SALES PROMOTION

The Comic Book Is Back, in Luxe Coffee-Table Form

Publishers are discovering a market for high-end, high-priced collections of comic books, especially as movies about superheroes revive interest.Two years ago, David Gabriel, a senior vice president at Marvel Comics, publisher of Spider-Man and the X-Men, was sitting in the company’s Fifth Avenue offices with a few colleagues trying to come up with a product tie-in for the Fantastic Four film to be released that summer. The oversize coffee table-style 848-page book reprinted the first 30 issues of the original Fantastic Four, the comic created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961. The book, which weighs 5.4 pounds, would retail for $99.99.

COMMENT: The comic industry as a whole has rebounded by the demand for high-end collections by an aging audience (selected target market) nostalgic for the comics of its youth. This reflects the demographic segment of the consumer.

Revenue Magazine - The Performance Marketing Standard

The first publication devoted entirely to the world of affiliate marketing. Website: http://www.revenuetoday.com/

Where the focus is everything about online marketing, including key business strategies, innovative marketing methods, effective online advertising techniques, emerging advertising trends in technology and much more.

NBA All-Star 2008 SWEEPSTAKES

NBA All-Star Sweepstakes
Enter for a chance to win a trip to the NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans!
The Grand Prize Package Includes:

*Roundtrip air travel on Southwest for winner and guest

*3 nights hotel accommodations, double occupancy

*NBA All-Star Game tickets for winner and guest

*NBA All-Star Saturday Night tickets

*NBA Jam Session tickets*Chance to play H.O.R.S.E with NBA Player or Legend

*Officially licensed NBA All-Star Merchandise

COMMENT: This is an example of sales promotion (a bit of place marketing too) as to help to build brand equity and enhance their customer relationships.

Anticipated Fight - EVENT MARKETING

Promoter Don King has put together what will be a much-anticipated fight between Felix Trinidad, left, and Roy Jones Jr., right at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Event Marketing/Mix - BOXING (PRODUCT)

"UNDEFEATED" — WBC world and Ring Magazine welterweight champion "Pretty Boy" Floyd Mayweather will met world junior welterweight and Ring Magazine champion Ricky "The Hitman" Hatton for the WBC world welterweight and Ring Magazine championships Saturday, Dec. 8 at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

COMMENT: PROMOTED by Golden Boy Promotions and Mayweather Promotions, and SPONSORED by Rock Star Energy Drink, Tecate Beer and SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, the fight will be produced and DISTRIBUTED live by HBO Pay-Per-View (pricing).

Great example of a marking mix!

PERSON MARKETING - Promotional Campaign

Oprah and Obama in Des Moines
Ms. Winfrey stepped into American politics as she has never done before, opening a three-state tour in her quest to support the presidential bid of Senator Barack Obama.

COMMENT: Operah Winfrey engaged in support of the presidential bid of Senator Barack Obama in person marketing to expand his audiences, improve political awareness and enhance his images among potential voters.

TIGER WOODS - Integrated marketing Communications

NIKE GOLF to gain a competitive advantage relies on a broad mix of promotional efforts in marketing its products, which includes TV commercials, sweepstakes, tie-ins with Starwood Hotels and promote company website. Identifying any deviations the plan of action and suggesting improvements completes the IMC system.

PROMOTION - Online marketing tool

southwest.com Nationwide Sale $49 to $99 one-way!

Travel on a Tuesday or Wednesday.Book 14 days in advance and by December 17, 2007. Travel December 11, 2007 through March 7, 2008.

COMMENT: The above sale promoto stategy allows consumers to purchase discounted airline tickets online on non-popular days as to encourage shoppers to purchase this specific brand based on price. This will create a desire to purchase and stimulate sales by informing, persuading and influencing a purchase decision.

EVENT MARKETING & Sponsorships

Southwest Airlines invites you to come and experience the fun!

*The 2007 Magnificent Mile Lights Festival presented by Harris (Chicago, IL)

*The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program *Vietnamese American National Gala™ 2007 (Houston, TX)

*The Quince Girl & Latino Bridal Expo *The Giving LUV, Saving Lives Campaign *Dándole Alas a Tu Éxito/Giving Flight to Your Success

*Southwest is proud to sponsor the Kirk Franklin "HERO" Tour.

*National Aquarium in Baltimore *National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum (Cooperstown, NY)

*Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (Springfield, MA)
*National Hispanic Cultural Center (NHCC)

COMMENT: Southwest Airlines is sponsoring the above short term events. They have partnered with not-for-profit and profit-seeking firms to advertise and attract attention for participation.

