’re going to take a look at what lies ahead. There’s not much time now. If you’re already sick of hearing about the debates well, we’ll try go easy on you, but we are going to talk a little bit about it. Joining us now from Charlottesville, Virginia, is Larry Sabato. He’s the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Larry, nice to have you with us.

LARRY SABATO, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Thanks so much. Appreciate it.

CAFFERTY: What was your sense of these debates? A lot of people felt they were so constricted, restricted, so many rules, so many conditions, the flow of information. So confined, that we didn’t really get a chance to see any good old honest give and take, here.

SABATO: Well, I couldn’t agree more with the criticisms. I think the debate process has been contorted and it’s really an embarrassment. Frankly, in the greatest country on earth in many ways we ought to have candidates who can freely exchange ideas, ask themselves questions and all the rest of it. You know, the campaigns and the parties have taken over this whole process. The only people left out are the voters. What a shock.

CAFFERTY: Yeah.

LISOVICZ: It’s disgraceful. I think we all agree on that, but was there any light or was it just heat? Were there any moments, any key phrases that you think will resonate through the years? SABATO: Ah boy, that’s a good question. I would tell you, as somebody who loves both political science and history that I can truthfully say neither candidate uttered a word that will live through history.

LISOVICZ: There you go, again.

SABATO: Yeah. No, I’m sorry, but it’s just not true. But I will say, I will — I will say this. The debates matter, and people — despite all their problems, people did learn some things especially about the challenger who was relatively unknown. They know President Bush, they’ve watched him, they saw, in essence, more of the same, both positive and negative. But look, this race was almost over in Bush’s direction, when the debates started. By the end of the debates, Kerry had evened it up. It’s — now as tight as a tick. So the debates did have an influence, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, whether these debates really, truly reveal the nature of these candidates, we could argue forever.

SERWER: Larry, I was going to ask you where’s the beef, but maybe I better hold that question. But…

SABATO: I’m a vegetarian.

SERWER: Oh you — OK, well then I really won’t to ask that question then.

SABATO: OK, good.

SERWER: What should we do? I mean, what would be your optimum plan to have the debates? How would they look? How would they feel? What would we do?

SABATO: The moderator would be there as a time keeper and just to help the flow. The candidates would run the debates, by asking each other questions, back and forth, back and forth, and then there’d be a segment at the end for audience questions. I think the audience questions can be good and helpful, as this town hall meeting suggested, but look, there have to be follow-ups. You all know that. That’s your business. It’s so easy for a candidate to evade a question unless you can ask a follow-up.

CAFFERTY: What about the argument that President Bush made a tactical mistake even agreeing to do these things. You said it already, just a minute ago. Going into these debates, he had a commanding lead in virtually every poll across the country; he was leading in double digits in many of the battleground states, like Ohio and Florida. Now it’s a dead heat, again. What would have prevented him from saying, “you know what, I got too much to do, I got a war in Iraq, an economy — you know, I’m up to my ears and I just don’t have time and we’re not going to do this at all.” Might he have come out of this thing better off if he had just said “no?”

SABATO: Now, reasonable people can disagree about this, but I happen to agree with you. I think…

(CROSSTALK)

CAFFERTY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you can be on any time you want. We’ll have you back soon. All right?

SABATO: There you go.

I knew I’d say the right thing eventually. But look, he was ahead, and other incumbent presidents have gotten away with this. Would he have been criticized? Is the Pope Catholic? I mean he would have gotten enormous criticism, but that’s not how and why people vote and most people thought that Bush was probably going to win the debates anyway.

LISOVICZ: You know, I was intrigued by the follow-up questions. Since you said it, Larry, it’s so important and we all agree here. Here’s my follow-up. Charlie Gibson did ask a follow-up question on how each candidate would really reduce the deficit. Both of them gave their two-minute or 90-second banter, but neither of them addressed it, and so we asked the question. I don’t think anyone came away from that response figuring that out either. So, they’re just running — in other words they’re having their way with the moderator.

SABATO: Well, of course, and I thought the moderators, given the rules, did a pretty good job. I really did. I thought Charlie Gibson and Bob Schieffer. And Schieffer in particular did a very good job. But look, here’s the essence of it, with this debate format, you’ve got these candidates giving America a diet of hot fudge sundaes, question after question after question, and they get away with it because they don’t even challenge one another. They don’t want their diet of hot fudge sundaes challenged either.

SERWER: Yeah, I mean, that’s what sort of blew my mind, Larry, is when one candidate would say to the other, “and you did you this 78 times,” and then the other candidate would just go, “my position is…” and — you know, they just — they wouldn’t respond to each other, and it’s just sort of — it was surreal in that sense. But let me ask you, do you think that this debate — these debates really changed people’s minds?

SABATO: It changed some people’s minds. You know, it’s hard for us, who follow this on a daily basis, to believe that there actually are truly undecided people out there. Who could be undecided with these macro issues of war and peace and the economy and strong personalities? But there really are. And some of them did switch. They really did move from one to another as a consequence of the debates.

CAFFERTY: How do you fix this system? The democratic and republican parties now have control of this thing. We had the rules for this whole charade, and that’s what it was, being negotiated by Vernon Jordan and Jim Baker behind closed doors and out of view of the public. Nobody gets a vote except the democrats and the republicans. I mean, it ought to be criminal, but it’s not. The League of Women Voters used to run these things and they were a hell of a lot better. What can be done?

SABATO: You know, most things that are wrong are legal…

(LAUGHTER)

SABATO: …and that’s what really bothers me about life, but I couldn’t agree with you more. These were better debates when the League of Women Voters ran them. I think we need to seize it back from this bipartisan debate commission. That’s a function of the democrats and republicans. Why shouldn’t there be one debate out of, say four, where you have the libertarian candidate and the green candidate, and some other third party candidates included? Sure, they’re not going to win, but they introduce ideas that the major party candidates would have to respond to.

CAFFERTY: Well, and some of those…

SABATO: It’s a good thing.

CAFFERTY: Some of those third party and minor party candidates have, in fact, influenced the outcome of elections.

SABATO: Yes.

CAFFERTY: You can look at Ross Perot, who got 19 percent of the vote the first time he ran and changed what would have been the outcome if he wasn’t in it. You can look at Ralph Nader in the last election and suggest if he hadn’t been in the race it might have been Al Gore’s presidency instead of George Bush’s. So, they do have a role and the fact that we’re not getting to hear from anybody but the democrats and republicans, well, it’s only an hour show and I got to stop.

Larry, it’s nice to have you on the program. Thank you.

SABATO: Enjoyed it. Thanks a lot.

CAFFERTY: Larry Sabato, he’s the director of University of Virginia Center for Politics.

Coming up next, Catholic versus Catholic: Some of the bishops in John Kerry’s church have turned against him. We’ll look at why and whether or not they could sway voters in the race.

Plus so much money it’s almost scary: Find out from Halloween went from a little celebration for kids to a major, major retail blowup.

Plus don’t monkey with the trunk monkey: Find out why. Allen Wastler tours the “Fun Site of the Week” later on IN THE MONEY.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: For generations, Catholic voters in this country have been solidly democratic, but over the last several elections that’s begun to change. This year much has been made about John Kerry’s stance on abortion. He’s pro-choice and that position has pushed many parishioners into opposing corners. How are they going to vote? We’re joined now by James Fisher, co-director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University.

Mr. Fisher, welcome to IN THE MONEY, nice to have you with us.

JAMES FISHER, FORDHAM UNIVERSITY: Great to be here, thanks.

