STAR INSURANCE

Wondering how to avoid signing a celebrity endorser who’s going to be all washed up by the time your campaign rolls out? E-Poll, Encino, CA, helps marketers stay hip with its E-Score talent-ranking service, which rates celebrity appeal with “face-only” and “name-only” recognition scores, personality attribute qualifiers, and questions asked of a 500-member consumer panel. Each celebrity rank is upgraded four times per year. Clients can access rankings and customize their own databases through The Edge, an online subscription service. The company expects to have 1,500 celebs in the database by June. Clients include ABC TV, CBS, NBC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. More info: 818-995-4960 or epoll.com.

VIRTUAL REWARDS

American Express Incentive Services, St. Louis, introduced Virtual Rewards Mall, a Web site that lets participants in its Reward Earners program redeem points at online retail, travel, and entertainment establishments. Participating merchants include Borders Books & Music, Sharper Image, Sony, Canon, and 1-800-Flowers. Reward Earners can also get real-time updates on their accounts. More info: 636-226-2079 or aeis.com.

PRICE POINTING

NCR Corp., Dayton, OH, upgraded its Advanced Store General Merchandise software, a point-of-sale service for department, discount, or specialty retail chains that allows price synchronization across multiple channels, including Web sites and catalogs. More info: 770-623-7215 or ncr.com.

EARLY EDITION

Livonia, MI-based Valassis is offering the QuickQuote Planning System, an online service that enables marketers to design, price, and place newspaper ads and inserts at any time. The service includes back-end tracking and applies more than 50 demographic targeting variables to help make ads more effective. More info: 734-591-7374 or valassis.com.

A DAB WILL DO YA

New York City-based cosmetics sampler Arcade Marketing received a patent for its LiquaTouch Sampling System, a peel-apart fluid pouch that hermetically seals alcohol-based fragrances and applicators. LiquaTouch comes in five colors and sizes ranging from mini-versions to circles and custom die-cuts. Clients include Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein. More info: 212-223-2944 or arcadeinc.com.

HOT, STEAMY ADVERTISING

Mangia Media, Inc., a joint venture between Water Mill, NY-based Ignition Team Marketing and Avco Industries, Islip, NY, recently delivered its one-millionth pizza box ad (right). The milestone was reached with a campaign for the new WB Network series The Jaime Kennedy Experience targeting four key markets in the U.S. Mangia Media launched in late 2000. More info: 631-726-2500 or mangiamedia.com.

DOWN IN THE MALL

Market researcher MindSearch, Houston, TX, is rolling out a line of kiosks billed as “electronic focus groups.” The kiosks are set-up in high-traffic shopping malls and pose “Questions of the Day ” to get consumer feedback on brands (both yours and the competition’s) and shopping habits. In a beta-test at a San Antonio mall, the kiosks generated 12,000 completed surveys overall and as many as 340 per day. MindSearch is currently available in Dallas and Los Angeles, and hopes to expand to 15 markets by summer. More info: 713-339-9668 or mindsearchinc.com.

WHAT’S HOT, WHAT’S NOT

Information Resources, Inc., Chicago, is helping CPG marketers understand the inherent value of their own products with Attribute Drivers, a new service that gauges how product positioning generates incremental sales. The service offers simulation capabilities that can quantify the potential volume and market-share effects of product additions or deletions. It also offers analysis that compares product preferences across consumer segments. The service uses statistical models applied to IRI’s national household panel data. More info: 312-726-1221 or infores.com.

FEBRUARY 2001 Playing Right into Their Hands Banana Republic, San Francisco, became the first retailer to use Streetbeam, a service from New York City-based outdoor advertising company TDI that enables marketers to transmit information such as store locations and gift ideas from outdoor phone kiosks to Palm Pilot PDAs. Consumers point their hand-held devices at any one of 100 Banana Republic ads located around Manhattan and receive the address and phone number of the nearest store, gift ideas, information on a “You Shop We Drop” delivery program and the chain’s frequent-shopper card, and a “Beam to a Friend” feature that lets consumers share items with other Palm Pilot users. More info: 212-975-1077 or tdiwordwide.com.

Stack `Em and Rack `Em Point-of-purchase marketers with surplus merchandise on their hands may perk up over the new “Stack Rack” from Display Technologies, College Point, NY. The device enables retailers to boost inventory and sales by cross-merchandising surplus with contemporary products. For example, a marketer could display bottled water in the produce section to target consumers who want a single-serve drink with a meal from the salad bar. The racks can be assembled vertically as upright floorstands or horizontally as a floor seller. More info: 718-321-3100 or display-technologies.com.