Revenue Magazine

The first publication devoted entirely to the world of affiliate marketing.
Website: http://www.revenuetoday.com/

Volkswagen - Counterculture

Advertising: The ’60s as the Good Old Days

IF you remember the ’60s, as a popular saying goes, you probably weren’t there. No matter. Madison Avenue is taking you back with a skein of campaigns celebrating sights and sounds of the decade. The ads are filled with images like Volkswagen buses festooned with groovy graffiti, daisies and other power flowers, peace signs, psychedelic drawings in DayGlo colors and hair, long beautiful hair, shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen (to quote a lyric from the era).

COMMENT: What is most intriguing about the trend is that the ads present many of the contentious aspects of the ’60s — the protests, the hippies, the challenge to authority.

Discount Rate

Fed Cuts Rate a Quarter Point; Stocks Dive

In announcing the cut, the Federal Reserve signaled its concern that the credit crisis may be damaging the broader economy. The Dow fell nearly 300 points.

COMMENT: I am concerned about inflation and the outlook for our economic growth in 2007. The subprime mortgage problems might be making banks and other lenders reluctant to lend not only for housing but for other activities as well. I feel a recession coming on!

Flying the friendlier skies?

Airlines offer videos on air etiquette

Airlines and customers have differed on what it means to be a good traveler. Southwest Airlines Co. was criticized for telling a young woman in July that her outfit was too revealing to fly. Chief Executive Gary Kelly issued an apology to the young woman, Kyla Ebbert, that was read on "The Dr. Phil Show."

COMMENT: Part of the problem is that airlines haven't properly educated the public on what to expect aboard a plane. If people don't know how to behave long before adulthood, they are certainly not going to be receptive to a short animated film on the airplane. Unfortunately if they are already ill-mannered adults, their children will be the same.

Freelancers Walk Out at MTV Networks

Freelance workers from MTV Networks walked off the job today filling the sidewalk outside the headquarters of its corporate parent, Viacom to protest recent changes in benefits.

COMMENT: ABOUT TIME!! Another labor action is expected to take place outside Viacom later this week. Members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike for five weeks, are expected to picket there on Thursday.

MYSPACE UNPLUGGED

In an attempt to position itself as a destination for hearing and buying music, MySpace is inviting musicians to perform songs for a program called Transmissions. The Web site will show and sell videos of the performance.

ADVERTISING - Dr. Martens Featured in ADs & Fashion Shows.

ADVERTISING: An Antifashion Classic Returns

After Dr. Martens ran advertisements that depicted dead rock stars. The brand has a new campaign, a new agency and fresh ambitions for a comeback. The campaign, by Exposure Communications of New York, features young models wearing Docs with grunge- and punk-inflected outfits and expressions of bored disaffection; the spots are appearing in publications like Teen Vogue, Spin and British GQ, GQ, Vogue, Seventeen, Lucky and Us Weekly (which declared, “They’re baack!”)

COMMENT: The promotional stategy to stimulate selective demand actually was orchostrated to defend their current position. Furthermore, The all purpose work boot website has Internet initiatives, too. It recently started a contest where people can custom-design the classic 1460 boot online (http://www.dmbootdesign.com/). This is a great example of intergrated marketing communications (IMC).

INSTITUTIONAL ADVERSTISING - LIRR

"Be TrainSmart" Safety Campaign Launched
Learn to Cross the Gap Safely

COMMENT: The goal of the "Be TrainSmart" campaign is to improve customer safety by raising customer awareness about safe habits and customer behaviors that will reduce the number of accidents for those traveling on the LIRR. The campaign will run for an entire year, focusing on safety factor every 2 months. It will include the use of posters, brochures and advertisements at stations and on trains.

FEARING SAMSUNG'S SCANDAL

For weeks, the manufacturing giant Samsung has been battered by accusations of corruption. But because South Korea's economy is so heavily dependent on a handful of conglomerates like Samsung, Koreans fear that striking these behemoths too harshly may hurt their own economic well-being.

CANCER DRUG DISAPPOINTS

An analysis by the staff of the Food and Drug Administration appeared to dim the prospects that Genentech's drug Avastin would win approval as a treatment for breast cancer. The drug did not help women with breast cancer live meaningfully longer, the agency staff said, and it caused significant side effects.

