Video Scene
MY FAVORITE THING
Because You Asked, and Because I No Longer Care What You Think of Me
by Scott Hall (pseudonym for Scott Aronowitz)
(Published: The Philadelphia Scene, Holiday Issue 1989)
Review: Fast Break
directed by Jack Smight
Released 1979
111 min.
“All right, Scott,” you’ve all said at one time or another, “you’re so all-knowing and omnipotent when it comes to movies. (Few of you actually used the word ‘omnipotent.’) So what, Mr. Cinerama of the Scene, is your favorite movie of all time? This should be good.”
Well, your sardonic jibes aside, my favorite movie is one you probably haven’t seen. And when I describe it to you, you’ll probably do one of two things:
1) Conclude that I was dropped on my head as a baby and could not possibly tell a good film from a bad one, and further resolve never to pay attention to another one of my reviews, and
2) Rush out to rent this film, wherever it may be (very few stores, from my own highly refutable research), because even though Hall is probably certifiable, I’ve got to find out just what the hell kind of appeal this movie could possibly have.
Of course, the alternative may be that, like most of my staff, my readers and nearly everyone I’ve ever met, you think I’m just an overweight, self-important, pretentious twit, and proceed to ignore me completely. (Incidentally, the overweight cracks really are not necessary.) But then, you did ask for it. So here, choke on it.
I’ve seen nearly 1,200 movies, and Jack Smight’s Fast Break is my favorite. Not the BEST I’ve ever seen, just my favorite. Former Brooklyn junior high school basketball coach-turned-delicatessen manager desperately wants to coach again. A small liberal arts college in the Nevada desert wants him to build their team from nothing, for a salary of $60 per game won. With the help of his playground pickup game teammate (former N.Y. Knick Bernard King), he scours the streets for five great but undiscovered players. Then they go to Nevada, pick up a freshman quarterback in a school without football, and become an unbeaten sensation. Now the trick is to get nationally-ranked Nevada State (fictitious school filling in for UNLV) to play them in an exhibition game.
That’s it. That’s the plot. It sounds silly and contrived, like a T.V. sitcom meets a Horatio Alger story. So how come I loved it so much? How come in a list of favorites that includes The Godfather, All the President’s Men and Sunset Boulevard, this far lesser story of underdogs overcoming adversity is my greatest pleasure? Four things, I think:
1) the characters are real, not cardboard cutouts, and they all have very real reasons for leaving New York for Nevada;
2) Gabe Kaplan brings with him his “Welcome Back, Kotter” sensibility for helping young people everyone else has written off to achieve more than they ever though possible;
3) the film contains at least three hysterical and original scenes, one of which would be dubbed an all-time classic 5 million or so more people had actually seen this film;
4) I’m not a sports fan, but the basketball games in this movie, especially the grand finale, are genuinely exciting.
It’s not going to make Halliwell’s tome as a genre-defining classic. It may not even make your Saturday night video list. But it should.
Because it’s real, it’s fun, and unlike much of what Hollywood feeds us today, it has a plot that keeps moving from beginning to end. And that’s saying a lot.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Video Scene
EARNEST DUPES AND A DREAM DEFERRED
by Scott Hall (pseudonym for Scott Aronowitz)
(Published: The Philadelphia Scene, July 1989)
Review: Chan Is Missing
directed by Wayne Wang
Released 1982
77 min.
This small, quiet film by transplanted Chinese director Wayne Wang tells us more about the differing degrees of political affiliation and, more importantly, loyalty of PRC nationals and immigrants in the U.S. than any epic film to come out of either country. And it’s an insightful film about friendship, and how we can maintain a friendship for years without really knowing the other person.
The title character may have been abducted; he may have just disappeared of his own volition. But his two friends/partners in the ownership of a Chinatown taxicab in San Francisco entrusted him with their money, and now they’d like to know what happened to it, and to him.
We learn about Chan from the “investigation” his partners undertake into his disappearance. Fancying themselves amateur detectives, they contact several people who might have seen Chan soon before he became “missing.” They are not interested in uncovering a political conspiracy; they just want to know if he’s absconded with their money. So they talk to Chan’s wife and the teenage daughter they didn’t know he had; they talk to the owner of a restaurant Chan regularly patronized; they talk to a very old Chinese man who had some connection with Chan. Many of them provide unexpected laughs with their quirks and attitudes. But none of these people, including Chan’s own family, knows much about Chan either. However, some know about his involvement in the “flag-waving incident,” which comes to represent the political undertones that help define the film.
In a recent Chinatown parade, a man had pulled out a Communist Chinese flag that, figuratively and literally, flew in the face of the traditionalist theme of the parade. The action angered Chan, who confronted the man. They may have had an altercation; the man may have even been involved with an underground political movement. Neither we nor the central characters ever find out for sure. If Chan’s disappearance was connected to the flag-waving incident, he may even have been killed. However, the more they learn about Chan from their interviews, the more likely it appears that Chan simply took the money and ran.
Cabbie Mark is a young, more exhausted than angry man. His partner Jo is a calm, elderly man who, we come to suspect, had seen some dismal times under communist rule during his earlier years in China. Despite the frustration the two men experience in never coming any closer to learning what happened to Chan, neither man ever loses his temper. In fact, they are wistful over their new insights into a man they thought they knew so well. And they are worried that, if the flag-waving incident was behind it all, the influences they struggled to escape in China have now followed them to the United States.
Is this a brilliant film? Probably. Will you be able to tell while watching it? Almost definitely not. But like any great but modest film, you will think about it afterward, and you’ll come to discover how much for this $20,000 gem has to say than many of its epic counterparts costing upwards of 1,000 times more.
EARNEST DUPES AND A DREAM DEFERRED
by Scott Hall (pseudonym for Scott Aronowitz)
(Published: The Philadelphia Scene, July 1989)
Review: Chan Is Missing
directed by Wayne Wang
Released 1982
77 min.
This small, quiet film by transplanted Chinese director Wayne Wang tells us more about the differing degrees of political affiliation and, more importantly, loyalty of PRC nationals and immigrants in the U.S. than any epic film to come out of either country. And it’s an insightful film about friendship, and how we can maintain a friendship for years without really knowing the other person.
The title character may have been abducted; he may have just disappeared of his own volition. But his two friends/partners in the ownership of a Chinatown taxicab in San Francisco entrusted him with their money, and now they’d like to know what happened to it, and to him.
We learn about Chan from the “investigation” his partners undertake into his disappearance. Fancying themselves amateur detectives, they contact several people who might have seen Chan soon before he became “missing.” They are not interested in uncovering a political conspiracy; they just want to know if he’s absconded with their money. So they talk to Chan’s wife and the teenage daughter they didn’t know he had; they talk to the owner of a restaurant Chan regularly patronized; they talk to a very old Chinese man who had some connection with Chan. Many of them provide unexpected laughs with their quirks and attitudes. But none of these people, including Chan’s own family, knows much about Chan either. However, some know about his involvement in the “flag-waving incident,” which comes to represent the political undertones that help define the film.
In a recent Chinatown parade, a man had pulled out a Communist Chinese flag that, figuratively and literally, flew in the face of the traditionalist theme of the parade. The action angered Chan, who confronted the man. They may have had an altercation; the man may have even been involved with an underground political movement. Neither we nor the central characters ever find out for sure. If Chan’s disappearance was connected to the flag-waving incident, he may even have been killed. However, the more they learn about Chan from their interviews, the more likely it appears that Chan simply took the money and ran.
Cabbie Mark is a young, more exhausted than angry man. His partner Jo is a calm, elderly man who, we come to suspect, had seen some dismal times under communist rule during his earlier years in China. Despite the frustration the two men experience in never coming any closer to learning what happened to Chan, neither man ever loses his temper. In fact, they are wistful over their new insights into a man they thought they knew so well. And they are worried that, if the flag-waving incident was behind it all, the influences they struggled to escape in China have now followed them to the United States.
Is this a brilliant film? Probably. Will you be able to tell while watching it? Almost definitely not. But like any great but modest film, you will think about it afterward, and you’ll come to discover how much for this $20,000 gem has to say than many of its epic counterparts costing upwards of 1,000 times more.
FROM CLASSICS TO KID’S STUFF – PASADENA MUSEUMS HAVE IT ALL
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: The Pasadena Weekly, July 8, 1994)
“Museums?! I didn’t come all the way to Pasadena to see museums! I came to party! I came to drink and eat and dance and go to Disneyland and go wild every night and sleep late every morning and get up and do it all over again! I didn’t come here to look at ‘Oversized Nude Woman on Bicycle with Both Eyes on One Side of Head Finding Spirit of Nature in 4th Dimensional Space! Who cares how Pablo Leonardo Henri Georges Jean-Paul Whatsizname was trying to express his inner pain? I want to have fun!”
All right, do you feel better? Is it all out of your system? Good. Because believe it or not, museums in Pasadena really are fun! There’s a lot more to look at than paintings and a lot more to do than look.
For starters, you can smell. And thanks to the 130 acres of beautiful, exotic flowers and other plant life from all over the world at the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens, you can smell a lot. With over 14,000 varieties of greenery in 15 garden areas, you can travel the World Cup world through offerings from Japan, England, Australia, the South Seas, even the nearby California deserts and San Gabriel Mountains. Or you can simply stop and smell the roses.
Then, when you’re through smelling, you can sip. That’s right, sip, thanks to the English tea served Tuesday through Sunday in the Rose Garden Tea Room. Sit in a palatial paradise surrounded by lush beauty as you are served chamomile and scones. The Queen herself should have it so good.
Smelling and sipping not enough? What if we said the museums can get you psyched? (Sufferin’ succotash!) If a good psyching is what you need, catch the exhibits at the Pacific Asia Museum and the Pasadena Historical Museum. Both will get the adrenaline pumping in any sports fan.
Pacific Asia plans to show fans of the world’s most popular sport what other games have been hot in the Pacific Rim through the ages at their “Games of the Asian World” exhibit from June 25 through August 7. Paintings, drawings, wood carvings, even actual uniforms and equipment will be on display to depict Eastern Asia’s favorite athletic pastimes from the past fifteen centuries or so.