CAFFERTY: How’s the — how’s the John Kerry phenomenon any different from, Mario Cuomo comes to mind, the governor of New York, I think it was, three terms. A staunch Catholic and yet was elected overwhelmingly in a very strongly democratic state with a huge Catholic population. Is this — is this that serious an issue among Catholics do you think?

FISHER: Well, Cuomo made a famous speech at Notre Dame about 20 years ago where he outlined his position where he, as a Catholic opposed abortion, but as the governor of a state which represented a really diverse array of views, he didn’t feel it was appropriate to impose those views on the electorate.

CAFFERTY: But, isn’t that the old cake and eat it syndrome, I don’t want to own up to the fact I’m violating one of the tenets of my church by looking the other way on abortion?

FISHER: It’s a very difficult position, and of course — and President Bush jumped at Kerry and even ridiculed him saying you have to decide for the answer. It’s a very difficult position to make convincingly for Catholic, national Catholic democrats, who inevitably are pro-choice because they’re required to be.

SERWER: Yeah, well James, isn’t it very possible that President Bush could get more of the Catholic vote than John Kerry?

FISHER: Well, Al Gore won narrowly the Catholic vote four years ago. See, the thing is, there’s no such thing as the “Catholic vote.”

SERWER: Right.

FISHER: There’s many Catholic votes and in this case, there are at least two, probably two clear-cut Catholic votes. There are conservative Catholics or those who see the moral issues, like abortion, as paramount and they’re much more likely to vote for President Bush and then there are other Catholics who see this whole range of, sort of, global social justice issues as extremely important and they may very well vote for John Kerry. And the thing is, there’s strong traditions within Catholic life and Catholic thought that support both points of view. So, there really are at least two distinct Catholic votes at work in this election.

LISOVICZ: But James, I live in a town where my state senator quit the Roman Catholic Church, this year…

FISHER: Would that be Bernard Kenny of Jersey City?

LISOVICZ: Hoboken, actually.

FISHER: Hoboken, right. LISOVICZ: Yeah, he was no longer being served communion at the parish he’d attended for many years. My question to you is, where do you stop? The Roman Catholic Church took a stand against abortion, but where do you stop? What about politicians who support the death penalty? What about a war in Iraq where people say, “You know what? I thought there were weapons of mass destruction there.” What about weapons, military-style weapons that are free to customers, perhaps underage consumers? Where does the Catholic Church stop and open the door?

FISHER: Well, that’s why some years ago the late Cardinal Bernardino, of Chicago, tried to propose what he called the “seamless garments approach” where Catholics took a pro-life position across the board, which would include a peace or anti-war position, a position on behalf of workers and the poor. That is a consistent ethic of life which tries to, sort of, overcome these partisan divisions. Well, it just didn’t work. I mean, for decades, Catholics took a beating from people on the outside and in recent years we’re beating ourselves up. And so it’s very fractious and divisive time within the church.

Now bishops, you know, their job is to assert the moral teachings of the church and that’s what they’re going to do. The question becomes when people start to feel that bishops are actually telling people how to pull a lever in the voting booth, that’s a whole another story and there’s no evidence, really at all, that people vote because a bishop indicates to them they should vote one way or the other.

CAFFERTY: But, is there a legitimate question that we ask you about bishops standing in the pulpit on Sunday telling people how to vote in light of the ongoing difficulties over the last several decades within the Catholic Church itself? I just wonder how much moral credibility still remains when it comes to things like lecturing people on who to vote for in light of the church sex scandals that have been in the news for years and years now.

FISHER: The bishop’s job is to teach and it’s not clear that bishops are preaching you must vote for candidate X or Y or republican or democrat. Their job is to provide a very clear statement of the church’s teaching and they do that to a greater or lesser degree of success. But, it’s quite clear in this election that there is a group of bishops, and certainly not all, but there is a group of bishops who clearly are endorsing, without publicly necessarily saying so, they’re suggesting that the only appropriate vote for a Catholic is to vote for President Bush. The question becomes, however, how does that really translate into behavior? Because again there’s been no evidence from recent elections that, for example, a significant number of Catholics vote for a particular — on the basis of one particular moral issue such as abortion. They tend to vote across a wider array of issues.

SERWER: Right, so an unemployed Catholic is an unemployed voter first and Catholic second. That sort of thing.

FISHER: That’s right. Well, that’s exactly right. But, an unemployed voter might, in fact, see his unemployment in the context of Catholic teachings about the economy. SERWER: Do the parties pay any attention to this at all? Do they talk about we should appeal to the Catholic vote here? Do they do that anymore?

FISHER: The parties pay tremendous attention, because again, the democrats understand there is a Catholic base of voters who are — who have an affinity for the kinds of issues that John Kerry is promoting most fervently. The republicans clearly understand there is a base, and they feel it’s a growing base of conservative Catholic voters who are more likely to enter their camp.

Now, don’t forget, Richard Nixon took the Catholic vote in 1972, and that was year before Roe versus Wade and that was the first time in American history it happened. So, it’s been a gradual shift. Ronald Reagan, of course, took a tremendous swathe of the Catholic vote, the so-called “Reagan democrats” were really mostly Catholic. But, then they came back into the democratic fold for President Clinton. So, it’s a very volatile constituency which could — you know, could — the balance could tip one way or the other and it seems to be pretty evenly divided in this election.

LISOVICZ: Just like every other constituency.

FISHER: Like everything else. Right.

LISOVICZ: And a volatile election. James Fisher, co-director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies thank you so much for joining us.

FISHER: Thank you.

LISOVICZ: Coming up after the break: Showing it like they see it: Sinclair is taking sides with an election season broadcast. We’ll check the political fallout.

Also ahead, giving kids the business: We’ll hear from a psychiatrist about how marketers are changing childhood in America.

And what is that thing, anyway? Stick around as Allen Wastler of money.com digs for the truth under what really was under the president’s jacket.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: Now, let’s take a look at the week’s top stories in our money minutes. Strong auto sales helped boost retail sales by a lot more than expected last month. That’s after they fell slightly in August. Experts say buyers responded to strong incentives from the automakers. There was also a spike in sales at supply stores thanks to those hurricanes in the south.

But those strong auto sales did not come soon enough for lots of GM investors. General Motors says intense competition, price cutting and the higher cost of employee health care led to much lower than expected profits from July to September. Investors punished the stock and sent shares down nearly 5 percent the day the news came out. And here’s some news about outsourcing that you might actually like. Guess who’s getting hit with job exportation now? It’s the lawyers. A number of U.S. companies are now outsourcing routine legal work to India, South Korea and Australia. GE is leading the way with a subsidiary in India that employs about 30 lawyers.

SERWER: Another big story this week was the Sinclair Broadcasting group’s decision to air an anti-Kerry documentary film on all of its 62 TV stations just a week before Election Day. Many Sinclair executives are outspoken Bush supporters, so the decision is being seen in some corners as a violation of Federal election laws. Sinclair shares have been on a mostly steady decline this year. But the question is, will the company’s controversial decision play a role in the stock’s performance? That makes Sinclair Broadcasting our stock of the week.

First of all you guys, this is a pretty small company that is not really on the radar screen. I mean it’s a market value, it’s worth $600 million, which is teensy-weensy in the greater scheme of things. Bottom line is, I don’t think if you own television networks, like this, that you have any business telling people how to vote or how to think. It would be like a cable company putting political ads on. I think it’s wrong.

CAFFERTY: That’s fair enough. But let me ask you this. Was it considered a violation of election laws when movie theaters showed Michael Moore’s 9/11 film all during the campaign season for the last six months?

SERWER: No, they had a right to show it. But they don’t have the same licenses with the government.

