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URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: FASHION & APPAREL (89%); CELEBRITIES (90%); FASHION DESIGNERS (89%); EATING DISORDERS (52%); WEIGHT LOSS DRUGS (68%) Apparel; Celebrities PERSON: KEIRA KNIGHTLEY (92%); NICOLE KIDMAN (52%); GWEN STEFANI (51%) Rachel Zoe; Ruth La Ferla GEOGRAPHIC: LOS ANGELES, CA, USA (91%) CALIFORNIA, USA (91%) UNITED STATES (91%) LOAD-DATE: March 15, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: Photos: PHOTO OP -- Rachel Zoe, above, and, at near left, with Lindsay Lohan, Nicky Hilton, Nicole Richie. Her studiedly disheveled look influences clients. (Photos by Kristyn O'Reilly/Retna Ltd., top John Shearer/WireImage.com)(pg. G1) NAME GAME -- For Rachel Zoe, brand extension includes being featured in an advertisement for a Samsung cellphone, designing handbags for Leiber and staff uniforms for a hotel in Beverly Hills. EQUAL FOOTING -- Ms. Zoe, right, at her studio in Los Angeles, sharing a moment with Anne Hathaway, top left, and Mischa Barton. (Photos by Misha Erwitt for The New York Times, above Evan Agostini/Getty Images, left)(pg. G5)
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1019 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Avon Comes Calling With a New Campaign BYLINE: By STUART ELLIOTT SECTION: Section C; Column 1; Business/Financial Desk; MEDIA: ADVERTISING; Pg. 4 LENGTH: 1002 words REMEMBER the perky commercials that began with the ringing of a doorbell followed by the words ''Avon calling''? Now, years later, Avon wants to ring billions of doorbells at the same time with the largest campaign in its 121-year history. The campaign, now getting under way, carries the upbeat theme ''Hello tomorrow.'' The ads are the first work from a new Avon creative agency, Soho Square in New York, part of the WPP Group, which has been developing the campaign since September 2005. ''It was a journey in getting there,'' said Elizabeth Smith, executive vice president at Avon Products in New York, who is president for Avon North American and global marketing. ''It was not a matter of, 'Gee, I love that brand,' '' she added, explaining what the campaign is meant to accomplish, but rather an effort to express that Avon ''is the company that best understands and empowers women.'' The campaign seeks to recruit sales representatives to join the more than five million who already work for Avon, as well as to build morale among employees of the company, which recently went through layoffs. The campaign also has a worldwide scope, in keeping with a recent reorganization of Avon by Andrea Jung, its chief executive, to make more decisions along global lines in areas like marketing. To reflect the ambitious nature of the campaign, Avon plans to increase ad spending this year to $340 million, compared with $250 million in 2006 and $135 million in 2005. ''We feel wonderful about the message,'' Ms. Smith said, ''and we're backing it up with the dollars.'' A marketing expert said that the campaign might still fall short. ''The issue remains as to whether Ms. Jung can use this effort to enthuse and energize her five million sales representatives,'' said Peter Sealey, a former marketing executive for companies like Coca-Cola. ''Maybe she can rally the troops,'' said Mr. Sealey, who is adjunct professor of marketing at the Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, but he said the real issue was what he called a conflict between relying on a sales force and embracing the opportunity to sell in a more ''pervasive and personal'' way, through the Internet. The campaign has an online component, at avon.com, where Avon has been selling products for the last decade, along with television commercials, print advertisements and brochures. There is also a cause-marketing element. Avon is founding a Hello Tomorrow Fund and pledges to donate money through it to organizations in 18 countries that help women in areas like business development and community service. The campaign has a broader reach than the sales force and company employees, Ms. Smith said. It is also intended to burnish the Avon brand image among consumers as well as help sell Avon products like lipsticks, skin lotions, fragrances and moisturizers. ''Avon is one of those classic brands that everyone knows,'' said Nicola Bell, client services director at Soho Square, ''but they've come to a point in time when they needed to re-energize the brand across all audiences.'' After research by the agency determined that Avon