But you still say you came here to play? Well it’s time we introduced you to the ultimate laboratory for the kid in all of us.
Welcome to Kidspace.
You can probably ask any ten local adults to name their favorite museum in Pasadena, and at least five will say Kidspace (not scientifically determined). The city’s educational playground for the kid in all of us, Kidspace offers unique exhibits where not learning is impossible and not touching is unthinkable.
This summer’s offerings, beginning June 18, include Eco-Beach, an enclosed sandbox containing four tons of sand a variety of natural objects usually found only at the beach, a wave maker and surround sounds of the surf; Critter Caverns, displaying animal habitats on, above and below ground, where little human critters can actually crawl and explore; Toddler Territory, with a play environment for those under 5; the International Mask Gallery, where visitors can make their own masks and write stories about them; a simulated television station, for writing news stories and broadcasting them on closed-circuit TV; a mini planetarium and a costume gallery.
Kidspace also offers touch tables featuring natural objects and artifacts related to each exhibit, special workshops and educational programs to learn more about the themes of the exhibits, and even a one-on-one audience with Dylan, the Friendly Boa Constrictor.
Finally, this summer brings a whole variety of international exhibits and presentations, including International World Cup Day June 26, just in time for the tournament.
The museum’s summer hours are Tuesday through Friday 1-5 p.m. and weekends 12:30-5 p.m. And remember, aboutn the only thing you can’t do at Kidspace is get bored.
By the time you’re through playing, at Kidspace and elsewhere, you’ll want to relax and perhaps simply look for awhile. That’s just fine, because the world-renowned Norton Simon Museum has plenty to look at.
Of course, the museum offers the great works of the European legends for which it is famous: Goya, Renoir, Monet, Rodin and the ever-reliable Picasso and Rembrandt. But if you’re looking for something a little more cutting-edge, you’ll want to check out the exhibit of Bauhaus painter Wassily Kandinsky. How hot is this man? Well, the Russian lawyer famous for painting both sides of the canvas died in 1944, and number-one rapper Will Smith raved about him in his most recent movie, nearly 50 years later. If the “Fresh Prince” thinks he’s def, what more do you need?
Finally, the Armory Center for the Arts puts a clever spin on the World Cup with their “World of Cups” exhibit, offering an international collection of different varieties of cups, everything from sports trophies to china teacups, many of them by artists commissioned especially for the event. The exhibit coincides directly with the tournament, running from June 17 through July 15. (Just for the record, the World Cup trophy itself is not a cup, but a ball supported by vines, done up in gold.)
The Armory Center will also offer children’s art workshops during the tournament period for all the artistic prodigies wanting to discover their own talents.
There! You see? You don’t have to spend every waking moment at Disneyland to have a good time here! In fact, you don’t even have to leave Pasadena.
Don’t worry. You can still go back home, cop a superior attitude and say you soaked up a lot of culture on your vacation. We won’t tell anyone you actually had fun.
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: The Pasadena Weekly, July 8, 1994)
“Museums?! I didn’t come all the way to Pasadena to see museums! I came to party! I came to drink and eat and dance and go to Disneyland and go wild every night and sleep late every morning and get up and do it all over again! I didn’t come here to look at ‘Oversized Nude Woman on Bicycle with Both Eyes on One Side of Head Finding Spirit of Nature in 4th Dimensional Space! Who cares how Pablo Leonardo Henri Georges Jean-Paul Whatsizname was trying to express his inner pain? I want to have fun!”
All right, do you feel better? Is it all out of your system? Good. Because believe it or not, museums in Pasadena really are fun! There’s a lot more to look at than paintings and a lot more to do than look.
For starters, you can smell. And thanks to the 130 acres of beautiful, exotic flowers and other plant life from all over the world at the Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens, you can smell a lot. With over 14,000 varieties of greenery in 15 garden areas, you can travel the World Cup world through offerings from Japan, England, Australia, the South Seas, even the nearby California deserts and San Gabriel Mountains. Or you can simply stop and smell the roses.
Then, when you’re through smelling, you can sip. That’s right, sip, thanks to the English tea served Tuesday through Sunday in the Rose Garden Tea Room. Sit in a palatial paradise surrounded by lush beauty as you are served chamomile and scones. The Queen herself should have it so good.
Smelling and sipping not enough? What if we said the museums can get you psyched? (Sufferin’ succotash!) If a good psyching is what you need, catch the exhibits at the Pacific Asia Museum and the Pasadena Historical Museum. Both will get the adrenaline pumping in any sports fan.
Pacific Asia plans to show fans of the world’s most popular sport what other games have been hot in the Pacific Rim through the ages at their “Games of the Asian World” exhibit from June 25 through August 7. Paintings, drawings, wood carvings, even actual uniforms and equipment will be on display to depict Eastern Asia’s favorite athletic pastimes from the past fifteen centuries or so.
But you still say you came here to play? Well it’s time we introduced you to the ultimate laboratory for the kid in all of us.
Welcome to Kidspace.
You can probably ask any ten local adults to name their favorite museum in Pasadena, and at least five will say Kidspace (not scientifically determined). The city’s educational playground for the kid in all of us, Kidspace offers unique exhibits where not learning is impossible and not touching is unthinkable.
This summer’s offerings, beginning June 18, include Eco-Beach, an enclosed sandbox containing four tons of sand a variety of natural objects usually found only at the beach, a wave maker and surround sounds of the surf; Critter Caverns, displaying animal habitats on, above and below ground, where little human critters can actually crawl and explore; Toddler Territory, with a play environment for those under 5; the International Mask Gallery, where visitors can make their own masks and write stories about them; a simulated television station, for writing news stories and broadcasting them on closed-circuit TV; a mini planetarium and a costume gallery.
Kidspace also offers touch tables featuring natural objects and artifacts related to each exhibit, special workshops and educational programs to learn more about the themes of the exhibits, and even a one-on-one audience with Dylan, the Friendly Boa Constrictor.
Finally, this summer brings a whole variety of international exhibits and presentations, including International World Cup Day June 26, just in time for the tournament.
The museum’s summer hours are Tuesday through Friday 1-5 p.m. and weekends 12:30-5 p.m. And remember, aboutn the only thing you can’t do at Kidspace is get bored.
By the time you’re through playing, at Kidspace and elsewhere, you’ll want to relax and perhaps simply look for awhile. That’s just fine, because the world-renowned Norton Simon Museum has plenty to look at.
Of course, the museum offers the great works of the European legends for which it is famous: Goya, Renoir, Monet, Rodin and the ever-reliable Picasso and Rembrandt. But if you’re looking for something a little more cutting-edge, you’ll want to check out the exhibit of Bauhaus painter Wassily Kandinsky. How hot is this man? Well, the Russian lawyer famous for painting both sides of the canvas died in 1944, and number-one rapper Will Smith raved about him in his most recent movie, nearly 50 years later. If the “Fresh Prince” thinks he’s def, what more do you need?
Finally, the Armory Center for the Arts puts a clever spin on the World Cup with their “World of Cups” exhibit, offering an international collection of different varieties of cups, everything from sports trophies to china teacups, many of them by artists commissioned especially for the event. The exhibit coincides directly with the tournament, running from June 17 through July 15. (Just for the record, the World Cup trophy itself is not a cup, but a ball supported by vines, done up in gold.)
The Armory Center will also offer children’s art workshops during the tournament period for all the artistic prodigies wanting to discover their own talents.
There! You see? You don’t have to spend every waking moment at Disneyland to have a good time here! In fact, you don’t even have to leave Pasadena.
Don’t worry. You can still go back home, cop a superior attitude and say you soaked up a lot of culture on your vacation. We won’t tell anyone you actually had fun.
PASADENA’S LASTING LANDMARKS
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: The Pasadena Weekly, June 24, 1994)
I have a friend named Ray. Ray is not too bright. Ray once asked me whether they ever had bargain matinees at the drive-in movie.
Ray has a girlfriend named Judy. Judy is bright, attractive, charming and perfect. I have no idea why she prefers Ray to me.
Anyway, Judy thought Ray was a little – uh – unsophisticated, and she was interested in getting him some culture. She shared this interest with me and asked for my help. My initial thought was that Ray’s idea of culture was putting Grey Poupon on his pork rinds. But when I looked into Judy’s deep blue eyes, my only thought was, “Yes, my darling, anything for you.” What eventually came out of my mouth sort of split the difference.
“Sounds cool,” I said. “How about starting with something simple, like landmarks?” Judy thought this was a great idea, and while I was thinking of an even better idea that didn’t include Ray, she began to make a list.
The next morning I met Ray in Old Town and asked him if he had Judy’s list. “It was too complicated, so I made it simpler.” I turned, pulled a few gray hairs out of my head, and turned back. Ray was my closest friend, and Judy was the girl I hoped to steal away from him, so for the sake of both of them, I was determined to endure Ray’s “simpler” list.
“The first thing she wanted me to see was the casino. I didn’t even know that was legal here.”
Lucky for Ray I’m as clever and insightful as he is dense, and after a few seconds of puzzlement I figured out he was talking about the Gamble House.
“It’s not a casino, Ray. It’s this wild old piece of Craftsman architecture, an 86-year-old house built entirely without nails.”
We toured the huge rooms, halls and stairwells, all held together by wooden pegs and metal brackets, and Ray actually seemed impressed. We inspected a few of the tongues and grooves and shot a few pictures of the grounds (Judy wanted proof that we didn’t go bowling), and Ray wondered aloud about his old Lego bricks and Lincoln Logs. Then he remembered an innate fear of giant beavers he had acquired from a ‘70s horror flick, and we left.
Our trip back into town called for a stop at a place where two speed-loving studs such as ourselves would be unlikely to go voluntarily: City Hall.
Most people are used to heading there only to contest a speeding ticket or complain about roadkill, and they usually ignore the majestic display of architecture from the Renaissance of 16th-Century Italy. A courtyard featuring a stone fountain surrounded by park benches and trees offers an ideal setting for picnicking or dancing under the moonlight (just don’t do anything illegal; police headquarters is right next door).