CAFFERTY: So does Sinclair Broadcasting.

SERWER: They don’t have the same licenses with the government Jack.

CAFFERTY: I’m not sure that showing the anti-Kerry documentary’s a violation —

SERWER: We haven’t seen this film by the way. No one’s seen it, so no one really knows anything about it anyway.

LISOVICZ: I have to side with Andy on this one.

CAFFERTY: Not a surprise.

SERWER: That’s always tough.

LISOVICZ: We talk about, you know, it’s something that people pay money for. They have a choice. When you turn on the television, free over the air, television, it’s put in front of you. I think that is the difference —

CAFFERTY: You have the same choice there, you can turn it off.

SERWER: Not this show.

CAFFERTY: Not IN THE MONEY. No, we’re talking about Sinclair Broadcasting.

LISOVICZ: They’re granted licenses to serve in the public interest. This is clearly someone with a very sharp point of view and the other thing tied to the stock, this is a person who has a controversial viewpoint and we’ve seen how that can affect the stock in other instances, like Martha Stewart.

SERWER: The stock’s been doing terribly, but basically the company’s not doing well. I mean just last month, they announced their third quarter earnings were going to be lousy. The company is not doing very well. I don’t think it has anything to do with their political views. The other thing is, this is going to be very interesting. They’re announcing their earnings on November 4th. So we shall see what we shall see. The other little thing I think it’s kind of fun is what happens if Kerry wins and then they go to the government and they ask for certain legislative things to happen.

CAFFERTY: Could be a problem.

SERWER: Yeah. Might not be so good. I think it’s an interesting – it’s a little debate though.

CAFFERTY: But it’s a good story.

SERWER: It is interesting. All right. Coming up on IN THE MONEY, the walking wallet. For a kid who’s crazy about a product, a parent is just a bank on legs. Find out how marketing is changing childhood.

Also ahead, scare and scare alike. We’ll look at how Halloween went from small time to big ticket.

And forget the tiger in your tank. See what happens with a monkey in your trunks. Unbelievable. Stick around for the fun site of the week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LISOVICZ: The whining, the nagging, the temper tantrums. It won’t be easy, but next time you go shopping with your little darlings, try not to lose your patience. It’s not their fault they want everything in sight or so says Juliet Schor. She’s author of “Born to Buy,” the commercialized child and the new consumer culture and she joins us now with a look at what makes your kids want. Welcome.

JULIET SCHOR, AUTHOR, “BORN TO BUY”: Thank you.

LISOVICZ: You know, children have always been targeted by whether it’s cereal companies or toy companies. Focus groups, they’ve been around forever. What’s different now?

SCHOR: Well, you have to compare that old environment, which was a couple of hours of Saturday morning TV, maybe a little bit of afternoon TV, a small number of commercials and just a few products, to what’s going on today, which is a total barrage. The average kid is seeing 40,000 television commercials a year. He or she is being advertised to in the schools, on the Internet, even in playgrounds. I took a look in my book at how marketers are infiltrating virtually every nook and cranny of kids’ lives and pitching to them one thing after another. So it’s like comparing the BB gun to the neutron bomb.

SERWER: One of the first companies in charge of the BB gun, I guess Juliet, was McDonald’s. They figured out early on by having a clown out there, they could get kids to tug on mommy and daddy’s sleeve and say, can we go there and visit Ronald McDonald which is very smart. But I think you’re right. I mean there’s a proliferation. What interests me is how marketers are linking toys and junk food into all sorts of different sectors. Take health care, for instance. Can you talk about that, how it’s sort of more of a toy mentality? When kids look at band-aids which have cartoons on them, things like that, right?

SCHOR: Right. I spent time with the company that developed these tattoo band-aids. So it’s not just a utilitarian product anymore, it’s a toy. They call it trans-toying. It’s turning all kinds of things into toys. Food is a prime example of this. Instead of being food that you eat because it tastes good, because it’s good for you, they’re turning food products into toys, things that kids play with. And of course, the whole concept behind the happy meal, one of the people I met in my research was the inventor of the happy meal. And they started that because kids were bored at McDonald’s. And they needed something to keep them occupied while the parents ate and talked. They started with sort of toys they could play with during the meal. And of course, now, it’s the lure of the toy that often gets the kid asking for it. And the result is that we have a generation of kids hooked on junk food. Fifth percent of children’s calories now are coming from added sugar and fat.

CAFFERTY: How concerned are you about the mental health of these kids who are bombarded with all this stuff? Are they at risk in any way?

SCHOR: Well, we see steady increases in a whole range of emotional disorders, whether we’re talking about depression and anxiety. The average American kid now has an anxiety level which is the same as what kids who were admitted into psychiatric hospitals had in the ’50s. So it’s a huge increase in their stress and anxiety. Marketers are very aware of this. And they figure out how to market to stressed-out kids. But the research I did for my book asks the question, are — is this rising depression and anxiety, this rise of psychosomatic complaints like headaches and stomach aches, is it due to kids’ growing involvement in consumer culture? And I found very strong evidence that the answer to that question is yes.

LISOVICZ: OK, then, how so because that’s a big reach. We know, we can see for ourselves, kids are bombarded by marketers. But to say that they’re stressed out, they’re anxious, they’re depressed is another region entirely. How can you defend that? SCHOR: Absolutely. I developed a measure of consumer involvement. It measures how psychically keyed into consumer culture kids are, how much they care about stuff and labels and being cool and having a lot of money and the kind of car their parents drive and so forth. And what I find is that the kids who score higher on that measure are more likely to score higher on depression measures, on measures of anxiety, on measures of psychosomatic complaints like headaches and stomach aches. And I also tested to see, well, is it just a problem that these kids who are already depressed and anxious tend to have higher consumer involvement. And the answer to that question is, no, it’s the consumer involvement that’s driving the depression, anxiety and psychosomatic complaints.

SERWER: Juliet, do you think it’s safe to say that the level of sophistication in marketing to kids has increased faster than the level of sophistication to grownups over the past 25 years?

SCHOR: No question about it. I mean, this is a huge growth area in marketing and advertising. It’s a cutting edge place. It used to be a backwater with very little money, low creativity, not the cutting edge, really talented people and that’s all changed. It’s a really hot place. They’ve got incredible intensive new research they’re doing. And I looked at that. Their messages have gotten so more sophisticated from what they were in the past. That’s another big difference between the marketing that we remember from our childhoods and what’s going on today. They really tapped into kids’ psychic vulnerabilities, their emotional vulnerabilities.

SERWER: To the degree that you’re able to, let’s offer a little hope to parents who might be watching this program. The marketing machine in this country isn’t going to go away. What can parents do in terms of, you know, addressing this concern, if they have it, about their own children?

SCHOR: Two things. Number one, my results — my research shows that the more exposure kids have to marketing messages and commercials, the more consumer involved they’re going to be and more likely to suffer these problems. So reduce the amount of television and screen time more generally.

CAFFERTY: What about a show like IN THE MONEY? Is it OK for them to watch that?

SCHOR: Absolutely. That was a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) on television.

LISOVICZ: Doctor approved. That’s for sure.

SCHOR: The other thing is, look at what’s happening in your child’s school. There’s a huge amount of marketing in schools. They’re going around parents. That’s one of the reasons they’re there. Find out if your child’s being marketed to in schools. Call your senators and congressmen. We’re trying to get some junk food marketing legislation in schools through Congress now.

LISOVICZ: Be involved, in other words. Juliet Schor, the author of “Born to Buy,” the commercialized child and the new consumer culture. Thanks for joining us.

SCHOR: My pleasure.