had to ''look for a more fresh, contemporary expression of its values in terms of empowering and supporting women,'' Ms. Bell said, a decision was made to speak in an optimistic tone as epitomized by the ''Hello tomorrow'' theme. ''The category is full of advertising that can sometimes make women feel a little guilty about the way they look and be a bit judgmental,'' Ms. Bell said. ''We're saying, 'Look to the future with optimism, look at aging with confidence.' '' The idea that a women's beauty and skin care brand can take a positive approach, in contrast to the typical pitch for the category, is gaining popularity. For example, a sibling agency of Soho Square, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, has been lauded for ads for the Dove brand sold by Unilever, which can be seen online at Web sites that include dove.com and campaignforrealbeauty.com. The initial two commercials in the Avon campaign, looking to recruit sales representatives, feature actual saleswomen, the company says. In one spot, the women are extremely enthusiastic, making statements like ''I love my job,'' ''I love the fact that Avon sells itself'' and ''Anyone can do this.'' In the other spot, the tone is more measured. The saleswomen make statements like ''We do business online now.'' One praises Avon for introducing ''new products that fit into your life, not the other way around.'' Another describes how the money she makes helps put her children through college. Ms. Smith said the two points of view were deliberate, to appeal to different types of prospective sales representatives. ''Some people have more pragmatic reasons,'' she added, and ''some have more entrepreneurial vision.'' The commercials, as well as the rest of the campaign, were tested in Avon markets, including Brazil, China and Poland, Ms. Smith said, and ''to a country it worked on the same emotional level.'' The campaign is at least the third recent effort for a marketer that uses ''Hello'' as a welcoming word. The minitrend may have started with ads last summer for Level vodka, sold by V&S Vin & Sprit, which carry the headline ''Hello delicious.'' Next came a commercial for the Apple iPhone, which began appearing during the Academy Awards show on Feb. 25. The spot features snippets from movies and TV shows in which stars like Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Gleason and Robert Redford answer the telephone. The commercial, which can also be watched on apple.com, ends with the words ''Hello'' and ''Coming in June'' onscreen. Typically, such convergence is coincidental, according to a leading Madison Avenue creative executive, who said it could be difficult to trace sources of inspiration. ''Maybe it's the planets,'' said Sal DeVito, creative director at DeVito/Verdi, known for campaigns for advertisers like Daffy's, Legal Sea Foods and New York magazine. ''It's happened to us a few times.'' URL: http://www.nytimes.com SUBJECT: MARKETING & ADVERTISING (91%); MARKETING & ADVERTISING AGENCIES (90%); SALES FORCE (89%); SALES & SELLING (89%); MARKETING & ADVERTISING SERVICES (89%); COSMETICS & TOILETRIES (73%); COSMETICS (78%); MARKETING & ADVERTISING EXPENDITURE (76%); GRAPHIC DESIGN SERVICES (76%); SALES MANAGEMENT (72%); MARKETING PLAN (71%); TELEVISION ADVERTISING (71%); LAYOFFS (67%); WORKPLACE MORALE (67%); ARMED FORCES (67%); COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS (65%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (88%); BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (69%) Cosmetics and Toiletries; Advertising and Marketing COMPANY: WPP GROUP PLC (57%); COCA-COLA CO (52%); AVON PRODUCTS INC (90%); WPP PLC (57%) ORGANIZATION: Avon Products Inc; Soho Square (Ad Agency) TICKER: WPPGY (NASDAQ) (57%); WPP (LSE) (57%); KO (NYSE) (52%); AVP (NYSE) (90%) INDUSTRY: NAICS541830 MEDIA BUYING AGENCIES (57%); NAICS541820 PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES (57%); NAICS541810 ADVERTISING AGENCIES (57%); NAICS541613 MARKETING CONSULTING SERVICES (57%); SIC8743 PUBLIC RELATIONS AGENCIES (57%); SIC8742 MANAGEMENT CONSULTING SERVICES (57%); SIC7319 ADVERTISING, NEC (57%); SIC7311 ADVERTISING AGENCIES (57%); NAICS312111 SOFT DRINK MANUFACTURING (52%); SIC2086 BOTTLED & CANNED SOFT DRINKS & CARBONATED WATER (52%); NAICS454390 OTHER DIRECT SELLING ESTABLISHMENTS (90%); NAICS325620 TOILET PREPARATION MANUFACTURING (90%); SIC5963 DIRECT SELLING ESTABLISHMENTS (90%); SIC2844 PERFUMES, COSMETICS, & OTHER TOILET PREPARATIONS (90%) PERSON: ANDREA JUNG (67%); MICHAEL MCMAHON (53%) Stuart Elliott GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (93%) UNITED STATES (93%); NORTH AMERICA (79%) LOAD-DATE: March 15, 2007 LANGUAGE: ENGLISH GRAPHIC: Photo: The ''Hello tomorrow'' ads for Avon are the first work from a new creative agency, Soho Square in New York, part of the WPP Group, which has been developing the campaign since September 2005. PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1020 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Countering the Big-Bank Trend BYLINE: By JAMES FLANIGAN. E-mail: jamesflanigan@nytimes.com SECTION: Section C; Column 1; Business/Financial Desk; ENTREPRENEURIAL EDGE; Pg. 5 LENGTH: 1272 words ''A small bank is the vein that carries blood to the heart,'' said Edward Carpenter, chairman of Carpenter & Company, an investment bank that in 33 years has organized the founding of 708 banks in California and across the United States. Mr. Carpenter, 58, is passionate about the need for community banks, by which he means locally owned banks created with $16 million to $30 million in capital from investors and operating with a state or federal charter. Carpenter & Company, based in Irvine, Calif., organizes an average of 15 banks a year by recruiting investors and executives, raising money and guiding the proposed bank through the regulatory process. Community banks keep financing flowing to local entrepreneurs and family companies, Mr. Carpenter said, at a time when mergers have reduced the number of banks in the nation to 7,402 at the end of last year from 14,411 banks in 1977. The consolidation, in his eyes, has given rise to the need for the more personal touch found in local banks. Mr. Carpenter's ideal is a bank founded by some 25 to 50 organizers who put up risk capital. A typical bank, he said, will have 12 directors, including top executives and other pillars of the community, and managers who have experience in banking. ''They raise $20 million to start the bank and plan on having $200 million in deposits and $150 million in loans in the third year. With an average loan of $1 million, all they have to do is generate 150 loans in three years,'' said Mr. Carpenter, who has a master's degree in business administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Business is brisk these days at Carpenter & Company because the number of banks being formed in California is greater than the number being absorbed by other banks in mergers, according to the California Bankers Association in a joint study with Carpenter & Company. Entrepreneurs and investors are attracted to banking for several reasons, among them the fact that companies are being created in all industries. The United States has 26 million independent businesses, according to the Census Bureau, up from 21 million in 1990. Banks of every category, from national giants to regional powerhouses to local community banks, are devoted to serving the needs of small to medium-size companies: those with 100 or fewer employees and annual revenue ranging from a few million to $50 million. Banks formed with Carpenter & Company's assistance illustrate aspects of the entrepreneurial trend. Coronado First Bank, for example, is focused on its local market. Coronado is an island city of 15,000 people in San Diego Bay that is renowned for its naval base and resort hotels. The bank opened in 2005, thanks to the efforts of Thomas C. Stickel, a businessman and former trustee of the California State University system. Mr. Stickel, who lives in Coronado, said he was disturbed when the city's local bank was acquired by San Diego investors in 2002 and merged into a larger banking company. ''So I attracted a good group of organizers and directors, including our local hero, retired Vice Adm. Edward H. Martin, and Gerald R. Sanders, who is now mayor of San Diego,'' Mr. Stickel said. Admiral Martin, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was a cellmate in Hanoi of Senator John McCain of Arizona. Mr. Stickel attracted $13 million in capital and a chief executive, Bruce A. Ives, who said he saw Coronado First Bank as capable of growing to $250 million in assets serving local businesses and residents. How can a small community bank realistically compete with branches of larger institutions? ''Technology,'' Mr. Stickel said. These days with computerized services that banks can buy from outside vendors and Internet banking, ''our technology is competitive with anybody's.'' More ambitious is 1st Enterprise Bank in Los Angeles and Orange County, founded