Ray sounded a bit disappointed about the next stop. “The next place sounds cool, but it’s not much of a day for golf.”
This one was a little tougher. He said something about another big building and grass and putting, and after adding two and two and getting 96, I contained my frustration and replied, “It’s not a golf course, Ray. It’s a fantastic renovated castle that they turned into an apartment building.” We headed to get a glimpse of Castle Green.
Even Ray was impressed as we stood across Raymond in front of Stat’s Floral Warehouse and admired Colonel Green’s personal shrine. It was an authentic castle, topped by turrets in the center and a covered lookout post on the south end. A long corridor extended through a garden adorned by several varieties of trees, from palm to evergreen. The imposing structure was undercut a little by its less flashy tan stucco exterior and amber-red awnings, but the overall effect kept the building from looking too garish.
“Judy wants me stop at another house for chewing gum,” he said, glancing at the list.
“The Wrigley Mansion?” I sighed inquisitively.
As home to the Tournament of Roses, the Wrigley Mansion follows the tradition with grounds laden with over 100 varieties of roses, many grouped and labeled in a garden at the north end, probably the best smelling spot in Pasadena. There is also a virtual tree museum (with apologies to Joni Mitchell) in the front, and a fountain rose garden to the south.
Were lucky to hit it on a Thursday, the one day of the week they give house tours. The downstairs is a collection of polished wood living rooms, drawing rooms and parlors decorated with tasteful, if unauthentic, furniture and pictures.
Upstairs, the tour guide took us through each specialty room: the President’s Room, the Grand Marshalls’ Room, the Queen and Court Room. When we got to the last one, I noticed a dangerous twinkle in Ray’s eyes.
“This room,” said the guide, as Ray’s mouth began to water, “is the Rose Bowl Room. It is filled with paraphernalia from every Rose Bowl since the first one in 1902.”
“Well, Ray, what do you....” But it was too late. He was off, flipping through every poster, examining and memorizing every name and statistic on every trophy, plaque and uniform. Ray does have a brain. This is just what he uses it for.
Three hours later, after the cops told us what we’d be charged with if we didn’t leave the premises immediately, I suggested we head towards Cal Tech, Pasadena’s haven of the Spanish Renaissance.
“That’s that place where everyone’s smarter than me!” Ray noted with a resounding “Harrumph!”
“You want to narrow that down,” I thought to myself, but just nodded as we zipped (within the legal speed limit) to Hill Avenue.
The campus of The California Institute of Technology is actually a unique mix of old Spanish architecture and modern, more progressive-looking buildings of the kind one might expect from one of the country’s top engineering schools.
The Bechtel Mall, towards the south end of the campus, emulates an old mission, but near the center stands a 20th-century high-rise. With the juxtaposition of history and technology, we felt like we were traveling back and forth through time. Ray, of course, got dizzy.
The final stop on our intrepid mission to find Ray’s inner esthete was the incomparable Ritz-Carlton Pasadena. If Castle Green was a palace, this place was a fortress. The acres of lush, fine-trimmed lawns were a red carpet rolling to the enormous stone edifice marked by ramparts and even a couple gargoyles, a sight to make a Plantagenet cower.
As we sat sipping single-malts (the only thing even connoisseurs of cheap beer can really order in a place like this) in the regally appointed pub on the north end, adjacent a restaurant where I’d feel uncomfortable taking my first bite prior to a nod from the king, Ray looked around at the ornate finery that surrounded us on all sides.
“This,” he remarked, “would be a fantastic place for a cage match.”
Pained, I countered, “Or a medieval joust.”
“Joust? Joust what?”
“Joust finish your drink.”
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: The Pasadena Weekly, June 24, 1994)
I have a friend named Ray. Ray is not too bright. Ray once asked me whether they ever had bargain matinees at the drive-in movie.
Ray has a girlfriend named Judy. Judy is bright, attractive, charming and perfect. I have no idea why she prefers Ray to me.
Anyway, Judy thought Ray was a little – uh – unsophisticated, and she was interested in getting him some culture. She shared this interest with me and asked for my help. My initial thought was that Ray’s idea of culture was putting Grey Poupon on his pork rinds. But when I looked into Judy’s deep blue eyes, my only thought was, “Yes, my darling, anything for you.” What eventually came out of my mouth sort of split the difference.
“Sounds cool,” I said. “How about starting with something simple, like landmarks?” Judy thought this was a great idea, and while I was thinking of an even better idea that didn’t include Ray, she began to make a list.
The next morning I met Ray in Old Town and asked him if he had Judy’s list. “It was too complicated, so I made it simpler.” I turned, pulled a few gray hairs out of my head, and turned back. Ray was my closest friend, and Judy was the girl I hoped to steal away from him, so for the sake of both of them, I was determined to endure Ray’s “simpler” list.
“The first thing she wanted me to see was the casino. I didn’t even know that was legal here.”
Lucky for Ray I’m as clever and insightful as he is dense, and after a few seconds of puzzlement I figured out he was talking about the Gamble House.
“It’s not a casino, Ray. It’s this wild old piece of Craftsman architecture, an 86-year-old house built entirely without nails.”
We toured the huge rooms, halls and stairwells, all held together by wooden pegs and metal brackets, and Ray actually seemed impressed. We inspected a few of the tongues and grooves and shot a few pictures of the grounds (Judy wanted proof that we didn’t go bowling), and Ray wondered aloud about his old Lego bricks and Lincoln Logs. Then he remembered an innate fear of giant beavers he had acquired from a ‘70s horror flick, and we left.
Our trip back into town called for a stop at a place where two speed-loving studs such as ourselves would be unlikely to go voluntarily: City Hall.
Most people are used to heading there only to contest a speeding ticket or complain about roadkill, and they usually ignore the majestic display of architecture from the Renaissance of 16th-Century Italy. A courtyard featuring a stone fountain surrounded by park benches and trees offers an ideal setting for picnicking or dancing under the moonlight (just don’t do anything illegal; police headquarters is right next door).
Ray sounded a bit disappointed about the next stop. “The next place sounds cool, but it’s not much of a day for golf.”
This one was a little tougher. He said something about another big building and grass and putting, and after adding two and two and getting 96, I contained my frustration and replied, “It’s not a golf course, Ray. It’s a fantastic renovated castle that they turned into an apartment building.” We headed to get a glimpse of Castle Green.
Even Ray was impressed as we stood across Raymond in front of Stat’s Floral Warehouse and admired Colonel Green’s personal shrine. It was an authentic castle, topped by turrets in the center and a covered lookout post on the south end. A long corridor extended through a garden adorned by several varieties of trees, from palm to evergreen. The imposing structure was undercut a little by its less flashy tan stucco exterior and amber-red awnings, but the overall effect kept the building from looking too garish.
“Judy wants me stop at another house for chewing gum,” he said, glancing at the list.
“The Wrigley Mansion?” I sighed inquisitively.
As home to the Tournament of Roses, the Wrigley Mansion follows the tradition with grounds laden with over 100 varieties of roses, many grouped and labeled in a garden at the north end, probably the best smelling spot in Pasadena. There is also a virtual tree museum (with apologies to Joni Mitchell) in the front, and a fountain rose garden to the south.
Were lucky to hit it on a Thursday, the one day of the week they give house tours. The downstairs is a collection of polished wood living rooms, drawing rooms and parlors decorated with tasteful, if unauthentic, furniture and pictures.
Upstairs, the tour guide took us through each specialty room: the President’s Room, the Grand Marshalls’ Room, the Queen and Court Room. When we got to the last one, I noticed a dangerous twinkle in Ray’s eyes.
“This room,” said the guide, as Ray’s mouth began to water, “is the Rose Bowl Room. It is filled with paraphernalia from every Rose Bowl since the first one in 1902.”
“Well, Ray, what do you....” But it was too late. He was off, flipping through every poster, examining and memorizing every name and statistic on every trophy, plaque and uniform. Ray does have a brain. This is just what he uses it for.
Three hours later, after the cops told us what we’d be charged with if we didn’t leave the premises immediately, I suggested we head towards Cal Tech, Pasadena’s haven of the Spanish Renaissance.
“That’s that place where everyone’s smarter than me!” Ray noted with a resounding “Harrumph!”
“You want to narrow that down,” I thought to myself, but just nodded as we zipped (within the legal speed limit) to Hill Avenue.
The campus of The California Institute of Technology is actually a unique mix of old Spanish architecture and modern, more progressive-looking buildings of the kind one might expect from one of the country’s top engineering schools.
The Bechtel Mall, towards the south end of the campus, emulates an old mission, but near the center stands a 20th-century high-rise. With the juxtaposition of history and technology, we felt like we were traveling back and forth through time. Ray, of course, got dizzy.
The final stop on our intrepid mission to find Ray’s inner esthete was the incomparable Ritz-Carlton Pasadena. If Castle Green was a palace, this place was a fortress. The acres of lush, fine-trimmed lawns were a red carpet rolling to the enormous stone edifice marked by ramparts and even a couple gargoyles, a sight to make a Plantagenet cower.
As we sat sipping single-malts (the only thing even connoisseurs of cheap beer can really order in a place like this) in the regally appointed pub on the north end, adjacent a restaurant where I’d feel uncomfortable taking my first bite prior to a nod from the king, Ray looked around at the ornate finery that surrounded us on all sides.
“This,” he remarked, “would be a fantastic place for a cage match.”
Pained, I countered, “Or a medieval joust.”
“Joust? Joust what?”
“Joust finish your drink.”
POPEIL SET TO RELINQUISH REINS
Informercial legend negotiates sale of Ronco
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: ResponseTV, May 1997)
Ron Popeil, one of the pioneer’s of the DRTV industry, is in negotiations to sell his company, Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Ronco Inc.
The man who used two young but growing media, the television and the toll-free telephone line, to market the Veg-O-Matic and the Popeil Pocket Fisherman is by no means leaving the business. But he is anxious to focus on his first love – developing products and designing the marketing for them.
“What I am trying to do,” says Popeil, “is to focus on the product development and get out of the day-to-day operation.”