LISOVICZ: There’s much more ahead here on IN THE MONEY. Up next, more treats than trick. Halloween’s become as much about shelling out cash as it is about handing out candy. We’ll find out how that happened.

And later, pop the trunk and brace yourself. A trunk monkey is the star of our fun site of the week.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SERWER: The numbers are spooky, scary, outright shocking, $1 billion on costumes, another $1 billion on candy, $780 million on decorations. Americans are crazy about Halloween and spend big bucks to celebrate it each year. Of course, it hasn’t always been that way. Here to tell us how this ancient observance hit holiday mainstream is Nick Rogers, author of “Halloween, From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Nick is also a professor of history at York College. Welcome, Nick.

NICK ROGERS, AUTHOR: Good afternoon.

SERWER: What’s interesting to me are my kids who insist now, insist on buying Halloween costumes out of catalogs. I try to tell them, throw a sheet over your head and cut out the little eyes and be a ghost. No, no, no. This thing has really elevated to a major commercial holiday, hasn’t it?

ROGERS: It has. It has indeed. And there are a number of reasons why that’s the case. I think it’s being very consciously promoted as a commercial opportunity. But I also think that when you have double-income families, and when you have parents who don’t have time to make costumes as they did in the past, that also is an inducement to go out and buy some.

LISOVICZ: Nick, I’m an adult. I’m a big kid. And I always make my costume. That’s a big part of the sales. I don’t want to tell you what —

SERWER: I see what you are.

LISOVICZ: I’m afraid to tell you, but I always go as a news story, a news person and I’ll leave it at that. Halloween falls on a weekend this year, so that should be another terrific year. It’s adults that are also fueling the sales numbers. A lot of adults like this, and they throw parties to celebrate it.

ROGERS: That’s absolutely right. And 20-somethings actually spend more on Halloween probably than anybody else. That’s been a feature of the period since the 1970s, when the gay community started promoting Halloween. I think other people cashed in and decided that it would be a great sort of bar scene, club scene, street scene, Wisconsin and M in Washington, for example and it’s gone from there.

SERWER: It’s interesting that you mentioned that. I hadn’t made the connection, but now I do. Clearly, the gay community in Greenwich Village here in New York for years doing local news. We always used to send a camera crew down to cover the Halloween parade in the village. And 20 years ago, it was kind of this little thing where a few whack jobs would get together and dress up and so on. Now it is an international event and I’ll bet you’re right. Let me ask you this, though. What is it, do you attribute the sudden presence on lawns all over America of these absurd blow-up figures of Frankenstein and pumpkins and various dumb looking things that just litter up the landscape? Who in their right mind would put garbage like this in their yard?

ROGERS: I don’t know. I think one of the reasons why they – I don’t do it.

CAFFERTY: Andy, do you have any of those?

SERWER: I don’t have a yard.

ROGERS: But I think one of the reasons is that, you know, in the ’70s, when there was a bit of a panic about trick or treating, it wasn’t safe, haunted houses made their appearance big time. And I think people picked up on that. Now the technology is such that you can create your own haunted house. And that’s what we are seeing.

CAFFERTY: There you go.

SERWER: Nick, first of all, we’re going to try to figure out what Susan is going to be this year. How about Martha Stewart?

LISOVICZ: Been there, done that.

SERWER: Oh, you’ve already done that. Well, I’m behind the times. Let me ask you, Nick, is it the case that some Christians in the country are not so keen on Halloween, that they do sort of link it to a pagan ritual? I know a couple who actually turn an eye away from it, and consider it maybe not such a great holiday?

ROGERS: I think that’s right. Not all Christians think this. I think actually it’s the conservative Christians of a Protestant persuasion who think this. They think Halloween encourages the occult. It encourages and peddles evil, basically. And they think and they associate that with its pagan origins.

CAFFERTY: Is it still OK to go through your kids’ trick or treat candy under the guise of protecting them from razor blades and straight pins and steal all the good stuff out of there? Is that ethically still acceptable?

SERWER: No.

CAFFERTY: Because I used to do that all the time. Let me see that. I just want to make sure there’s nothing dangerous in there and then I would find the Tootsie Rolls and their bubble gums and the little things that I wanted and squirrel them off into my own pocket.

LISOVICZ: Nick, since you’re a scholar, and you probably don’t steal your kids’ candy —

ROGERS: No.

LISOVICZ: Like how dependent is the holiday on like really outrageous character, like Martha Stewart, presidential election? Do they connect at all?

ROGERS: Yeah, they do, in a certain way. There’s always been an element of parody, of transgression, about Halloween, and certainly I think that people that are in the news, or characters that are in films get presented.

LISOVICZ: What’s the number one mask right now? Do you know?

ROGERS: Well, I think actually people are picking up on pirates again.

SERWER: Yes.

ROGERS: As a result of “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

LISOVICZ: If Johnny Depp comes to my door, I will make sure to give him a lot of candy. Nick Rogers, professor of history at York College, thank so much.

CAFFERTY: ..give a whole new meaning to the phrase trick or treat, wouldn’t it?

LISOVICZ: Jack? Don’t go there, Jack.

SERWER: He already did.

LISOVICZ: Coming up, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Allen Wastler of money.com looks into the dispute over that mysterious bulge in the president’s jacket.

And tell us what’s on your mind. Please don’t send any e-mail about Johnny Depp or trick or treat. The address is [email protected]. But first, this week’s edition of money and family.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISOVICZ: Are you overworked and underpaid? Do you deserve more money? Here’s some good strategies on how to ask for a raise and get yes for an answer. Start by documenting your performances. You don’t deserve a raise just because you haven’t had one in a while. Make a list of successful projects, skills and responsibilities that go beyond your immediate job. Know what you’re worth. Check out sites like salary.com for extensive reports, and industry surveys that tell you exactly what you can expect. Then use that knowledge in your negotiations, whether it’s with your current employer or a new one. And don’t take no for an answer. If your request for a raise is dismissed, ask why. You may already be at the top of the pay scale or there is no room for growth at that company, and that means it’s time to move on. I’m Susan Lisovicz for money and family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: Most Internet rumors are just that, they’re rumors and they tend to die down after a short while. But the Internet fueled story about that mysterious bulge on George Bush’s back during the debates is not going away. I think it was a satellite dish. And it’s even forced legitimate media organizations to check it out. Our webmaster Allen Wastler is here with that story and the fun site of the week. What’s up with the thing on the back?

SERWER: The battle of the bulge.

ALLEN WASTLER, CNNMONEY.COM: Just a casual observation by somebody can turn into this mad craze. Have you seen the bulge? Let’s show the folks. There’s the bulge. You see?

CAFFERTY: What is that?

SERWER: The hunchback.

WASTLER: Right between his shoulders. That’s not a great suit, but it’s a nice suit. There’s something back there. So, of course, the paranoid people on the Internet, and there’s quite a few…

CAFFERTY: Right.

WASTLER: They immediately started blogging about it. What could it be? The leading contender is some sort of radio transceiver and that George Bush had a secret earpiece in there and Karl Rove, his political guru, sort of was feeding him answers and stuff like that. Now, of course…

LISOVICZ: Karl Rove should be fired (ph).

WASTLER: With the availability of information on the Internet, of course, everybody combs through the transcript trying to look for some verifying thing. Here’s a clip from the debate, the first debate, where he could be speaking to voices. Let’s check it out.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And that’s not how a commander in chief acts. I — let me finish. The intelligence I looked at was the same intelligence my opponent looked at.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WASTLER: Now, nobody interrupted him there. He was flat in the middle of his time. The lights weren’t even blinking at him.

