How Do You Define ‘Free’?

Would you buy a promotional videotape about Utah if you had to pay close to $1 a minute for it?

Utah is launching a national advertising campaign offering a “free video” on the state’s highlights hosted by Debbi Fields, founder of the Mrs. Fields cookie store chain, which is based in Park City.

But the “free” claim carries an asterisk in the ad. Fine print at the bottom says the tape is free only to corporate managements and officials looking for sites for businesses. Everyone else pays $10 for the 14-minute tape, or about 71 cents a minute.

Pizza Kitchen Branches Out

Casino magnate Steve Wynn was such a fan of California Pizza Kitchen’s chopped salad that founders Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfield finally just showed him how to make it on his own. Now Wynn has taken that favor a giant step further.

When the Golden Nugget’s new Mirage hotel opens later this year in Las Vegas, it will feature the first franchised California Pizza Kitchen, with a suitably tropical decor instead of the familiar yellow, black and white tile. The restaurant will have 10 TV screens for those who can’t stomach being away from the action.

Next up will be a California Pizza Kitchen opening in February at the Diva Hotel in San Francisco.

Tour de Trivia Part II

Corporate trivia is something of a mania for Paul Wolsfeld, who spent three years peddling his way from company to company to produce “Bicycling Through Corporate America,” a yet-to-be published compilation of his findings. Along the way he discovered, among other things, that insurance companies have more impressive boardrooms than banks do and that many health-care companies don’t keep disposable toilet seat covers in their rest rooms.

Now, Wolsfeld is trying to raise money for a similar trek to the corporate headquarters of the 600 largest companies outside the United States. The San Diego entrepreneur is looking for corporate sponsors who are interested in displaying their names and logos on his bike frame.

Wolsfeld is also hoping to avoid the mishap that befell him last year in New York: His bike was stolen from a rack outside the Citicorp building.

Uncorking Gift Card Solution

It’s a problem that’s been bottled-up for too long.

You give someone a bottle of wine for a gift--but you can’t figure out where to put the greeting card. So, you tape the card onto the bottle and its falls off before the gift ever gets there.

Well, help is on the way. “Bottle Notes”--specialty cards that hang neatly around the necks of wine bottles--are being made by a Private Selections, a San Diego-based company. The cards, which can be ordered by mail, are sold in a handful of liquor stores and gift shops in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas.

The cards, which retail for about $1 each, are the brainchild of 26-year-old Peter Altman, who is president of Private Selections. How did he get the idea? “Out of frustration,” said Altman. “I frequently give gifts of wine to friends and clients. I just got tired of punching holes in the cards--placing strings through them--then tying them onto the bottles.”