Popeil is in negotiation for possible acquisition by one of a number of companies, most notably LA Group, Rochester, N.Y., and Kent & Spiegel, Culver City, Calif., but has declined to give detailis of the negotiations until they are finalized. At press time, Popeil maintained that no agreements had been reached and that any reports of activity would be premature.
One certainty in any deal, however. would be Popeil’s continuing to serve in an adjunct capacity for the buyer, contributing his expertise as a spokesperson and consultant, the traits that, along with strong product development, have built Ronco Inc. into such a desirable company for acquisition.
“I wouldn’t work in any way as an employee for any company,” he says, “but I will certainly offer my knowledge and support once a deal is reached.”
And what of the future of Ron Popeil, inventor, whose products are clearly the tangible behind Ronco’s success?
“I will keep inventing products, and marketing those products, until the day I die.”
{companion breaking news report follows}
______________________________________
POPEIL SET TO RELINQUISH REINS
Suitor ‘premature’ with buyout announcement
by Scott Aronowitz
{companion breaking news report}
(Published: ResponseTV, May 1997)
“It’s premature! There’s no hard evidence of money. There is absolutely no basis for this announcement.”
This was Ron Popeil’s reaction to a press release issued by LA Group, the company that seems convinced their acquisition of Ronco Inc. is a done deal.
Popeil is planning to sell his company, Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Ronco Inc. LA Group, Rochester, N.Y., stated in a press release that Popeil has agreed to sell them his company.
What is apparently missing is a mutual agreement over the future of Ronco. In its place is a sharp discrepancy over just what stage the negotiations have reached.
According to a press release dated March 25 with the approval of President and CEO Daniel Fasano, LA Group has “entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Ronco Inc. and its affiliated companies for $25 million in cash and stock.”
Furthermore, according to the release, “Ron Popeil has agreed to act as the company’s spokesperson and marketing consultant.”
And the release quotes Fasano as saying, “With these acquisitions we now have some of the top infomercial products ... available today.”
Although these statements would seem to imply an agreement finalized and signed on the dotted line, Fasano says this is not quite the case. “It is very far along in the negotiation stages. The money is in place. The financing is in place. We have pretty much outlined 99 percent of the details.” But, he insists, “the word negotiation is still very much a part of this.”
More a part of it, perhaps, than Fasano is aware. “I’m still in negotiation with other companies,” says Popeil. “For them to lead people in this business into believing this is final is doing the public, and me, a disservice.”
Popeil is definitely interested in selling. But he says he made no final agreements to sell the company for a specific price to a specific buyer or to serve in any specific capacity for the new owner.
Fasano agrees that “the word definitive is not there.” But he is confident the deal will be finalized and approved the press release on that basis.
“As a public company, we wouldn’t disseminate this information if we didn’t have the financial backers to do this,” insists Fasano. Still, he admits there is some due diligence yet to complete. “There is some posturing left, but our intent is complete this agreement.”
Popeil says that he advised Fasano in a fax the same day that with only intentions and financing, and not a final agreement, LA Group should not have disseminated this information to shareholders, and certainly not to the press. And in fact, Popeil also insists he has seen no evidence of the financing.
“I have no indication as of yet that these people have the wherewithal to provide the money, regardless of how much we’re talking about.” In the meantime, though, “I am certainly continuing to talk and negotiate with other companies.”
Informercial legend negotiates sale of Ronco
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: ResponseTV, May 1997)
Ron Popeil, one of the pioneer’s of the DRTV industry, is in negotiations to sell his company, Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Ronco Inc.
The man who used two young but growing media, the television and the toll-free telephone line, to market the Veg-O-Matic and the Popeil Pocket Fisherman is by no means leaving the business. But he is anxious to focus on his first love – developing products and designing the marketing for them.
“What I am trying to do,” says Popeil, “is to focus on the product development and get out of the day-to-day operation.”
Popeil is in negotiation for possible acquisition by one of a number of companies, most notably LA Group, Rochester, N.Y., and Kent & Spiegel, Culver City, Calif., but has declined to give detailis of the negotiations until they are finalized. At press time, Popeil maintained that no agreements had been reached and that any reports of activity would be premature.
One certainty in any deal, however. would be Popeil’s continuing to serve in an adjunct capacity for the buyer, contributing his expertise as a spokesperson and consultant, the traits that, along with strong product development, have built Ronco Inc. into such a desirable company for acquisition.
“I wouldn’t work in any way as an employee for any company,” he says, “but I will certainly offer my knowledge and support once a deal is reached.”
And what of the future of Ron Popeil, inventor, whose products are clearly the tangible behind Ronco’s success?
“I will keep inventing products, and marketing those products, until the day I die.”
{companion breaking news report follows}
______________________________________
POPEIL SET TO RELINQUISH REINS
Suitor ‘premature’ with buyout announcement
by Scott Aronowitz
{companion breaking news report}
(Published: ResponseTV, May 1997)
“It’s premature! There’s no hard evidence of money. There is absolutely no basis for this announcement.”
This was Ron Popeil’s reaction to a press release issued by LA Group, the company that seems convinced their acquisition of Ronco Inc. is a done deal.
Popeil is planning to sell his company, Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Ronco Inc. LA Group, Rochester, N.Y., stated in a press release that Popeil has agreed to sell them his company.
What is apparently missing is a mutual agreement over the future of Ronco. In its place is a sharp discrepancy over just what stage the negotiations have reached.
According to a press release dated March 25 with the approval of President and CEO Daniel Fasano, LA Group has “entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Ronco Inc. and its affiliated companies for $25 million in cash and stock.”
Furthermore, according to the release, “Ron Popeil has agreed to act as the company’s spokesperson and marketing consultant.”
And the release quotes Fasano as saying, “With these acquisitions we now have some of the top infomercial products ... available today.”
Although these statements would seem to imply an agreement finalized and signed on the dotted line, Fasano says this is not quite the case. “It is very far along in the negotiation stages. The money is in place. The financing is in place. We have pretty much outlined 99 percent of the details.” But, he insists, “the word negotiation is still very much a part of this.”
More a part of it, perhaps, than Fasano is aware. “I’m still in negotiation with other companies,” says Popeil. “For them to lead people in this business into believing this is final is doing the public, and me, a disservice.”
Popeil is definitely interested in selling. But he says he made no final agreements to sell the company for a specific price to a specific buyer or to serve in any specific capacity for the new owner.
Fasano agrees that “the word definitive is not there.” But he is confident the deal will be finalized and approved the press release on that basis.
“As a public company, we wouldn’t disseminate this information if we didn’t have the financial backers to do this,” insists Fasano. Still, he admits there is some due diligence yet to complete. “There is some posturing left, but our intent is complete this agreement.”
Popeil says that he advised Fasano in a fax the same day that with only intentions and financing, and not a final agreement, LA Group should not have disseminated this information to shareholders, and certainly not to the press. And in fact, Popeil also insists he has seen no evidence of the financing.
“I have no indication as of yet that these people have the wherewithal to provide the money, regardless of how much we’re talking about.” In the meantime, though, “I am certainly continuing to talk and negotiate with other companies.”
5 WAYS TO PUT DRTV TO WORK FOR YOU
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: ResponseTV, August 1997)
Lexus has used DRTV to find out who is interested in its cars and bring those people into its dealerships; Excedrin run spots to promote the brand and offer samples and health information, thereby building a relationship with customers; and Craftsman sells tools and reminds everyone theirs are the best. Even with short-form spots, as opposed to infomercials, brands that use DRTV always get a little something extra.
The assets of a DRTV spot fall under five primary headings, but are not mutually exclusive:
Direct sell. Probably the most obvious DRTV application, the direct sell can serve as a profit center for a campaign or simply a means to offset media costs without cutting into retail sales.
Lead generation. Your product’s story may not fit into a one-minute, two-minute or even 30-minute commercial. So instead of trying to sell consumers through TV, you get them to call for further information. Later you’ll be able to send them brochures, videos or other collateral to close the sale or drive them to their nearest retailer. At the very least, you have a name on file for further mailings.
Product sampling/relationship marketing. A form of lead generation, product sampling allows marketers to give consumers a taste of their products to encourage a purchase.
Continuity. A favorite of cosmetics and entertainment marketers, continuity programs bring consumers into the fold with an up-front sale or club membership, then keep them coming back through monthly or quarterly installments or through regular catalog mailings.
Brand awareness. Like traditional advertisements, DRTV spots and infomercials can create brand identity and help develop brands that are poorly understood by the public.
Cost per zillion
When it comes to brand promotion, DRTV is “probably the most successful and least talked about aspect of the business,” says Tim O’Leary, president of Portland, Ore.-based agency TV Tyee.
“It’s media efficiency,” he explains. “A typical brand manager would say, ‘I’ve got X million dollars to spend this year, and my only feedback is .... what those obscure tracking services are telling me.’ With DRTV you get immediate, measurable feedback.”
O’Leary says this asset, along with media rates that run about half of general ad rates, point to brand promoters getting “more bang for the buck.”
A brand on a mission
Sue Sjostrom, director of infomercial marketing for Sears Roebuck, Chicago, says the key challenges in promoting any brand name are truly understanding the customer and then developing the most effective way to communicate the brand message to that customer.
“In the case of Craftsman,” says Sjostrom, “we’ve found that there’s a great fit between brand positioning, our branding goals and DRTV.”
The spots convey the message that Craftsman is an innovator, which, notes Sjostrom, makes customers feel better about the brand in general.
All at once
Thanks to Burl Hechtman, former president of Los Angeles-based King World Direct and creator of the campaign, Craftsman became an innovator of another sort.
Hechtman determined that a DRTV spot promoting a strong retail brand could also be used to sell a product directly to the viewer. In effect, he says, “each ad does double duty, encouraging people to buy the product in either of two venues” at the same time.
The symbiotic relationship created by the “simultaneous DRTV/retail” approach can not only sell, but perpetuate sales and brand awareness. Every Craftsman spot pushes a particular tool, while at the same time remiding the viewer that what he or she is ultimately receiving is Craftsman quality found only through the 800-number or a trip to Sears.
The educated consumer
Auto maker Lexus already had a strong reputation for quality luxury cars when they went with DRTV, but a high-end automobile is a much tougher sell than a hand tool.
