Advertising

Fallout over the racially insensitive comments by radio talk-show host Don Imus intensified yesterday as MSNBC announced that it will immediately cease simulcasting the Imus in the Morning radio program. Meanwhile, two major sponsors suspended their advertising from the show, and a former NAACP president who is on the CBS board joined those who have urged Imus' dismissal. A week after Imus referred to the mostly black Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" following the team's second-place finish in this year's NCAA tournament, opposition to the longtime radio personality continues to mushroom.

It's the catch, the loophole, the gotcha: It is mouseprint in advertising. Mouseprint is the fine type in print advertisements, seemingly so small only a mouse could read it. Sometimes it features an asterisk relaying details on the ifs, ands or buts surrounding the offer. On the radio it is the fast-talk provisos, conditions and requisites. In television it's the tiny disclaimer along the bottom of the picture, sometimes indecipherable to anyone without a 60-inch screen and a digital video recorder to freeze-frame the petite type.

Americans are asking for drugs they don't need based on vague TV commercial promises that are heavy on emotions but light on facts, according to a study published yesterday in the Annals of Family Medicine. The charge, based on 30-month-old advertisements, has some pharmaceutical companies questioning the study's validity. AstraZeneca PLC, for example, acknowledges criticism of past advertising practices but said it has introduced new, more responsible campaigns. "That was an old ad," AstraZeneca spokeswoman Michele B. Pelkowski said, referring to a summer 2004 commercial for its cholesterol medication Crestor, which the medical journal featured online.

Google, which dominates the market for advertising on the Internet, seems to be hoping to do the same thing on television. The company is set to announce a partnership today with the Nielsen Co., the voice of authority in measuring television audiences, that will give advertisers a more vivid and accurate snapshot than ever before of how many people are viewing commercials on a second-by-second basis, and who those people are. At a time when digital video...

The advertisement's headline proclaimed in big letters: "My Boyfriend's SECRET for Amazing SEX!" The text went on to extol the virtues of Maxoderm, an ointment that claims to enhance male sexual performance. It even had a bold-faced and underlined passage from a very satisfied female partner who said her boyfriend's lovemaking made "my orgasms go through the roof!" The 3-column wide by 10-inch ad, which was accompanied by a photograph of a couple in an intimate embrace, was not published in a men's magazine or on the Internet.

The ad industry is redefining "public" television. With people fast-forwarding faster than ever through TV commercials at home, advertising companies have taken their campaigns into the open. Perhaps you've noticed: Flat-panel screens filled with ads plugging cars, orthodontists and face-lifts are everywhere. They greet you at the grocery store, bank and service station. Most recently they've popped up in restrooms, mounted on hand dryers. And no, you can't change the channel. "Consumers want control," said Eli Portnoy, founder of the Portnoy Group, a brand strategy consultant.

The chief executive of Vertis Communications, a Baltimore advertising and marketing company, assured analysts yesterday that its turnaround initiatives are showing progress after reporting that its second-quarter loss nearly quadrupled and revenue declined. In a news release late Thursday, Vertis said it lost $19.7 million in the three months that ended June 30. That compared with a loss of $5 million in the second quarter last year. Vertis, a privately held company, announced financial results because its debt is publicly traded.

Tom Church isn't among the one-third of Americans who believe that hitting a jackpot is their best chance at wealth. But when he saw a Web site giving away $10,000 a day, he thought, "It's free, so what the heck?"He entered iWon.com's sweepstakes on a Friday last month. That Monday, the Berkeley, Calif., resident received an e-mail informing him that he was among the CBS-backed company's early $10,000 winners.IWon.com is a Web portal with Web search, e-mail and other functions, much like Yahoo!

To keep pace with new technologies as it expands to a full-service communications company, Baltimore advertising and public relations firm Trahan, Burden & Charles, said yesterday that it will shuffle its senior management team and open an office in New York.The company is also planning to open another office in the mid-Atlantic region in a few months, the firm's principals said.In Baltimore, the company will focus its efforts on expansion through acquisitions and strategic alliances with companies that can help the firm buttress its e-commerce, electronic marketing and other technology-related marketing services, the firm's principals said yesterday.

CHICAGO -- Encyclopaedia Britannica, by legend at the top of the knowledge pyramid but nearly toppled by the information age, radically changed course yesterday by offering its mammoth compendium of knowledge on the Internet -- for free."