CAFFERTY: He was talking to the guy who was interrupting him in his ear. WASTLER: That’s what the –

(CROSSTALK)

CAFFERTY: Let me finish what I’m saying. Everybody’s sending messages.

WASTLER: There’s plenty of alternative possibilities. It could be just a wrinkle in his suit. It could be a back brace.

(CROSSTALK)

WASTLER: It could be body armor. It could be any sort of thing. But the White House said the whole spurious comments are what it could be are just ridiculous.

CAFFERTY: But they didn’t say what it was, did they?

WASTLER: No, they didn’t.

LISOVICZ: This is a man who has custom-made suits. His tailor should be fired then.

WASTLER: And a few organizations hired some tailors and said, OK, OK, look at that suit. Tell us what you saw. And the tailor, oh, it looks like a fine suit, maybe off the rack, but still a pretty good suit, but that’s not tailoring. No, no, no.

CAFFERTY: Let’s move on to the fun site.

WASTLER: I brought you a classic. This is a classic on the Internet. Jack, I give you the trunk monkey.

CAFFERTY: Oh, yeah, you go.

SERWER: That’s great. You know what that is? It gives new meaning to the phrase guerrilla marketing.

WASTLER: You’ve got to love it. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.

CAFFERTY: I did very much. Thank you, sir.

Coming up next on IN THE MONEY as we continue, it’s time to hear from you as we read some of your e-mails from the past week. You can send us an e-mail right now if you’re so inclined. We’re at [email protected]. Back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAFFERTY: Time now to read your answers to our question of the week about whether presidential debates have helped you decide whom to vote for. Samantha wrote this. The debates have helped me see President Bush as too simplistic and as a person who looks like he’s about to throw a temper tantrum. John Kerry appeared presidential.

Dennis in Florida writes, the debate showed me that John Kerry can’t defend his record spanning 20 years in the Senate. In fact, he hardly mentions it at all. How come he never had a plan until now?

And Jeff in Massachusetts writes, the debates haven’t influenced how I’ll vote, but if I’ll vote. They’ve convinced me that I must vote or forever stop complaining and I guess that applies to all of us.

Now, for next week’s e-mail question of the week. It’s this. Do your religious beliefs affect your vote? Send your answers to [email protected].

And you should also visit our show page at money.com/inthemoney which where you’ll find address for our fun site of the week, the monkey in the trunk.

WASTLER: Trunk monkey.

CAFFERTY: Thanks for joining us for this edition of IN THE MONEY. My thanks to CNN correspondent Susan Lisovicz, “Fortune” magazine editor at large Andy Serwer and money.com managing editor Allen Wastler. Join us next week if you’re so inclined, Saturday at 1:00, Sunday at 3:00, or you can catch Andy and me all week long on “AMERICAN MORNING.” And this week, we’ll be live in the great city of Chicago, Illinois. That’s the program, starts at 7:00 Eastern Monday. That would be 6:00 Chicago time. Looking forward to visiting the Windy City.

In the meantime, thanks for today and we’ll see you soon.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

Source: CNN IN THE MONEY

Chimp is a champ for Portland ad agency

R/West’s ad campaign garners national acclaim and international syndication

Two of L.A.’s finest chimpanzee actors are helping Portland advertising agency R/West and one of its clients get a little global recognition.

Bella and Jonah portray a “Trunk Monkey” in five television advertisements that have generated an almost cult-like following. The result is syndication of the ads throughout the country and in Australia and New Zealand.

In addition to running as paid commercials, the ads have played for entertainment value on European television, as part of training by several police departments and other organizations in the United States.

“It’s an insane story — people really are obsessed with it,” said Sean Blixseth, president of R/West. The 7-year-old agency created the ads for Sandy-based Suburban Auto Group.

“Suburban knew they couldn’t win the media battle with dollars. They’re not even in the top 10 in terms of money spent on advertising by car dealers in the Portland area,” Blixseth said. “But we knew if we came up with something that blew people’s minds, it could be huge.”

Told to “go out on the edge,” Blixseth and his team brainstormed to come up with ideas that led to the concept of building an identity for Suburban.

R/West, with 26 employees, is known for its work with Burgerville, Integra Telecom and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. The agency recorded $4.1 million in revenue in 2003, according to The Business Journal 2004 Book of Lists.

The agency has worked with Vancouver, Wash.-based Burgerville for years. Recent work with the burger purveyor includes launching a campaign on the company’s switch to Oregon Country Beef — which is raised by independent ranchers who raise beef naturally without hormones.

But the Trunk Monkey campaign has garnered the most attention.

In the first four Trunk Money ads, Jonah hangs out in a spacious trunk of a new vehicle until the driver needs assistance. In one, Jonah catches a would-be car thief and dumps him off a bridge.

At the end of the spots, Suburban’s logo appears.

In the most recent ad broadcast, Bella took over the role. She plays a pediatrician who pops out of the trunk when it becomes apparent that a woman riding in the back seat is going to deliver her baby en route. The ad ends with proud parents standing on the side of the road behind a proud Bella, who’s holding the swaddled infant.

In a different version of the ad, Bella runs off with the newborn.

Two yet-to-be-produced spots call for a “wingman” and a salesman Trunk Monkey.

The first ad aired in Portland during the 2003 Super Bowl, a spot that cost around $3,000.

“We definitely were the most talked about ad that night,” said Nancy Jaksich, who co-owns Suburban with her husband.

“We got a lot of calls. People were asking things like, ‘I just bought one of your cars, you didn’t tell me the Trunk Monkey was an option,'” Jaksich said.

“Then we started getting calls from Great Britain and Australia. It just went crazy,” she said.

One day following the airing of the first ad, the company’s Web site shut down. More than 250,000 attempts to download the ad overloaded the site.

Jaksich said she started hearing from dealers in Ohio and Pennsylvania and elsewhere around the country who had customers in their showrooms talking about the Trunk Monkey.

“That’s when we realized we were probably going to be able to syndicate it,” she said.

Suburban responded by trade-marking “Trunk Monkey” and licensing the concept. R/West works to tailor the ads to auto dealers in other markets.

The result is revenue that helps offset Suburban’s production costs, a steady trickle of work for local production houses, and a higher profile for R/West.

“It gives us global exposure to some extent but definitely a national profile. To date, we’ve really been seen as a regional creative shop,” Blixseth said.

The process has expanded Suburban’s horizons as well.

The auto dealer recently started merchandising Trunk Monkey products — T-shirts, bumper stickers and action dolls — from a shop at one of its showrooms and online.

Source: Portland Business Journal
Byline: Shelly Strom

Customer Bait

Lost: Diamond tennis bracelet, probably at Costco.

This local classified ad is a perfect illustration of the crossover consumer we have become, comfortable in so many different areas that marketers find it increasingly challenging to use segmentation effectively.

Add this crossover factor to the new demographics and targeting gets tougher still. A recent article in Financial Times, Samuel Huntington’s “Who Are We? The Challenges to America’s National Identity,” notes that our demographics are changing, and drastically at that: “The single most immediate and most serious challenge to America’s traditional identity comes from the immense and continuing immigration from Latin America, especially from Mexico, and the fertility rates of these immigrants compared with black and white American natives.”

It’s a time of massive consumer transformation, one we seem to resist acknowledging. Instead of just trying to update an old customer acquisition approach, we would be smarter if we rethought how we go about gathering customers in general.

Yep, pull marketing is back. When the Internet started making waves, marketers claimed that all customers would be pulled into sales over the Internet and that pushing via mailings was dead. An overstatement, yes. But, as it turns out, not far from the truth.