last year by K. Brian Horton, president, and John C. Black, chief executive, who were recruited by Mr. Carpenter. Both had worked for 1st Business Bank, a bank for entrepreneurs that had grown to $3 billion in assets and was acquired in 1998 by the Mellon Financial Corporation. Mr. Horton and Mr. Black worked at Mellon until 2005, when they went out on their own and with Mr. Carpenter's help raised $27.5 million to open 1st Enterprise Bank last July. ''We'll take this to a $1 billion assets bank by catering to clients in Los Angeles and Orange Counties,'' Mr. Horton said. Ethnic group banking is a growth industry. ''There are 12 Hispanic-led banks being organized in the United States, 7 of them in California,'' Mr. Carpenter said. They include Banco Tepeyac, which is being organized by a former Citibank official, Emilio Sanchez-Santiago, and 80 investors from Mexico and the United States who are putting up $18 million. Pending approval of a state charter, Tepeyac will open its doors as a retail bank in Huntington Park, a heavily Latino city of 62,000 in Los Angeles County. Its name in the Nahuatl language, derives from the hill of Tepeyac outside Mexico City, the site of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Another example is an effort by Kevin Rosenberg, managing partner of an executive search firm, to start a bank. Mr. Rosenberg wanted to expand office space for his 40-year-old company, BridgeGate, and asked his bank for a loan. He was turned down, and so he is starting a formal effort to raise capital for a bank he has named Access Business Bank. With all the small banks starting, it would be easy to overlook that the largest lender to small business is Bank of America, with 4.9 million small-company clients. Bank of America, with $1.46 trillion in assets and the nation's second-largest banking company, behind Citigroup, has a small-business division devoted to serving companies with $2.5 million or less in annual revenue. It made 13,000 Small Business Administration loans last year through its 5,800 branches nationwide. ''We make loans of $100,000 and less every day,'' said Mark Hogan, president of the bank's small-business banking unit. ''And we provide online management for payroll and invoicing services for small companies on a 24-hour, seven-day basis.'' Christopher D. Myers, chief executive of CVB Financial, which owns Citizens Business Bank of Ontario, Calif., agrees that large banks offer international and sophisticated cash management services that are beyond the abilities of most small banks. But even in local markets, size matters, Mr. Myers said. Over 34 years, he has taken Citizens Business Bank from a single office to 33 cities in Southern and Central California and $6 billion in assets. Last month, the bank agreed to a $35 million deal with First Coastal Bank of Manhattan Beach, extending Citizens reach to the coastal cities. ''Now we are local bankers in 42 locations,'' Mr. Myers said. He sees competition heating up for community banks. ''Founders may have to wait longer for their good returns,'' he said. One attraction of community banks is that founders can make a good return on their money over five to seven years. In fact, that is what Mr. Carpenter intended. He worked in the early 1970s for Security Pacific, a Los Angeles bank that acquired others. (Security Pacific was itself acquired by Bank of America in 1992). Mr. Carpenter saw takeovers and layoffs and did not like it. ''This dislocation of corporate America really bugged me,'' he recalled in an interview. ''I saw my friends losing jobs and I thought I can help them found their own banks and hire other friends as senior officers and never treat their people the way they were treated. ''
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1021 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Co-Head of Global Investment Banking Will Leave UBS BYLINE: By Bloomberg News SECTION: Section C; Column 4; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 13 LENGTH: 158 words Jeffrey A. McDermott, one of three global heads of investment banking at UBS, will leave June 30 after six years at the bank, according to a company memo. Mr. McDermott, 48, is leaving ''to pursue outside entrepreneurial opportunities,'' according to a memo sent to employees yesterday. The memo's contents were confirmed by Rohini Pragasam, a spokeswoman in New York, who declined to comment further. UBS's global investment banking division, which advises clients on takeovers and equity and debt underwriting, is jointly led by Mr. McDermott, J. Richard Leaman III and Alexander Wilmot-Sitwell, who is based in London. Mr. Leaman and Mr. Wilmot-Sitwell will continue as co-heads of the division, the memo said. UBS, based in Zurich, is Switzerland's biggest bank and was the No. 2 underwriter of equity offerings globally last year, behind Goldman Sachs, and the seventh-ranked adviser on global takeovers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company 1022 of 1258 DOCUMENTS The New York Times
