Art of the State Video
Paramount Home Video caught flak from video dealers for releasing the hit film “Ghost” last week priced to sell at $99.95. That comes to a steep 81.9 cents per minute.
Running a close second is a lesser known video: “Utah--America’s Choice.”
The 14-minute video promotes the Beehive State to corporate executives and factory-site selectors, who get the tape for free. But the rest of us must pay $10. That works out to 71.4 cents a minute.
Say It Ain’t So, Joe
Times are tough enough in the sports marketing business with biathlete Bo Jackson’s career jeopardized by a bad hip. Now another superstar, Joe Montana, is part of an unusual marketing problem.
Chuck Chenes, Continental Savings of America chief executive, in February began to solicit sealed bids for a 14-foot-by-50-foot mural of the 49ers quarterback (and former Continental spokesman) that decorates the wall of the thrift’s San Francisco headquarters. Proceeds would go toward scholarships.
The requirements: a $25,000 opening bid, $5,000 more to remove the mural and a promise that Montana’s picture will be displayed “in a place of honor.” But no one bid by the March 15 deadline.
“I haven’t heard a thing. I’m really amazed I haven’t gotten people in here to look at this thing,” Chenes said last week. Hoping to revive interest, he’s extended the deadline to April 30.
The Love Computer
Wags are calling it the “Silicon Valley of the Dolls.”
A Foster City, Calif., writer/computer buff has written what he calls a sexy Jacqueline Susann-style novel using a computer that he says mimics the late author’s style.
The writer, Scott French, is boasting that his book, about a female rock group, is “the next novel she would have written had she been alive.” Susann, known for such bestsellers as “Valley of the Dolls” and “The Love Machine,” died in 1974.
French’s promotion isn’t going over well with a skeptical Bantam Books, Susann’s publisher, where executives are suggesting that French could face a lawsuit if he tries to market his novel by linking it to Susann.
“This gentleman’s project sounds like a prime candidate for the next Esquire magazine dubious achievement of the year award,” Bantam’s Stuart Applebaum said.
French’s agent, Lois de la Haba, defended her client, saying “a lot of books emulate other author’s style. This is different because Scott used a computer program.”
Briefly...
MGM-Pathe Chairman Giancarlo Parretti, whose studio is struggling to pay tens of millions of dollars in overdue bills, was profiled over the weekend on “Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous” . . . Westside robberies notwithstanding, the cost of a men’s Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date watch (with Presidential bracelet) rose 17.5% in 1990 to $13,750, according to the latest Moet luxury index.