Baltimore County Councilman John Olszewski Sr. has added an exemption for free newspapers to his original proposal that bans the delivery of unsolicited advertising circulars to homes throughout the county. The rewritten proposal, which comes before the council Tuesday, also allows those advertising twice a year a waiver from printing a toll-free number on the circular. The legislation, which would take effect Sept. 29, would also prohibit advertisers from placing fliers on the windshields of vehicles, particularly those in public parking lots.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., facing declining advertising revenue amid the recession, said Wednesday that net income fell to $2.8 million, or 4 cents per share, from $11.8 million, or 13 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2008. The Hunt Valley-based owner of television stations said net broadcast revenues from continuing operations fell nearly 19 percent to $133 million for the three months ended June 30. Operating income fell to $25.8 million from $43.3 million, Sinclair reported.

Edward Adolph Trahan, former chairman of Trahan, Burden & Charles Inc., a Baltimore advertising agency, who was the first in the ad industry nationally to use the Muppets in a TV commercial, died of cancer July 24 at his Lady Lake, Fla., home. He was 83. Mr. Trahan, whose name was pronounced "Tray-han," was born and raised in Detroit. When he was 3 years old, he got his left arm caught in a wringer washing machine, and doctors were forced to amputate, said a grandson, Jessie Trahan, who is director of graduate school marketing at Towson University.

A Baltimore County councilman wants to curtail unsolicited advertising circulars, claiming the papers litter neighborhoods and can eventually clog area waterways. Councilman John Olszewski has drafted a bill that prohibits circulars from being dropped off at homes in the county. The County Council is expected to vote Monday on the proposal. If passed, the law would take effect in 45 days. The law will not apply to U.S. Postal Service deliveries or those by a private mail service. "Our streets and stream beds are denigrated with trash," he said.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. reported a net loss of $241.5 million last year mostly because of a huge write-down of the value of goodwill and broadcast licenses. In contrast, the Hunt Valley broadcaster had a profit of $22.7 million in 2007, according to an annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, one of the largest independent television station owners in the country, took a $463.9 million impairment charge to reflect reduced forecasts for future cash flow and growth rates.

Sinclair Broadcast Group said yesterday that it has eliminated 200 jobs, or 7 percent of its work force, and suspended its quarterly dividend to cut costs as it expects falling advertising revenues this year amid a recession. Besides layoffs, the Hunt Valley broadcaster is cutting back on capital expenditures, freezing salaries, and reducing promotional spending and travel. David Amy, Sinclair's chief financial officer, declined to provide further details yesterday. Such moves are expected to save the company $19 million but are not enough to offset the decline in advertising, particularly in a nonelection year, Sinclair said.

Gerald J. Stautberg, a longtime auto dealer whose TV advertisements - "For the best deal anywhere, you just gotta come to Jerry's" - wooed generations of car buyers to his Parkville dealership, died Sunday of pneumonia at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Monkton resident was 79. "Jerry was one of the first dealers to use radio and TV advertising in this market. He was a real pioneer," said John Sophocles, former general manager of Jerry's Chevrolet, who is now president of TASCO, a telemessaging company that Mr. Stautberg has owned since 1988.

Henry V. Rieger Sr., a retired Baltimore advertising executive and former Catonsville resident, died Nov. 21 of complications from a stroke at Salisbury Rehabilitation and Nursing Home on the Eastern Shore. He was 96. Born in Locust Point and raised on McKean Avenue, he was a 1930 graduate of City College. After graduating from the old Baltimore School of Commerce, Mr. Rieger began his advertising career in 1932 as an office boy for the old Hub department store. He worked his way up to advertising director and promotion manager at the department store at Baltimore and Charles streets.

WASHINGTON - After largely staying on the sidelines, the types of independent groups that so affected the 2004 presidential campaign are flooding back as players in the final sprint to the election this fall, financing provocative messages on television, in mailboxes and through the Internet. MoveOn, the progressive group started 10 years ago to fight President Clinton's impeachment, says it will double its advertising budget to $7 million and start a new campaign this week that ties Republican John McCain to lobbyists.

I think the new Baltimore Sun is very nice, very informative, very colorful. It will take me a while to get accustomed to where my favorite sections and features are. But the search is worthwhile. Keep up the great service. Marge Griffith, Pasadena I am deeply disheartened by the new format of the once-venerable Baltimore Sun. As a former newspaper reporter and long-time professor of journalism, I have lived through many of the changes major newspapers suffer: pressure to close foreign bureaus, pressure to shorten stories and pressure to mimic television by elevating celebrity news (and newscasters)