We are over mailing lists, our creative is as distinctive as the hundreds of six-toed cat “clones” in Key West, FL, and we’re all starting to sell the same stuff. Not to mention that message bombardment has forced consumers to learn the art of tuning out all marketing.

Effective pull marketing requires that you know what your customers want before they know they want it.

Here are a few key areas where pull shines.

Web Sites

Larry Dotson reports on Top7 Business.com that the main reason people don’t visit a Web site is that it doesn’t offer free original content. Catalogers tend to be horrid at content.

Rather, consider the British publication More, which allowed visitors to download an instant boyfriend for two weeks with the relationship unfolding every day. The copy: “It’s great – a boyfriend and a screen saver in one! Who says men aren’t useful? But beware, a lot can happen in two weeks. Men are an unpredictable breed.”

Another Web-site draw: films. Budweiser runs ads to invite filmmakers to create films for its site. Having recently gone to an independent film festival and listened to filmmakers talk, I learned that “hiring” someone to create an original film is not expensive. Most produced their films with their own money; the highest budget (for a subsidized school project) was $30,000. Create a theme that makes sense for your company’s image, start a contest using your Web site or catalog and watch the movies roll in.

Viral Marketing

Remember “I told two friends, they told two friends…”? That’s what viral marketing is all about.

Best current example: the Suburban Auto Group and its hilarious Trunk Monkey commercials. Though no longer running, the ads have such a cult-like following they have spawned an entire site and are being forwarded like crazy. Viral marketing caused this tiny auto dealership in Sandy, OR to become one of the most talked-about companies on the Web. Visit Suburbanautogroup.com to find out why.

Tie-ins

Tie-ins offer another reason for consumers to choose you. Industrial supplies cataloger New Pig ties in with Victory Junction Gang, a nonprofit that’s building a camp touted as “a magical place where special kids can just be kids.” As the camp was founded by the Petty car racing family, and New Pig has a habit of giving away NASCAR racing glasses, the pairing seems natural.

Endorsements

There are three basic kinds of endorsements: customer, authority and celebrity. They all work. And you never can have enough of them, especially from customers.

For a celebrity endorser, look for a careful match, one who has long-standing credibility and enhances your brand overall. My agency hired “Wonder Woman” Lynda Carter as the spokeswomen for Lens Express, believing her great big eyes were the key. Combined with the slogan “Would I trust these baby blues to just anyone?” the endorsement overcame concerns about ordering contact lenses by mail.

Public Relations

Historian and author Daniel J. Boorstin said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire PR officers.” It’s very simple. PR works.

David Hochberg, vice president of public affairs for Direct Holdings Worldwide, the parent company of Lillian Vernon, Rue de France and Time Life’s direct marketing division, says: “A third-party endorsement by the media always adds credibility to your brand. Most consumers view the media as an objective source of information and most Americans get their news and information from the media. A proactive public relations campaign can add considerable pull to your marketing efforts.”

So make sure your PR presence is easy to spot on your Web site.

Humor in Advertising

Delta Apparel, a B-to-B marketer of knitwear products, used the theme “Unusually Heavy T-shirts” for a campaign in a business publication. One ad showed a kid leaving deep indentations in a sidewalk as he ran along.

Another featured a swing hanging very low due the heft of its Delta-clad passenger. Both made it clear that Delta T-shirts were anything but lightweight. The results: a 24% jump in sales, 49% more new customers and T-shirt sales that grew 158%.

Super Bowl commercials have long been considered the place to look for the best in advertising. So how important is humor? Of ESPN’s top 10 ads from this year’s game, eight used humor.

Bottom line? Keep an open mind. And consider anything that will get customers to come to you rather than you having to chase them.

KATIE MULDOON is president of DM/catalog consulting firm Muldoon & Baer Inc., Tequesta, FL.

COPYRIGHT 2004 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Source: Direct
Byline: KATIE MULDOON

Monkey Shines in Ads

A friend who’s a former ad man sent an e-mail that simply says, “And this is a real commercial.”

Attached was a video clip. Turns out, it’s one of four TV spots touting a fake product but a real dealership, the Suburban Auto Group, selling Fords, Chevys and Suzukis in Sandy, OR, south of Portland.

All four ads have aired locally. They were also on www.suburbanautogroup.com. “But in one week on a dedicated server we had 3 million downloads and had to shut them off,” says Les Dalrymple, Suburban’s Internet manager. “We’ll try again soon and hope things have cooled down somewhat.”

They’re not your typical dealership ads.

Each spoofs the vigilance of a trained chimp that protects people and their vehicles, sometimes violently.

The ad that caught my friend’s eye begins with a thief breaking into a car and getting set to take off. The next shot shows the chimp, in the trunk reading, reacting to the theft in progress.

He sneaks up and clubs the guy. The next shot shows the car stopping midway on a bridge. The chimp drags the felon out by his feet. He’s hurled off the bridge and into the water.

A narrator says, “The Trunk Monkey theft-retrieval system. Because sometimes getting your car back is simply not enough. Another revolutionary idea you’ll find only at Suburban Auto Group.”

The spots offend some people. Most evidently find them funnier than a barrel of monkeys.

“The ads are a big hit here,” says Erinn Sowle, Suburban’s general manager. “People love them. We’ve had only a couple of complaints. Some thought Road Rage was too violent.”

In that, a meek motorist, threatened by a bully during a traffic altercation, pushes a Trunk Monkey button in his car. The chimp ends up putting the claw end of a crowbar in the redneck’s neck.

Then the voice-over tagline: “The Trunk Monkey. Another revolutionary idea you’ll only find at one place. Suburban Auto Group.”

One of the funniest (and less violent) spots opens with three kids egging a guy’s car as he drives down a suburban street. He pushes his Trunk Monkey button. Mr. Chimps jumps out and pursues the bewildered brats.

Two hop a fence. The third gets halfway over, but the chimp grabs him. His terrified face is shown in close-up as he’s slowly pulled down.

After what happened to the car thief and the big bully, one may wonder what’s in store for a captured kid. Relax. The spot ends with all three miscreants, under chimpanzee supervision, washing the car they egged.

“Two endings were done for that one,” says Sowle. “The one we didn’t use simply ended with the kid being dragged down off the fence.”

That likely left too much to the imagination.

R. West, a Portland-based agency, did the spots.

“The concept of the ads is that we go above and beyond for the customer,” says Sowle. “Even to the point of offering the Trunk Monkey.”

But there is no Trunk Monkey product. (Why is that a relief?) I clarified that point with Sowle, prefacing my inquiry by saying, “This may be a dumb question, but…”

An interesting question is if it sells cars.

“It’s hard to quantify how many actual sales are a result of the ads,” says Sowle. “They’re not your standard call-to-action dealership ads. But they’ve given us a lot of name recognition.”

Dalrymple says of the pretend product, “I wish there were a real Trunk Monkey. I could have sold thousands.”

The chimp’s name is Jonah. He was in the “Planet of the Apes” 2001 movie remake. He gets VIP treatment when he flies in for the ads. “He stays at a hotel and earns union scale,” says Sowle.

He’s earned something of a following locally – and beyond. “We get comments from as far away as Australia and England and from some of our guys in the Middle East,” says Dalrymple.

The ads are being syndicated, meaning more dealerships are partaking in monkey shines.

COPYRIGHT 2004 PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc. All rights reserved.

COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Source: Ward’s Dealer Business
Byline: STEVE FINLAY

Iraqi roadside bomb kills Concord man

Michael Price felt driven to perilous security work

Michael Price’s father offered him $100,000 if he would leave Iraq.

His mother begged him to come home.