“It’s a matter of bringing qualified prospects into the dealership,” says Lillie Goodrich, president of Broadcast Marketing, Cos Cob, Conn., who produced the DRTV campaign for Lexus. A qualified prospect is one who is interested in a high-end luxury car and wants to know a good deal of information about it.
For this reason, Lexus uses a 30-minute infomercial to promote its brand, and the show does not feature the 800-number until roughly the 17-minute mark. In the meantime, viewers learn, via expert testimonials and detailed demonstrations, of the product’s distinctive engineering and design, safety and luxury features. The program includes segments on the quiet engine, temperature control system, theft deterrent system, high-quality stereo, unibody construction and professional finish, as well as commentary from current owners comparing the product to higher-priced competitors, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW and even Rolls-Royce.
Ultimately, then, the qualified prospect is the viewer who watches all this with interest and then responds to the call to action, in this case to call the 800-number and set up an appointment with a local Lexus dealer.
You want a piece of me?
Arguably, the best way to win a consumer is to prove the value of your product by letting them try it once for free. Product sampling is nothing new, but DRTV allows marketers to raise it to a new level.
“Relationship marketing,” explains Goodrich, “is primarily based on trading information. You’re offering resources to your customers beyond product.” This includes both information – on the product, what it can do and related topics – and samples. Consumers may only see samples as free merchandise. But to marketers, they are the most tangible form of information. They report to the consumer exactly what he/she will think of the product.
Goodrich designed a DRTV campaign for Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Excedrin, a popular pain relief medicine for many years, that conveyed health-related information about the product and then offered the consumer the chance to sample it with this in mind.
“The response,” she says, “has far exceeded any expectation. [The campaign] began as an experiment, but now [Excedrin] is committed to keeping it going.”
Pitfalls in the lion’s den
Not all DRTV campaigns for brand-name products will necessarily serve to enhance sales, of course. In some cases, they may even work against themselves.
MGM/UA Home Video has had success with DRTV, says manager of market development Susan Gebele, but its campaign has magnified some drawbacks to using the simultaneous approach and to promoting brand awareness.
When the company used DRTV to promote several of its series’ and special categories of motion pictures, many of the products were already available on retail shelves. However, while retailers may charge whatever they wish, says Gebele, “we have to keep [price points] at our MSRP or our retailers will get mad.” Add to this standard shipping and handling charges associated with TV purchases, and the manufacturer is essentially competing, unfavorably, with its own distributors.
Often this is not a problem, since many DRTV offers include no-extra-cost bonuses not available at retail. But it is difficult to find bonus products to connect with a home video.
The jury is still out on MGM’s unique strategy on the promotion side. With entertainment products such as motion pictures, peope have historically identified with individual titles or franchises such as James Bond rather than the studios behind them. But MGM seems determined to return to the “Golden Age of Hollywood” in their brand promotion as they attempt to have viewers identify various categories of film classics, most notably musicals and epics, with the studio itself.
“It’s a complicated issue when you have two brands at once,” says TV Tyee’s O’Leary. “You run the risk of consumers identifying with one more than the other.” In this case the question arises, would viewers recognize Leo the Lion at the expense of titles like Singin’ in the Rain or Rocky, or would the two enhance each other?
O’Leary says he sees the potential for a positive result. “If the goal is to re-elevate MGM to the status of its golden years,” he explains, “then I think this might be a good strategy.” Given the uncertainty at this stage, brand managers, especially in entertainment software, may want to follow the progress of MGM’s strategy as a test case.
So call now!
It’s fairly safe to say that DRTV will not be completely replacing conventional advertising anytime soon. But it’s always best to have a viable alternative.
When you want to inform the public about your product, 30-second spots on national media will certainly reach your audience. But when you want to know who that audience consists of, find out more about them, build a relationship with them and even sell them the product, both now and on down the line, the alternative is clear.
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: ResponseTV, August 1997)
Lexus has used DRTV to find out who is interested in its cars and bring those people into its dealerships; Excedrin run spots to promote the brand and offer samples and health information, thereby building a relationship with customers; and Craftsman sells tools and reminds everyone theirs are the best. Even with short-form spots, as opposed to infomercials, brands that use DRTV always get a little something extra.
The assets of a DRTV spot fall under five primary headings, but are not mutually exclusive:
Direct sell. Probably the most obvious DRTV application, the direct sell can serve as a profit center for a campaign or simply a means to offset media costs without cutting into retail sales.
Lead generation. Your product’s story may not fit into a one-minute, two-minute or even 30-minute commercial. So instead of trying to sell consumers through TV, you get them to call for further information. Later you’ll be able to send them brochures, videos or other collateral to close the sale or drive them to their nearest retailer. At the very least, you have a name on file for further mailings.
Product sampling/relationship marketing. A form of lead generation, product sampling allows marketers to give consumers a taste of their products to encourage a purchase.
Continuity. A favorite of cosmetics and entertainment marketers, continuity programs bring consumers into the fold with an up-front sale or club membership, then keep them coming back through monthly or quarterly installments or through regular catalog mailings.
Brand awareness. Like traditional advertisements, DRTV spots and infomercials can create brand identity and help develop brands that are poorly understood by the public.
Cost per zillion
When it comes to brand promotion, DRTV is “probably the most successful and least talked about aspect of the business,” says Tim O’Leary, president of Portland, Ore.-based agency TV Tyee.
“It’s media efficiency,” he explains. “A typical brand manager would say, ‘I’ve got X million dollars to spend this year, and my only feedback is .... what those obscure tracking services are telling me.’ With DRTV you get immediate, measurable feedback.”
O’Leary says this asset, along with media rates that run about half of general ad rates, point to brand promoters getting “more bang for the buck.”
A brand on a mission
Sue Sjostrom, director of infomercial marketing for Sears Roebuck, Chicago, says the key challenges in promoting any brand name are truly understanding the customer and then developing the most effective way to communicate the brand message to that customer.
“In the case of Craftsman,” says Sjostrom, “we’ve found that there’s a great fit between brand positioning, our branding goals and DRTV.”
The spots convey the message that Craftsman is an innovator, which, notes Sjostrom, makes customers feel better about the brand in general.
All at once
Thanks to Burl Hechtman, former president of Los Angeles-based King World Direct and creator of the campaign, Craftsman became an innovator of another sort.
Hechtman determined that a DRTV spot promoting a strong retail brand could also be used to sell a product directly to the viewer. In effect, he says, “each ad does double duty, encouraging people to buy the product in either of two venues” at the same time.
The symbiotic relationship created by the “simultaneous DRTV/retail” approach can not only sell, but perpetuate sales and brand awareness. Every Craftsman spot pushes a particular tool, while at the same time remiding the viewer that what he or she is ultimately receiving is Craftsman quality found only through the 800-number or a trip to Sears.
The educated consumer
Auto maker Lexus already had a strong reputation for quality luxury cars when they went with DRTV, but a high-end automobile is a much tougher sell than a hand tool.
“It’s a matter of bringing qualified prospects into the dealership,” says Lillie Goodrich, president of Broadcast Marketing, Cos Cob, Conn., who produced the DRTV campaign for Lexus. A qualified prospect is one who is interested in a high-end luxury car and wants to know a good deal of information about it.
For this reason, Lexus uses a 30-minute infomercial to promote its brand, and the show does not feature the 800-number until roughly the 17-minute mark. In the meantime, viewers learn, via expert testimonials and detailed demonstrations, of the product’s distinctive engineering and design, safety and luxury features. The program includes segments on the quiet engine, temperature control system, theft deterrent system, high-quality stereo, unibody construction and professional finish, as well as commentary from current owners comparing the product to higher-priced competitors, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW and even Rolls-Royce.
Ultimately, then, the qualified prospect is the viewer who watches all this with interest and then responds to the call to action, in this case to call the 800-number and set up an appointment with a local Lexus dealer.
You want a piece of me?
Arguably, the best way to win a consumer is to prove the value of your product by letting them try it once for free. Product sampling is nothing new, but DRTV allows marketers to raise it to a new level.
“Relationship marketing,” explains Goodrich, “is primarily based on trading information. You’re offering resources to your customers beyond product.” This includes both information – on the product, what it can do and related topics – and samples. Consumers may only see samples as free merchandise. But to marketers, they are the most tangible form of information. They report to the consumer exactly what he/she will think of the product.
Goodrich designed a DRTV campaign for Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Excedrin, a popular pain relief medicine for many years, that conveyed health-related information about the product and then offered the consumer the chance to sample it with this in mind.
“The response,” she says, “has far exceeded any expectation. [The campaign] began as an experiment, but now [Excedrin] is committed to keeping it going.”
Pitfalls in the lion’s den
Not all DRTV campaigns for brand-name products will necessarily serve to enhance sales, of course. In some cases, they may even work against themselves.
MGM/UA Home Video has had success with DRTV, says manager of market development Susan Gebele, but its campaign has magnified some drawbacks to using the simultaneous approach and to promoting brand awareness.
When the company used DRTV to promote several of its series’ and special categories of motion pictures, many of the products were already available on retail shelves. However, while retailers may charge whatever they wish, says Gebele, “we have to keep [price points] at our MSRP or our retailers will get mad.” Add to this standard shipping and handling charges associated with TV purchases, and the manufacturer is essentially competing, unfavorably, with its own distributors.
Often this is not a problem, since many DRTV offers include no-extra-cost bonuses not available at retail. But it is difficult to find bonus products to connect with a home video.
The jury is still out on MGM’s unique strategy on the promotion side. With entertainment products such as motion pictures, peope have historically identified with individual titles or franchises such as James Bond rather than the studios behind them. But MGM seems determined to return to the “Golden Age of Hollywood” in their brand promotion as they attempt to have viewers identify various categories of film classics, most notably musicals and epics, with the studio itself.
“It’s a complicated issue when you have two brands at once,” says TV Tyee’s O’Leary. “You run the risk of consumers identifying with one more than the other.” In this case the question arises, would viewers recognize Leo the Lion at the expense of titles like Singin’ in the Rain or Rocky, or would the two enhance each other?