Retooling - Competive Market Strategy

2 Airlines to Cut Back Plans for Increases in Capacity

Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines will scale back seating-capacity plans for next year on mounting concern over high oil prices and a weakening United States economy. Delta said yesterday that it would cut domestic capacity as much as 5 percent in 2008 and projected that higher fuel costs would wipe out its operating profit this quarter. Southwest, the largest discount carrier, still plans to increase overall capacity in 2008, but it reduced its projected growth for a third time, to a range of 4 to 5 percent.

COMMENT: Southwest is also hurt by higher fuel prices, but far less than competitors, giving the carrier a distinct advantage in an industry where beating the other guy often seems more important than actually doing well.

Levi Strauss Jeans

RESEARCH: A Nevada tailor named Jacob Davis came up with an improved design for making denim jeans, which were already popular with farmers and working men of all types. The problem with denim jeans was that the pockets always ripped out from people jamming their hands in the pockets. Davis came up with a solution to that problem, and that was to put copper rivets at the stress points of seams, such as at the pockets, and at the base of the fly. He didn't have the $80 required to file a patent, so he approached Levi Strauss to finance the venture. Struass was a successful San Francisco businessman, selling denim and canvas pants to miners. Davis' improvement to Levi's already sturdy jeans turned them into an icon.

Ford Galaxie 500

RESEARCH: The Ford Galaxie was the primary full size car built in the US by the Ford Motor Company for model years 1959 through 1974. A version of the car was produced in Brazil under the names Galaxie 500, LTD and Landau from 1967 to 1983. As often is the case with American cars, the model names shifted around from year to year, but the Galaxie was always Ford's full-size car. In the late 1960s, the low trim Fords would be the Ford Custom and Custom 500, while the high end would be the XL and LTD, but the Galaxie was normally the high volume counterpart to the Chevrolet Impala.

ART LINKLETTER vs BILL COSBY

Vs.








Kids Say the Darnest Things

Synopsis: Hosted by television personality Art Linkletter, Kids Say the Darndest Things captured youngsters saying a variety of funny or occasionally touching things. This video compiles two hours of the long-running show's best moments, focusing primarily on the funniest moments. Bill Cosby hosted an attempted revival of the program in the '90s.

DISNEYLAND - The Happiest Place on Earth?

A MICKEY MOUSE BATTLE

An aerial map shows Disneyland and the resort district - GRAY AREA: Possible residential development. Anaheim, CA is home to one of the fastest-growning Latino populations in the U.S.

Not in Mickey's Backyard

HOW A ZONING DISPUTE ESCALATED INTO A BATTLE FOR THE FUTURE OF DISNEYLAND

FANTASYLAND: Sleeping Beauty's castle, July 1955. Disney kept Anaheim officials friendly with parties and free tickets to its theme park.

This year Disney sued the city for the first time in the park's 50-year history, and both sides are now in the thick of a municipal ballot fight that could rank as the most expensive in California history. COMMENT: This is going to get ugly. A lot of taxpayers monies will get spent. The old aerospace industry suburb is now in demand for affordable housing that's not being met. I believe the city of Anaheim, Ca will prevail.

DETROIT AUTOMAKERS STRUGGLE

General Motors and the Ford Motor Company said that they would cut production in the first quarter because of slowing sales. At G.M., sales dropped 10.9 percent in November; Ford eked out a 1.3 percent gain, after 12 consecutive monthly sales declines.

HELP FOR HOMEOWNERS

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said he hoped to reach agreement this week with lenders and institutional investors on a plan to temporarily freeze the teaser rates for certain qualified mortgage borrowers. But industry analysts said the effort could help only a small number of those who took out such loans.

Portfolio Magazine - Business Intelligence

December 2007

2007 Writers Guild of America strike

The strike is against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), a trade organization that represents the interests of American film and television producers. Over 12,000 writers are affected by the strike. The current strike has so far lasted 5 weeks. The last such strike in 1988 lasted 22 weeks. There are several key issues of contention including DVD residuals, union jurisdiction over animation and reality program writers; and, perhaps most importantly, compensation for new media - emerging digital technology such as the Internet.

COMMENT: Let's not short change this guys. I believe new media will eventually supplant both DVD in the home video market and television in the broadcasting market as the primary means for distribution.

U.S. Route 66

Right after Route 66 was commissioned, it was known as The Great Diagonal Way because a large section of the highway (Chicago to Oklahoma City) ran diagonally, unlike the other highways. It originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles for a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km)