But the 33-year-old Concord resident told them he was doing what he wanted to — providing security for a company destroying Saddam Hussein’s munitions caches.

Early Friday, his parents’ fears were realized when their son died of injuries suffered earlier in the week in a deadly roadside bombing.

“We tried to persuade him not to go — it’s scary over there,” said Joyce Bakersmith, who is married to Price’s father, Vernon. “We’re going to miss him.”

His father, who was so upset he could barely speak Friday, had planned to leave that day for Germany where his son was to be flown for medical care.

Before leaving for Iraq in January, Price was a weapons instructor for HALO Group Inc. in Concord for two years. The private company trains law enforcement and others in shooting and defensive tactics.

In January he left to work for Cochise Consultancy Inc. out of Florida, one of many private firms providing security for contractors in Iraq. Cochise is protecting USA Environmental of Tampa as it removes explosives under a contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The roadside bomb that killed Price also killed two colleagues traveling with him. His family has been told that despite severe shrapnel wounds to his head, he tried to help those men.

In an e-mail to friends and family on April 20, five days before the bombing, he described his job as “trunk monkey” or rear security to the convoy.

“Our job is basically to protect the convoy vehicles, personnel and certain cargos from the little nasties that plague us here. I cannot be specific as to who, what, when, or why, so just roll with it.”

Friends and colleagues describe Price as having little fear of things often terrifying to others.

After attending high school near Los Angeles, he entered the Navy as a medical technician on the USS Midway during the Persian Gulf War. He won a presidential citation for pulling two shipmates out of a burning ammunition storage facility.

He then became an expert rock climber and lived in Yosemite National Park, where he and his friend Mark Peters did searches and rescues off the highest rock formations, which park rangers couldn’t reach. Once, Price found a lost boy alive, “which is quite rare for a search and rescue,” said Peters, who grew up with his friend in Dallas, Texas. Their families both moved from there to outside Los Angeles and later the two friends moved to the Bay Area, where Price has lived since 1995.

Price took up the rare hobby of hunting boars with a spear, although Peters said he never actually killed one. He sailed, was an expert scuba diver and once swam the Carquinez Strait from Crockett to Glen Cove during shipping traffic, just for the heck of it.

“We used to ask him if he had a big read ‘S’ on his chest,” said Kevin McMahon, a friend and HALO spokesman.

When he wanted to go to Iraq with Cochise, it didn’t surprise Peters. Price, he said, was a natural protector, and the money was good. He estimates Price was making $12,000 a month. It was enough, his family said, to pay off his bills and get on a firm financial footing so he could take care of his 11-year-old daughter in Southern California. She was born during a brief marriage while Price was in the Navy.

That’s why Price’s father offered to give him $100,000 to come home.

“He didn’t have to do what he did to do that,” Vernon Price said from his home in Pomona.

Price kept in close e-mail contact with both of his parents while in Iraq. When the four American civilian contractors were killed March 31 in Fallujah and their bodies mutilated, his mother, Alice Smith, e-mailed him and begged him to come home. In a response that he also sent to his father, Price wrote in part:

“You must understand that it’s not just the money that drives me here. … I know and understand your concern; if I was in your shoes, I would feel the same way. I am sorry to put you through this stress, and you know it is not my intention to worry you. I just can’t help who and what I am, and as crazy as it may sound to some, there is no other place in the world I’d rather be at this moment. I will be home soon. I don’t know when, but I promise I will be there. I love you.”

Source: CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Byline: Carrie Sturrock

Chimpanzee Collaboratory Action Alert

The Chimpanzee Collaboratory issued the following alert regarding their protest against the Trunk Monkey ad campaign:

ACTION ALERT:

Suburban Auto Group “Trunk Monkey” Ads
March 19, 2004

An auto dealer in Sandy, Oregon is running a series of ads that pretend to be for a new “safety” device for their autos. This “device” is a chimpanzee who thwarts attempted vehicle thefts. Please let the Suburban Auto Group know that representing a critically endangered species as a cute little joke just isn’t funny.

Nancy Jaksich, Owner
Suburban Auto Group
36936 Hwy 26
PO Box 363
Sandy, OR 97055

If you have extra time, you can also contact the ad agency and producer responsible for the commercials.

Production company:
Joseph Uliano
Crossroads Media
8630 Pine Tree Place
Los Angeles, CA 90069
[email protected]
Ad Agency:
Sean Blixseth, President
R/West
1430 SE 3rd, Floor 3
Portland, OR 97214

Click here for letter writing tips and suggestions.

For more information on the use of great apes in entertainment, please click here.

Selling cars takes characters and wits

If you don’t read this column today, I can’t save you any money. Recognize the line? I thought so, which underscores the power of automobile advertising.

And yes, it’s alive and thriving, especially among Portland area auto dealerships, because it has to be. Scott Thomason’s face may have disappeared from the airwaves (he moved to Northern California), but the local auto mavens left behind are clamoring for ways to get you to like them –and want their cars.

“It’s all about marinating the mind of the consumer,” Ed Tonkin told a gathering of Portland Advertising Federation members Wednesday at the Oregon Convention Center. “I’ve never been convinced that a TV ad would get someone to get off the couch and buy a car.”

But when people are looking to buy a car, that’s the time when a familiar name, face or trunk monkey comes into play. Granted, more and more car buyers are doing their pre-purchase research on the Internet these days, but they’re still signing on the bottom line at the dealership.

Now that the familiar Thomason mug is history, there’s an opportunity for local dealers to fill the void and create some kind of emotional attachment. If car ads have proven anything through the years, it’s that silly often leads to sales. Bruce Chevrolet’s kangaroo, or Timberline Dodge owner Alex Laws saying he’d be willing to eat his hat, are examples of what apparently gets the job done.

The consumer may be smarter and more informed than ever before. But when we’re bombarded with thousands of commercial messages a day, a warm and appealing connection is, well, comforting.

“We wanted our name out there,” says Nancy Jaksich of Suburban Auto Group explaining why its ad agency, R/West, created the trunk monkey campaign. “We wanted to do something fun. We didn’t want to do price, but we wanted to get on (consumers’) radar. The monkey put us on the map.”

According to Jaksich, sales at Suburban have skyrocketed since the monkey (which actually lives in Los Angeles and flies up to shoot the ads) came on the scene two Super Bowls ago.

For his part, Tonkin has an idea about how to counter the monkey.

“We’re going to start putting some of our bloopers in commercials,” he says. “We put together an outtake reel for our employees’ holiday party, and I can’t tell you how many people said, ‘You gotta run this.’ It would show the human side of us.”

Switching signals

Two of Portland’s talk radio stations are swapping locations on the AM dial. Sports talk KFXX (“The Fan”) will move from its current 910 AM frequency to 1080 AM, switching with KOTK, home of nationally syndicated talk show hosts Don Imus and Tom Leykis.

Both stations are owned by Entercom Communications, which has made no statement on the move or when it will take place. But sources at the company say it wants to improve the audience reach of KFXX, especially in Clackamas County.

The 1080 frequency has a stronger signal — 50,000 watts during the day and 10,000 watts at night, compared with the 5,000 watts available on 910.

This is the second time that KFXX has switched frequencies. In 1998, “The Fan” moved to 910 in a dial swap with KKSN (1520 AM).

And now this…

Former KOIN (6) anchor Shirley Hancock’s lawsuit against the station and parent company Emmis Communications, which was scheduled to come to trial next month in U.S. District Court, has been delayed until August.

Attorneys from both sides requested the delay.