O’Leary says he sees the potential for a positive result. “If the goal is to re-elevate MGM to the status of its golden years,” he explains, “then I think this might be a good strategy.” Given the uncertainty at this stage, brand managers, especially in entertainment software, may want to follow the progress of MGM’s strategy as a test case.
So call now!
It’s fairly safe to say that DRTV will not be completely replacing conventional advertising anytime soon. But it’s always best to have a viable alternative.
When you want to inform the public about your product, 30-second spots on national media will certainly reach your audience. But when you want to know who that audience consists of, find out more about them, build a relationship with them and even sell them the product, both now and on down the line, the alternative is clear.
THE TOOLS OF CAPITALIST TRADE
The frozen land is warming up to direct response, but can it provide the fertile ground marketers need?
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: ResponseTV, February 1998)
“The only thing that interests us is the secret discovered in the new world by the political economy of the old world, and proclaimed on the housetops: that the capitalist mode of production and accumulation, and therefore capitalist private property, have for their fundamental condition the annihilation of self-earned private property; in other words, the expropriation of the labourer.”
-Karl Marx
final paragraph of Das Kapital, 1867
(translation by Samuel Moore and Edward Averling)
“There’s no way communism can compete with the Popeil Salad Shooter at $9.95!”
-General Colin Powell, 1997
Karl Marx didn’t have a TV.
No, that remark is not meant to denigrate 130 years of socialist/communist philsophy; regardless of its current status, Marxism was a significant force in world politics for many decades. Nor is it meant to undercut the three remaining major communist countries in the world: China (two home shopping channels and counting), Vietnam (in continual negotiations for freer trade with several western nations) and Cuba (Castro was still in power at press time).
Rather, the remark is meant only to suggest that, in the age of television and, of course, teleshopping, the acquisition of privately owned breadmakers, ab machines and music anthologies may make capitalism somewhat more desirable, even to the expropriated.
There are currently three TV networks broadcasting nationwide in Russia:
-Russian TV and Radio (RTR), wholly state owned
-Russian Public TV (ORT), 51 percent state owned, 49 percent held by a mix of public and privatge corporations
-NTV Independent Television, commercial network controlled by the Most Financial Group.
In addition, there are substantial audiences for local stations in major cities such as Moscow (8.8 million), St. Petersburg (4.9 million), Nizhny-Novgorod (1.4 million) and Novosibirsk (1.4 million).
A large national market, some large metro markets and a growing broadcasting arena seem like all the basic elements to bring the retail market home. Now where to begin?
Learning to Crawl
Russia may be post-communist and post-Soviet, but as far as the media go, little seems to have changed. Now instead of only one political faction controlling the airwaves, there are several factions jockeying for position.
Russians, especially Muscovites, seem to be learning what we’ve known in the West for years: The airwaves have limited capacity, and those who control them control a strong base of power within their reach.
So where does that leave the Western entrepreneur looking to crack open this market of 150 million free-market neophytes?
The verdict is mixed. While the demand for Western products has been on the rise ever since communism took its fall, Russia is still very much its own country and culture, and under no circumstances do outsiders make the rules, especially in commerce. Any Westerners seeking to do business in Russia must know which rules they must follow, which ones are impossible to follow and, most importantly, that all rules are subject to change without prior notification. In simplest terms, don’t go it alone. While the rules may be easy to learn, the trick – and it is a trick – is to find someone who knows how to work the system.
“If you obeyed economic laws in Soviet times, nothing would ever get done,” explains Henry Hale, adjunct assistant professor of diplomacy at Tufts University and a fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Cambridge, Mass. All the planning was done in Moscow, he says, “but commerce was based on all these side deals people were cutting in order to get things done. As such, you have all these networks.”
And networks, apparently, are the key to getting things accomplished. “There are estimates that 20 [percent] to 30 percent of the [Soviet] economy was based on black market deals,” says Hale. He says barter is widely used in the industrial economy to avoid staggering business taxes, so money rarely changes hands. You have to know who can provide the things you need, as well as how to negotiate for them.
Of course, Westerners are no strangers to networking. But whereas a well-placed contact in Washington might mean lucrative government contract, a similar contact in Moscow might well be the only source of a telephone, a steady supply of milk or that 12-cent washer the local government demands you have before it will approve construction on your $5 million production plant. And since it itns’t a forgone concluusion that everyone knows someone in a country on the opposite side of the globe, especially someone who knows the intricacies of doing business there, you may need an alternative.
Superhuman resources
Martin Purcell, vice prsdent/general manager, Europe, of Quantum International, London, a division of National Media Corp., researched several of these alternatives before his company headed east.
“I think the first step is to go to whichever embassy or trade commission they have local to them and get whatever information they can,” says Purcell. “Desk research saves you wasting a lot of dollars and a lot of time.”
In their pursuit of a feasible Russian entre, Purcell and his staff discovered several other resources for this desk research:
* The Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, which, for a fee, may be able to do some research on your behalf to help you locate a point of initial contact.
* Marketing organizations for Eastern European events, e.g., those that plan trade expos, and people who import and export product. If your goal is to market a particular product or service, start with organizations serving that industry. “For example,” Purcell suggests, “for film [and video], you might contact the MIPCOM people.
* Large business consulting firms, such as Andersen or Ernst & Young. “They’ll usually have a stack of information on the legal and accounting environments.”
Everybody needs somebody
Dave LeCompte, Vice President of International Business Development for Williams Worldwide Television, Santa Monica, Calif., advises following one of the cardinal rules of networking: you have to put yourself out there in order to be found.
“Right now, Russia is really reaching out. There are a lot of trade shows and fairs with Russians almost wearing signs saying ‘Joint Venture Wanted.’ These shows are being held frequently throughout both Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the U.S.”
In fact, LeCompte says he made his first contact, and subsequently his first deals, by placing himself in the right place at what became the right time. “One [contact] came at a trade show where, coincidentally, I ran into a group of two or three people from a company that was looking for U.S. contacts. They were looking just as hard as I was. We had a cup of coffee, we spoke, and they invited me to come. A month later we met somewhere [in Russia].”
ABCs: CIS is their M.O.
Even without ample resources or well established contacts inside the Russian business community, an intrepid explorer of the East has strong resources at his disposal to help him blaze a trail. The most accessible of these seems to be American Business Centers, a resource established by the U.S. Department of Commerce to facilitate entrepreneurial ventures into Russia. Besides being staffed with people who know the local language and customs, ABCs, each of which tackles a separate geographic region of the enormous country, offer all of the following:
* Business counseling
* Market information
* Key contacts with Russian officials and organizations
* Expertise in all laws, rules and regulations that apply to commercial enterprise
* Trade missions, perhaps the best place to begin (see sidebar, p. 28, for contact information)
Trade missions are opportunities to meet Russian businesspeople who have already expressed interest in participating in joint ventures with Western enterprises in order to bring Western goods and services to Russia.
According to an article on ABCs in the May 1997 edition of Business America magazine, the centers have organized several of these missions to their respective regions in the past year. The article explains that “Participating American companies meet with key government officials and potential business partners involved in industry-specific markets. They gain insight and valuable information on future activities.”
Law review
While knowing the right people and having the right tools may help you make the big leap into Russia, failure to understand and comply with the often convoluted legal environment of Russian business may make for a very hard landing.
“I think the thing to get fixed up first is to make sure you can trade legally in Russia, which is, in itself, a big bureaucratic nightmare,” warns Quantum’s Purcell. “It’s just the Russian system for registering companies and opening bank accounts and all. How do you create a company that’s legal in Russia?”
In a country that’s new to capitalism and still bogged down in 80-year-old political quagmires, answering this question will require more than desk research.
“For example,” says Purcell, “you would need to employ at least one Russian citizen who is an accredited accountant to complete the necessary tax and other concerns that would be required on a monthly basis.”
I’ve got mine
But not all legal entanglements can be extricated simply by knowing and following the laws on the books.
“It’s unclear in many cases which level of government authority has jurisdiction over particular kinds of projects,” says the Davis Center’s Hale. “If you’re a Western firm doing business with a Russian firm, you have to deal first of all with federal law, but then you also have to deal with local law, which may or may not correspond with federal law. Then there are local officials who may not adhere to either federal or local laws.”
On the other hand, notes Williams’ LeCompte, Russia’s desire to join the global marketplace has driven rapid progress. “A lot of laws are being enforced regarding [such areas as] trade and copyright,” he says. “They did a complete constitutional revision, and they’ve really strengthened the laws.”
This aspect will, of course, be of interest to direct response entrepreneurs, who confront violations of such laws even under the U.S. legal system. No one wants to take a potential hit into foreign territory, only to lose the exclusivity, without recourse, to unscrupulous local hucksters.
“An interesting [obstacle] I faced,” says LeCompte, “was called the parallel importing of goods. I had the rights to sell a product, and I technically had the Russian territory, but many Russian companies, after years of doing business abroad, had contacts in the same companies and were importing the same products, and they would import them themselves.”
“However,” he says, “it’s not worth taking legal action unless it’s a massive amount of money involved. The only thing you can really do is try to convert the local companies to buying from you” by convincing them it will ultimately be to their advantage in similar future endeavors.
Fools Russian
The main limitation to careful planning and execution, says Hale, “is the degree to which Russians themselves are willing to meet the demands that Western firms have for doing business jointly. For example, auditing practices and putting together business plans. In the west, all that has to be done in a specific way, and in Russia they don’t do it the same way. Also, American firms usually want specific financial commitments, and the Russian firms either don’t want to or simply can’t put up that kind of money.”
And the environment is still far from conducive to unrestricted global cooperation. “You’d need to establish residency in Russia in order to officially open a company,” says Purcell, “which means, essentially, you need to find someone you can trust” to manage operations from the inside.
Even for a task this difficult, though, LeCompte still firmly believes in networking coupled with intuition. “I get one or two calls a month from people who say, ‘Do you know anyone in this country who might be interested in, say, a baby product?’” he says. “And then I refer them to someone I know of. We all have these contacts – people who know people – and we shouldn’t be shy about using them.”
