Go West--to Michigan?There goes our plastics industry.Action...
Go West--to Michigan?
There goes our plastics industry.
Action West, a coalition of 15 counties in southwestern Michigan, has launched business development ads that debase the stereotyped California lifestyle in favor of another west coast lifestyle--the west coast of Michigan.
The ads, running in trade publications such as Modern Plastics and Food Engineering, tout southwestern Michigan as “America’s Other West Coast.”They are aimed at luring businesses to their corner of the Great Lakes State.
One ad is headlined “Imagine a West Coast without all those condos, kooks and quakes.” Another says, “Imagine a West Coast where plastic is more than just an attitude.” It is aimed at attracting plastics manufacturers.
John Sebestyen, executive vice president of Johnson & Dean, the Grand Rapids agency behind the ads, says it’s “all done in good fun.”
“We’re not even selling against California,” Sebestyen contends. Still, he admits, he got a call from a Detroit woman who wanted to know “why we’re picking on California. I told her, ‘I really don’t think they’re losing a lot of sleep over this.’ ”
2 Barbies for a Mickey Mantle?
Trading cards, once the domain of baseball-crazy boys, are now available to girls who love Barbie dolls. Mattel is jumping into the $350-million-a-year trading card market in a big way, offering packs of 10 oversized Barbie trading cards for $1 and a coordinating poster for $3.
There are more than 300 different cards, each with Barbie in a fashionable outfit, beginning with her shapely debut in a 1959 striped, one-piece swimsuit. “We elected not to add the pink bubble gum, although it would be a natural,” said Meryl Friedman, vice president of marketing and product development for Barbie’s lifestyle group.
Mattel predicts that the cards will appeal to mothers and daughters who, for three decades, have picked up fashion tips by dressing their Barbie dolls for dates with Ken.
Latest Dirt on Rodeo Drive
Rodeo Drive has new gardeners, but the change has nothing to do with how well the landscaping has looked on the glitzy street.
The switch stemmed from a turn in an ongoing legal battle launched in 1984 by the Rodeo Drive Committee, a group of 80 merchants and property owners. To protect the Rodeo image, the committee sued an apparel firm that unveiled a Rodeo Drive line, accusing it of trademark infringement.
California Guys N Gals, the apparel firm, countersued and won $180,000 in legal fees. The firm then tried to recover some of the money by filing a claim against a $40,000 contract under which Beverly Hills was paying the Rodeo committee to maintain the street’s median. The committee responded by canceling the contract and asking the city to do the gardening itself.
So how does Rodeo’s landscaping look?
“It’s just a dirt strip, with dead weeds in it,” said Richard Weaver of California Guys N Gals. Joan Luther of the Rodeo Drive Committee retorted: “The median strip is as bright and beautiful as ever.”