Start Your Engines Kick-start that ho-hum corporate Web site with Engines, 15- to 30-second promotional commercials that tell a company’s story using Macromedia Flash technology, logos, original graphics, music, and audio tracks. Not wanting to stick potential viewers with the World Wide Wait so often associated with graphics-heavy Web sites, maker FutureEngine, Inc., Studio City, CA, produces the spots using low bandwidths significantly smaller than AVI or MPEG formats. Set-up requires no more than a link from a company’s Web site. Engine spots have been used by such big-name advertisers as McDonald’s, AT&T, Disney, Honda, Universal Studios, and Warner Bros. (for last fall’s Battlefield Earth). More info: 818-992-7999 or FutureEngine.com.

Ad Hoc P.R. TechMarcom, Inc., Westford, MA, has a new Marcom Outsource service that enables cost-conscious and time-strapped technology companies to outsource project assignments to senior p.r. and marketing practitioners at costs the company claims are greatly reduced from traditional models. Outsource offers services on a project or hourly basis and does not require large retainers or long-term contracts. A network of graphic artists, tech writers, ad agencies, direct-mail marketers, researchers, and venture capital/investment firms are available on an a la carte basis. (Marcom acts as project manager.) Clients can be billed directly by outside vendors, avoiding agency markups. More info: 978-502-1055 or techmarcom.com.

Make This Perfectly Clear Clear Focus Imaging, Santa Rosa, CA, has developed EntreVue point-of-entry posters for that initial point of customer contact: the front door. EntreVue signs can be placed on glass doors and windows of fast-food restaurants, service-station food marts, video stores, convenience stores, supermarkets, or other retail establishments without blocking the view inside. The product costs about one-tenth the price of conventional perforated signage (according to Clear Focus) and is available in sizes up to 23 inches by 33 inches. Minimum production order is 5,000. More info: 707-544-7990 or clearfocus.com.

Sign Language Mark Bric Display Corp., Prince George, VA, introduced showcase sign-holder frames that can accommodate multiple insert panels or graphics for menu boards, directional signs, and aisle markers. The plastic frames can be ordered in any size and set up with more than four sections, with top-loading or side-loading inserts for each section. Burger King has used more than 10,000 three-section frames. More info: 804-862-4655 or markbric.com.

TOOLS OCTOBER 2000 Projecting an Image Projection Media, a division of Tricolas, Inc., El Dorado Hills, CA, has introduced a large-scale projection service that can project images, logos, Web site URLs, and other messages onto surfaces as large as 100 feet in black and white or color. The service is designed for product launches, trade show marketing, event sponsorships, and other purposes.

Trip Tamers Bus travelers now have an option to staring out the window with the arrival of BusTV Advertising. An eponymously named Englewood Cliffs, NJ-based company has entered into an agreement with bus line Coach USA to install TV monitors and run satellite and video entertainment on board (which will make that 10-hour trip from Buffalo to New York City seem like a drive to the store). Of course, no programming is ever complete these days without advertising. The program launched recently in 100 Coach USA buses traveling to and from Atlantic City, NJ, and Connecticut casinos with a program dubbed “Seniors 50-Plus.” Participating advertisers include Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Senokot, as well as local and regional companies.

You Make the Call Freefone Advertising, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, has introduced Freefone, a public telephone unit that provides free local calls to users and signage to advertisers. What differentiates them from conventional phone booths, which typically carry ads on the outside, is that the two-foot by three-foot Freefones feature stainless-steel enclosures with space for nine eight-inch by 10-inch ads inside.

Unfattening the Wallet So, you say you like phonecard promotions, but don’t like the costs of manufacture and distribution? Try the Virtual Phonecard from MHA Communications, Highland Park, IL. The concept is simple: The target receives an e-mail containing a toll-free number and a PIN number. Less-progressive types can even have the numbers sent on an HTML facsimile of a plastic phonecard – same size, but less bulk for the back pocket.

Click for Savings Coupons.com, Palo Alto, CA, unveiled a program called AdBricks that provides print-at-home couponing capabilities for online advertisers. AdBricks places a coded, one-time-use link into Web banner ads or within targeted e-mails. When the links are activated, the offer data is transferred to the user’s printer. Offers are based on participating merchants’ specifications. Coupons.com has entered into licensing agreements for the program with 24/7 Media and Promotions.com.

A Site to See BannerGalaxy.com, a Web site operated by Britten Media, Traverse City, MI, allows businesses to log on and design their own signs and banners, view real-time changes, and order products for delivery. The system lets users upload photo images for use in the signs. Printing can be applied to a wide range of materials. Users can also offer a secure set of sign templates to be customized by local affiliates or franchisees.

Minneapolis-based Meyers Display has a new interactive, corrugated P-O-P display targeted primarily for use in supermarkets and grocery stores. The displays allow shoppers to preview tracks from Metacom Music’s “Just the Hits” line of compilation CDs and cassettes (which are sold mainly through merchandisers in non-traditional retail outlets). Music lovers use a touch pad (designed by Minneapolis-based Metacom) to make their choices.