Real dollars
Does all, or any, of this advice ultimately translate to success? Both Quantum and Williams are in the early stages of actual discovery.
Quantum currently airs and/or has aired several infomercials in pared-down form. “We spent a lot of time trying to convince [the Russian TV stations] to run full-length 25-minute infomercials,” says Purcell, “but we were wasting our time. They finally said, ‘We’ll give you 10 minutes,’ so we took it.”
The result has been gradually increasing success since the first Quantum show, for Astonish 007 fabric-mending powder, aired in Moscow in February 1997.
Other major Quantum products that hit the Russian airwaves in 1997 include Instant Fisherman, DuraShine, EZ Krunch and Ab Roller.
Williams is selling its products through distributors who take American versions of the respective shows and edit them, dub them into Russian and add local testimonials.
LeCompte says that sales volume to date of such items as the Sobakawa Pillow, AbTrainer and Miracle Blade indicate that the market will eventually become profitable. He says he believes, though, that the key to success in the consumer products market lies in capturing the “New Russians.”
“These were essentially the yuppies,” explains LeCompte. “They ride around in Mercedes’; they’ve got cel phones; they’re likely to be wearing Armani or Versace.” So far, he says, these upscale professionals only comprise about 2 percent of the population, but their numbers are growing. “They also tend to be concentrated in the cities, and in the cities is where you also have good TV access.”
Go forward
Russia is not becoming America. The old Coca-Colonization of the “open” years under communist rule doesn’t cut it anymore. Russians want to be Russians. They have their own way of doing things, including business. and their own tastes and interests.
Once you’ve accepted this caveat, however, it’s time to take advantage of the fact that they want to be Russians watching commercial television and buying products. And it won’t be long before they realize the benefits of doing both at once. Sure, they want their own programs and products, but they also seem to be quite agreeable to an ongoing lesson in Western anthropology. For the entrepreneur willing to take a few risks now, the long-term Russia presents ample opportunities to cash in on at least two cultures.
To begin with, ask the right questions, beginning with the hows and whys. Don’t make assumptions, and learn the specifics. “The best business tool you can have is an open mind,” says Quantum’s Purcell, “but you really have to have it matched with a clear objective.” And tenacity. And a little luck.
Vpered!
{sidebar}
RARIN’ TO GO: GETTING YOUR PRODUCTS INTO RUSSIA
It’s a hit in America. But you don’t know how to write overlays in Cyrillic. Or perhaps you just don’t have the rubles in your travel budget to get to Novosibirsk before the Gravlax season. But you want your fellow DRTV devotees in Russia to have the privilege of buying your product.
So why not take advantage of the fact that at least two companies have done all the heavy legwork already? By following a few easy steps – and yes, sharing the loot with your emissaries – you can bring your revolutionary (get it?) product to the original borscht belt.
WILLIAMS WORLDWIDE TELEVISION
Santa Monica, Calif. (product acquisition dept. in Ogden, Utah)
Contact: Opal Singleton, Vice President of Products, 801-393-1814
The process:
* Present the product to the product acquisition department
* They evaluate it against a list of criteria and estimate probably success.
* It helps if the marketer already has an infomercial.
* Williams can help the marketer with importing, regulations, etc.
* Time consideration: if we assume the product is on the air in the United States, it can be on the air in Russia after 45 to 90 days.
* Financial considerations: If the product exists and the infomercial is produced, there is no further cost on the part of the manufacturer. Williams handles the dubbing, importing and distribution.
“We deal with six different companies, distributors and TV companies, all of whom do infomercials,” explains Dave LeCompte, Vice President of International Marketing, “so we have six different opportunities to present the product.”
“You don’t pick up the Yellow Pages and find 20 different companies doing telemarketing and fulfillment. The people we work with have already arranged to have these things done. It’s a mixed bag so far, but it is working, and it is growing.”
QUANTUM INTERNATIONAL
London, England, U.K.
(subsidiary of National Media Corp., Philadelphia, Pa.)
Contact: Helen Hawkins, 011-44-171-468-1424
The process:
* Call Helen Hawkins and explain your product.
* It helps if you already have an infomercial tape.
* It will also help expedite the process if the product isn’t overly complicated, e.g., full of chemicals or complicated electrical wiring that need to go through government testing and approval.
“If your product is one of those types, it doesn’t mean we can’t do it, just that the time it will take will be extended, and the costs involved in going through the approval process will be greater,” explains Martin Purcell, Vice President and General Manager, Europe.
* Quantum negotiates a marketing agreement with the manufacturer or principal marketer (profit splitting, initial investment, etc.).
* Quantum organizes a small test quantity and tests it on relevant air time.
* The company arrange shipping and import procedures from point of origin.
“If you have a manufacturer somewhere in the midwest U.S. who has a product he wants to bring into Russia, we can do a deal to take the product at his warehouse gate,” Purcell says. “We could organize the import into Russia in order for him to avoid all the hurdles we’ve already jumped over.”
Additional companies to contact:
WORLD SHOPPING NETWORK
Los Angeles, CA
Currently seeking about 25 key products to begin marketing in Russia.
Contact: Andrea Graubert, Product Manager, 310-277-2426
ALCANTARRA RESOURCES LTD.
Moscow, Russia
Product sourcing company; buys goods in the United States, Italy and the Far East for sale via DRTV in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan; also interested in existing infomercials.
Contact: Larissa Mikhailova, General Director, 011-7-095-241-1921
-S. Aronowitz
The frozen land is warming up to direct response, but can it provide the fertile ground marketers need?
by Scott Aronowitz
(Published: ResponseTV, February 1998)
“The only thing that interests us is the secret discovered in the new world by the political economy of the old world, and proclaimed on the housetops: that the capitalist mode of production and accumulation, and therefore capitalist private property, have for their fundamental condition the annihilation of self-earned private property; in other words, the expropriation of the labourer.”
-Karl Marx
final paragraph of Das Kapital, 1867
(translation by Samuel Moore and Edward Averling)
“There’s no way communism can compete with the Popeil Salad Shooter at $9.95!”
-General Colin Powell, 1997
Karl Marx didn’t have a TV.
No, that remark is not meant to denigrate 130 years of socialist/communist philsophy; regardless of its current status, Marxism was a significant force in world politics for many decades. Nor is it meant to undercut the three remaining major communist countries in the world: China (two home shopping channels and counting), Vietnam (in continual negotiations for freer trade with several western nations) and Cuba (Castro was still in power at press time).
Rather, the remark is meant only to suggest that, in the age of television and, of course, teleshopping, the acquisition of privately owned breadmakers, ab machines and music anthologies may make capitalism somewhat more desirable, even to the expropriated.
There are currently three TV networks broadcasting nationwide in Russia:
-Russian TV and Radio (RTR), wholly state owned
-Russian Public TV (ORT), 51 percent state owned, 49 percent held by a mix of public and privatge corporations
-NTV Independent Television, commercial network controlled by the Most Financial Group.
In addition, there are substantial audiences for local stations in major cities such as Moscow (8.8 million), St. Petersburg (4.9 million), Nizhny-Novgorod (1.4 million) and Novosibirsk (1.4 million).
A large national market, some large metro markets and a growing broadcasting arena seem like all the basic elements to bring the retail market home. Now where to begin?
Learning to Crawl
Russia may be post-communist and post-Soviet, but as far as the media go, little seems to have changed. Now instead of only one political faction controlling the airwaves, there are several factions jockeying for position.
Russians, especially Muscovites, seem to be learning what we’ve known in the West for years: The airwaves have limited capacity, and those who control them control a strong base of power within their reach.
So where does that leave the Western entrepreneur looking to crack open this market of 150 million free-market neophytes?
The verdict is mixed. While the demand for Western products has been on the rise ever since communism took its fall, Russia is still very much its own country and culture, and under no circumstances do outsiders make the rules, especially in commerce. Any Westerners seeking to do business in Russia must know which rules they must follow, which ones are impossible to follow and, most importantly, that all rules are subject to change without prior notification. In simplest terms, don’t go it alone. While the rules may be easy to learn, the trick – and it is a trick – is to find someone who knows how to work the system.
“If you obeyed economic laws in Soviet times, nothing would ever get done,” explains Henry Hale, adjunct assistant professor of diplomacy at Tufts University and a fellow at the Davis Center for Russian Studies, Cambridge, Mass. All the planning was done in Moscow, he says, “but commerce was based on all these side deals people were cutting in order to get things done. As such, you have all these networks.”
And networks, apparently, are the key to getting things accomplished. “There are estimates that 20 [percent] to 30 percent of the [Soviet] economy was based on black market deals,” says Hale. He says barter is widely used in the industrial economy to avoid staggering business taxes, so money rarely changes hands. You have to know who can provide the things you need, as well as how to negotiate for them.
Of course, Westerners are no strangers to networking. But whereas a well-placed contact in Washington might mean lucrative government contract, a similar contact in Moscow might well be the only source of a telephone, a steady supply of milk or that 12-cent washer the local government demands you have before it will approve construction on your $5 million production plant. And since it itns’t a forgone concluusion that everyone knows someone in a country on the opposite side of the globe, especially someone who knows the intricacies of doing business there, you may need an alternative.
Superhuman resources
Martin Purcell, vice prsdent/general manager, Europe, of Quantum International, London, a division of National Media Corp., researched several of these alternatives before his company headed east.
“I think the first step is to go to whichever embassy or trade commission they have local to them and get whatever information they can,” says Purcell. “Desk research saves you wasting a lot of dollars and a lot of time.”
In their pursuit of a feasible Russian entre, Purcell and his staff discovered several other resources for this desk research:
* The Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, which, for a fee, may be able to do some research on your behalf to help you locate a point of initial contact.
* Marketing organizations for Eastern European events, e.g., those that plan trade expos, and people who import and export product. If your goal is to market a particular product or service, start with organizations serving that industry. “For example,” Purcell suggests, “for film [and video], you might contact the MIPCOM people.
* Large business consulting firms, such as Andersen or Ernst & Young. “They’ll usually have a stack of information on the legal and accounting environments.”
