Killer Scribblers Needed
DAK Industries, the successful Canoga Park mail-order concern owned by gadgets maven Drew Alan Kaplan, does an estimated $120 million a year in sales due in large part to Kaplan’s skill for writing colorful advertising copy. DAK’s 68-page catalogue offers a wide variety of electronic gadgetry, from portable photocopiers to television sets with two-inch screens.
One ad for a device that emits a sound that chases away gophers is headlined: “Concerto For Gophers.” Kaplan has long boasted that he writes every word of advertising copy himself. But that seems likely to change.
DAK recently ran a help-wanted ad in Daily Variety, the entertainment industry trade newspaper, headlined: “Killer Writers Wanted.” The ad said in part: “I’m building an in-house writing staff. . . . We’re about to launch a host of new catalogues, space ads and direct mail packages.”
Kaplan declined to return a phone call last week. But Rich Kullback, an electronics supplier, says that Kaplan “has talked about branching out into some other types of catalogues.”
The Daily Variety ad says a “healthy obsession with VCRs, stereos, computers and things electronic is also helpful. So’s an appreciation for the joys of Thai food.”
Luxury With a Capital L
Chrysler has named the first dealer in California to sell Lamborghini cars and products, which the Detroit auto maker bought last year. And--guess what?--that dealership is in Beverly Hills. Wilshire Maserati/Lotus/Lamborghini will serve the Los Angeles market, which Chrysler has identified as the nation’s largest market for the luxury Italian sports cars.
Lamborghinis have been available only from individual importers for the past 12 years. Wilshire Maserati/Lotus/Lamborghini’s first sale went to heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, who bought a $140,500 Lamborghini Countach (white with white interior) after driving by the dealership. For just a little more, Tyson could have purchased a home in Los Angeles, where the median home price in March was $163,840.
Fun While It Lasted
Jim P. Manzi’s reign as Business Week’s king of compensation lasted exactly two weeks.
In its May 2 issue, the magazine crowned the 36-year-old chairman of Lotus Development as the nation’s top-paid executive in its cover story on executive pay. The $26.3-million in salary, bonuses and stock options Manzi made as head of the computer software company put him well ahead of Chrysler Chairman Lee A. Iacocca, the runner-up at $17.9 million.
But it turns out that Manzi not only wasn’t the top-paid executive in the nation, he wasn’t even close. In its May 16 issue, Business Week now reports that the honor goes to Charles Lazarus, chairman and founder of Toys ‘R’ Us. who made more than $60 million. Most of it came from $56.4 million Lazarus gained when he exercised stock options granted in 1978, that allowed him to buy 1.4 million shares of the toy retailer’s stock last October for less than $1 each.
Business Week’s explanation: The Toys ‘R’ Us proxy materials that included Lazarus’ compensation were released after the edition hit the newsstands.
Real Life ‘Sesame Street’
Sorting out fiction from reality is never easy in politics, and the task is even tougher in the HBO television series that follows an ersatz presidential candidate to real settings across the country and mixes him up with real people.
On the June 6 segment of “Tanner ‘88: The Dark Horse,” in which actor Michael Murphy plays candidate Jack Tanner, there will be a cameo appearance by Sandra Burud, a consultant to the child-care center that Union Bank of California operates at its Monterey Park data-processing center.
And part of the episode will take place at the center, which the bank says is the only employer-sponsored, on-site child-care center in Los Angeles County operated by a non-medical corporation.