Hancock, whose contract was not renewed in June 2001 after 18 years at the station, is seeking unspecified damages claiming age and sex discrimination, wrongful discharge and breach of contract. In the lawsuit, Hancock also complains about derogatory comments by newsroom personnel and management, bullying of female employees and an on-air colleague’s “unprofessional and disruptive behavior, flying into rages … and throwing objects on the news set.”

Meanwhile, former KATU (2) anchor and “AM Northwest” co-host Cathy Marshall has hired the services of an attorney to consider legal action against the station. Marshall was told during her maternity leave this fall that her contract would not be renewed.

Source: Business Tribune
Byline: Pete Schulberg

Trunkmonkey Midnight Run 2004

You just don’t realize how much time and planning goes into organizing a road rally till you try and do one yourself. On the surface, it seems like it should be pretty easy. Just drive around, create a set of instructions, make some copies and you are set to go, right? Not even close! I now have a new found appreciation of the time, dedication and sacrifice that every rallymaster puts into organizing a successful NER road rally.

In August it became clear that the two scheduled NER October road rallies were not going to happen. With this in mind, James Mackey and Chris Brenton of Team Trunkmonkey offered to create an event to fill the void. I mean, with two rally masters and two whole months to get organized, how hard could it be? We also had the added bonus that James had already logged countless hours identifying fun driving roads between Manchester and Keene New Hampshire with Kris Marciniak.

To make a long story short, it was a lot harder than we thought. The fun began just in identifying a good route. Its a lot harder than you may think to find lots of roads that people will find interesting to drive without the roads being too dangerous. You then have to figure out how to string these roads together into a 140 mile “course”. Add in the fact that we had roads we knew would be more fun in the daylight, while others would be more fun in the dark, and timing became crucial as well. Did you know that the eight mile road leading into Roxbury, NH “center” ends in a cul de sac? We found that out the hard way. It took nine revisions of the rally notes before we felt comfortable handing them out to competitors. The result was 136 miles, 50% of which were dirt, spread out over 14 checkpoints. Approximately 2/3 of the rally was run in the dark, meaning this was the only NER night rally for the 2004 season.

The effort however seemed to be more than worth it. 15 teams turned out to try their hand at the 6 hour course. For one of the teams, James White and Jennifer Sayers, it was their first event and they were unsure if their car would pass tech inspection. It quickly became clear that their brakes would not be safe for navigating the course. Luckily for James and Jennifer they were running a Subaru, for which Team Trunkmonkey stocks an abundance of spare parts. Some borrowed brake pads and one slightly used rotor later, and they were ready for the race and on time to boot. James and Jennifer took Dead Last But Finished (DLBF), but given it was a night rally and that they finished at all, says they can have a future in road rallying.

Some cross pollination took place as some of the NER Rallycross drivers turned out to try their hand at a road rally. Author Chabot and David Harris were scoring well through the first three checkpoints, when tragedy struck in the form of a broken fan belt. With no way to charge the electrical system during a night rally, they were forced to withdraw. The team of Adrien and James Cooper faired better in their 300ZX (Adrien normally runs a Subaru RS in Rallycross). They placed 11th overall 4th in Novice class, and even scored a zero on one of the legs! Not bad for their first event. The final Rallycross team, Matt Kennedy and Joshua Bressem came in with 431 points. This placed them 7th overall and 2nd in class C. Pretty impressive score when you consider that class C specifies that no odometer can be used, not even the stock unit.

Of course the fact that Matt and Joshua took second in class C hints that another team did even better with no odometer. That was lucky car number 13 which consisted of Laurel Richman and Nick Shectman who scored 2nd overall, and 1st in class C. Their score? An amazing 142 points! This included one leg of 80 points. Remove this one bad leg and they would have a score that a class A team could be proud of. Wow.

Other over achievers of the night included Barb and Kermit Brunelle. Fresh off of taking the top spot at the RAL road rally, they proved it was not a fluke by scoring 238 points to take 5th overall and 1st in novice class. Just beating them out in overall standings, and taking the win in stock class, was the team of Greg Miller and Steve McKelvie. The “big yellow truck” brought them in with a total of 216 points. Of course it was no surprise that the top spot fell to the team of Fred Mapleback and Paul Gosselin. They finished the 135 mile course with just 18 points (that’s 11 seconds off of “perfect time”). They had one leg of 6 points, but a majority of the checkpoints were scored at 1 point or less. A spectacular finish to a very long and hard rally.

SANSThe System Auditing, Network Security Institute proved to be a very gracious sponsor of the event. All entrants that pre-registered received their very own “trunk monkey” to help maintain ballast in the rear of their car (if you are not familiar with the performance benefits of a trunkmonkey, see www.trunkmonkey.com for full details). They also received an adjustable clip light to help the co-driver read the rally notes during the night portion of the event. All entrants received a SANS pen and highlighter to make up the rally notes, as well as free “spirits” and food at the trophy party. As if that was not enough, extra trophies where handed out in novice class as an incentive for folks to come back to future NER events.

Of course it was not just the rally masters that worked hard at making this event a success. Scott Beliveau donated countless hours to the event in the form of two safety and mileage checks, as well as error checking of all the paperwork including the rally notes. Keith Casey (of AutoX fame), William Stearns, Kelly and Sean Sosik-Hamor (rally car #762), Kory Marciniak, Brian Knapp, Ian Bowers, Andrea Brenton, and again Scott Beliveau, all donated time to work checkpoints.

The checkpoint teams had their share of “fun” at the event as well. Local police showed up at four different checkpoints to find out what was going on. In two cases, they were blocking the checkpoint timing gear requiring the checkpoint workers to do some quick but polite talking to get them out of the way. We even had a number of locals turn up at some of the checkpoints to watch what was going on. Note to self: next year designate “spectator” areas at each of the checkpoints. Of course the most interesting obstacle was that checkpoint team 2 (consisting of Scott and William) had a van full of slightly tipsy women try and tempt them away from their checkpoint position. They never wavered from their post. At least that’s what they told me and they’re sticking to their story.

Look for another Trunkmonkey event at the same time next year!

Photos | Routebook | Rallymaster Notes | Directions | Entry Form | General Instructions | Results

Lovell and Freeman fatally injured during Oregon Trail SCCA ProRally

SCCA has issued an official press release regarding the accident:

HILLSBORO, Ore. (July 12, 2003) – Subaru Rally Team USA superstars Mark Lovell, 43, and Roger Freeman, 52, both of England, were fatally injured Saturday during the first special stage of the Oregon Trail SCCA ProRally event.

The first car away from the starting line, driver Lovell, and co-driver Freeman, left the prescribed course moments into the stage and struck a tree in their Subaru Impreza WRX. The two were pronounced dead at the scene by emergency medical personnel. Details of the incident were held until the families were notified.

“This is a tragic day for the world of rallying and motorsports in general, “said Steve Johnson, SCCA President and CEO, who was in attendance at the event. “Mark Lovell and Roger Freeman were among the best crews in the world, but they were also great competitors as well. Our prayers go out to their families, Subaru Rally Team USA and all of their friends and supporters.”

The duo who had been rallying together for twenty years were competingin their third event together of 2003. They entered the Oregon Trail fresh from success winning the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb of June 27. The 2001 Overall Drivers Champion, Lovell is survived by his wife, Julia, and his children Oliver and Thomas. Roger Freeman is survived by his wife, Alison, and children Becky and John.

A decision was made to finish Day One of the rally while information regarding the accident was gathered and after rally organizershad consulted with SCCA national staff, national safety stewardsand at the request of Subaru Rally Team USA Manager and close personal friend of Lovell and Freeman, David Campion. The field then ran an abbreviated schedule of stages later in the day. The rally will continue with the completion of the final six stages on Sunday as scheduled.