Everybody needs somebody
Dave LeCompte, Vice President of International Business Development for Williams Worldwide Television, Santa Monica, Calif., advises following one of the cardinal rules of networking: you have to put yourself out there in order to be found.
“Right now, Russia is really reaching out. There are a lot of trade shows and fairs with Russians almost wearing signs saying ‘Joint Venture Wanted.’ These shows are being held frequently throughout both Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the U.S.”
In fact, LeCompte says he made his first contact, and subsequently his first deals, by placing himself in the right place at what became the right time. “One [contact] came at a trade show where, coincidentally, I ran into a group of two or three people from a company that was looking for U.S. contacts. They were looking just as hard as I was. We had a cup of coffee, we spoke, and they invited me to come. A month later we met somewhere [in Russia].”
ABCs: CIS is their M.O.
Even without ample resources or well established contacts inside the Russian business community, an intrepid explorer of the East has strong resources at his disposal to help him blaze a trail. The most accessible of these seems to be American Business Centers, a resource established by the U.S. Department of Commerce to facilitate entrepreneurial ventures into Russia. Besides being staffed with people who know the local language and customs, ABCs, each of which tackles a separate geographic region of the enormous country, offer all of the following:
* Business counseling
* Market information
* Key contacts with Russian officials and organizations
* Expertise in all laws, rules and regulations that apply to commercial enterprise
* Trade missions, perhaps the best place to begin (see sidebar, p. 28, for contact information)
Trade missions are opportunities to meet Russian businesspeople who have already expressed interest in participating in joint ventures with Western enterprises in order to bring Western goods and services to Russia.
According to an article on ABCs in the May 1997 edition of Business America magazine, the centers have organized several of these missions to their respective regions in the past year. The article explains that “Participating American companies meet with key government officials and potential business partners involved in industry-specific markets. They gain insight and valuable information on future activities.”
Law review
While knowing the right people and having the right tools may help you make the big leap into Russia, failure to understand and comply with the often convoluted legal environment of Russian business may make for a very hard landing.
“I think the thing to get fixed up first is to make sure you can trade legally in Russia, which is, in itself, a big bureaucratic nightmare,” warns Quantum’s Purcell. “It’s just the Russian system for registering companies and opening bank accounts and all. How do you create a company that’s legal in Russia?”
In a country that’s new to capitalism and still bogged down in 80-year-old political quagmires, answering this question will require more than desk research.
“For example,” says Purcell, “you would need to employ at least one Russian citizen who is an accredited accountant to complete the necessary tax and other concerns that would be required on a monthly basis.”
I’ve got mine
But not all legal entanglements can be extricated simply by knowing and following the laws on the books.
“It’s unclear in many cases which level of government authority has jurisdiction over particular kinds of projects,” says the Davis Center’s Hale. “If you’re a Western firm doing business with a Russian firm, you have to deal first of all with federal law, but then you also have to deal with local law, which may or may not correspond with federal law. Then there are local officials who may not adhere to either federal or local laws.”
On the other hand, notes Williams’ LeCompte, Russia’s desire to join the global marketplace has driven rapid progress. “A lot of laws are being enforced regarding [such areas as] trade and copyright,” he says. “They did a complete constitutional revision, and they’ve really strengthened the laws.”
This aspect will, of course, be of interest to direct response entrepreneurs, who confront violations of such laws even under the U.S. legal system. No one wants to take a potential hit into foreign territory, only to lose the exclusivity, without recourse, to unscrupulous local hucksters.
“An interesting [obstacle] I faced,” says LeCompte, “was called the parallel importing of goods. I had the rights to sell a product, and I technically had the Russian territory, but many Russian companies, after years of doing business abroad, had contacts in the same companies and were importing the same products, and they would import them themselves.”
“However,” he says, “it’s not worth taking legal action unless it’s a massive amount of money involved. The only thing you can really do is try to convert the local companies to buying from you” by convincing them it will ultimately be to their advantage in similar future endeavors.
Fools Russian
The main limitation to careful planning and execution, says Hale, “is the degree to which Russians themselves are willing to meet the demands that Western firms have for doing business jointly. For example, auditing practices and putting together business plans. In the west, all that has to be done in a specific way, and in Russia they don’t do it the same way. Also, American firms usually want specific financial commitments, and the Russian firms either don’t want to or simply can’t put up that kind of money.”
And the environment is still far from conducive to unrestricted global cooperation. “You’d need to establish residency in Russia in order to officially open a company,” says Purcell, “which means, essentially, you need to find someone you can trust” to manage operations from the inside.
Even for a task this difficult, though, LeCompte still firmly believes in networking coupled with intuition. “I get one or two calls a month from people who say, ‘Do you know anyone in this country who might be interested in, say, a baby product?’” he says. “And then I refer them to someone I know of. We all have these contacts – people who know people – and we shouldn’t be shy about using them.”
Real dollars
Does all, or any, of this advice ultimately translate to success? Both Quantum and Williams are in the early stages of actual discovery.
Quantum currently airs and/or has aired several infomercials in pared-down form. “We spent a lot of time trying to convince [the Russian TV stations] to run full-length 25-minute infomercials,” says Purcell, “but we were wasting our time. They finally said, ‘We’ll give you 10 minutes,’ so we took it.”
The result has been gradually increasing success since the first Quantum show, for Astonish 007 fabric-mending powder, aired in Moscow in February 1997.
Other major Quantum products that hit the Russian airwaves in 1997 include Instant Fisherman, DuraShine, EZ Krunch and Ab Roller.
Williams is selling its products through distributors who take American versions of the respective shows and edit them, dub them into Russian and add local testimonials.
LeCompte says that sales volume to date of such items as the Sobakawa Pillow, AbTrainer and Miracle Blade indicate that the market will eventually become profitable. He says he believes, though, that the key to success in the consumer products market lies in capturing the “New Russians.”
“These were essentially the yuppies,” explains LeCompte. “They ride around in Mercedes’; they’ve got cel phones; they’re likely to be wearing Armani or Versace.” So far, he says, these upscale professionals only comprise about 2 percent of the population, but their numbers are growing. “They also tend to be concentrated in the cities, and in the cities is where you also have good TV access.”
Go forward
Russia is not becoming America. The old Coca-Colonization of the “open” years under communist rule doesn’t cut it anymore. Russians want to be Russians. They have their own way of doing things, including business. and their own tastes and interests.
Once you’ve accepted this caveat, however, it’s time to take advantage of the fact that they want to be Russians watching commercial television and buying products. And it won’t be long before they realize the benefits of doing both at once. Sure, they want their own programs and products, but they also seem to be quite agreeable to an ongoing lesson in Western anthropology. For the entrepreneur willing to take a few risks now, the long-term Russia presents ample opportunities to cash in on at least two cultures.
To begin with, ask the right questions, beginning with the hows and whys. Don’t make assumptions, and learn the specifics. “The best business tool you can have is an open mind,” says Quantum’s Purcell, “but you really have to have it matched with a clear objective.” And tenacity. And a little luck.
Vpered!
{sidebar}
RARIN’ TO GO: GETTING YOUR PRODUCTS INTO RUSSIA
It’s a hit in America. But you don’t know how to write overlays in Cyrillic. Or perhaps you just don’t have the rubles in your travel budget to get to Novosibirsk before the Gravlax season. But you want your fellow DRTV devotees in Russia to have the privilege of buying your product.
So why not take advantage of the fact that at least two companies have done all the heavy legwork already? By following a few easy steps – and yes, sharing the loot with your emissaries – you can bring your revolutionary (get it?) product to the original borscht belt.
WILLIAMS WORLDWIDE TELEVISION
Santa Monica, Calif. (product acquisition dept. in Ogden, Utah)
Contact: Opal Singleton, Vice President of Products, 801-393-1814
The process:
* Present the product to the product acquisition department
* They evaluate it against a list of criteria and estimate probably success.
* It helps if the marketer already has an infomercial.
* Williams can help the marketer with importing, regulations, etc.
* Time consideration: if we assume the product is on the air in the United States, it can be on the air in Russia after 45 to 90 days.
* Financial considerations: If the product exists and the infomercial is produced, there is no further cost on the part of the manufacturer. Williams handles the dubbing, importing and distribution.
“We deal with six different companies, distributors and TV companies, all of whom do infomercials,” explains Dave LeCompte, Vice President of International Marketing, “so we have six different opportunities to present the product.”
“You don’t pick up the Yellow Pages and find 20 different companies doing telemarketing and fulfillment. The people we work with have already arranged to have these things done. It’s a mixed bag so far, but it is working, and it is growing.”
QUANTUM INTERNATIONAL
London, England, U.K.
(subsidiary of National Media Corp., Philadelphia, Pa.)
Contact: Helen Hawkins, 011-44-171-468-1424
The process:
* Call Helen Hawkins and explain your product.
* It helps if you already have an infomercial tape.
* It will also help expedite the process if the product isn’t overly complicated, e.g., full of chemicals or complicated electrical wiring that need to go through government testing and approval.
“If your product is one of those types, it doesn’t mean we can’t do it, just that the time it will take will be extended, and the costs involved in going through the approval process will be greater,” explains Martin Purcell, Vice President and General Manager, Europe.
* Quantum negotiates a marketing agreement with the manufacturer or principal marketer (profit splitting, initial investment, etc.).
* Quantum organizes a small test quantity and tests it on relevant air time.
* The company arrange shipping and import procedures from point of origin.
“If you have a manufacturer somewhere in the midwest U.S. who has a product he wants to bring into Russia, we can do a deal to take the product at his warehouse gate,” Purcell says. “We could organize the import into Russia in order for him to avoid all the hurdles we’ve already jumped over.”
Additional companies to contact:
WORLD SHOPPING NETWORK
Los Angeles, CA
Currently seeking about 25 key products to begin marketing in Russia.
Contact: Andrea Graubert, Product Manager, 310-277-2426
ALCANTARRA RESOURCES LTD.
Moscow, Russia
Product sourcing company; buys goods in the United States, Italy and the Far East for sale via DRTV in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan; also interested in existing infomercials.
Contact: Larissa Mikhailova, General Director, 011-7-095-241-1921
-S. Aronowitz
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