Late Edition - Final Start-Up Fervor Shifts to Energy In Silicon Valley BYLINE: By MATT RICHTEL SECTION: Section A; Column 1; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1 LENGTH: 1544 words DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 Silicon Valley's dot-com era may be giving way to the watt-com era. Out of the ashes of the Internet bust, many technology veterans have regrouped and found a new mission in alternative energy: developing wind power, solar panels, ethanol plants and hydrogen-powered cars. It is no secret that venture capitalists have begun pouring billions into energy-related start-ups with names like SunPower, Nanosolar and Lilliputian Systems. But that interest is now spilling over to many others in Silicon Valley -- lawyers, accountants, recruiters and publicists, all developing energy-oriented practices to cater to the cause. The best and the brightest from leading business schools are pelting energy start-ups with resumes. And, of course, there are entrepreneurs from all backgrounds -- but especially former dot-commers -- who express a sense of wonder and purpose at the thought of transforming the $1 trillion domestic energy market while saving the planet. ''It's like 1996,'' said Andrew Beebe, one of the remade Internet entrepreneurs. In the boom, he ran Bigstep.com, which helped small businesses sell online. Today, he is president of Energy Innovations, which makes low-cost solar panels. ''The Valley has found a new hot spot.'' Mr. Beebe said the Valley's potential to generate change was vast. But he cautioned that a frenzy was mounting, the kind that could lead to overinvestment and poorly thought-out plans. ''We've started to see some of the bad side of the bubble activity starting to brew,'' Mr. Beebe said. The energy boomlet is part of a broader rebound that is benefiting all kinds of start-ups, including plenty that are focused on the Web. But for many in Silicon Valley, high tech has given way to ''clean tech,'' the shorthand term for innovations that are energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Less fashionable is ''green,'' a word that suggests a greater interest in the environment than in profit. The similarities to past booms are obvious, but the Valley has always run in cycles. It is a kind of renewable gold rush, a wealth- and technology-creating principle that is always looking for something around which to organize. In this case, the energy sector is not so distant from other Silicon Valley specialties as it might appear, say those involved in the new wave of start-ups. The same silicon used to make computer chips converts sunlight into electricity on solar panels, while the bioscience used to make new drugs can be employed to develop better ethanol processing. More broadly, the participants here say their whole approach to building new companies and industries is easily transferable to the energy world. But some wonder whether this is just an echo of the excessive optimism of the Internet boom. And even those most involved in the trend say the size of the market opportunity in energy is matched by immense hurdles. Starting a clean technology firm is ''not like starting an online do-it-yourself legal company,'' said Dan Whaley, chief executive of Climos, a San Francisco company that is developing organic processes to remove carbon from the atmosphere. ''Scientific credibility is the primary currency that drives the thing I'm working on.'' Just what that thing is, he would not specify. For competitive reasons, Mr. Whaley declined to get into details about his company's technology. His advisory board includes prominent scientists, among them his mother, Margaret Leinen, the head of geosciences for the National Science Foundation. In the last Silicon Valley cycle, Mr. Whaley's help came from his father. In 1994, he did some of the early work from his father's living room on GetThere.com, a travel site. It went public in 1999 and was bought by Sabre for $750 million in 2000. This time around, entrepreneurs say they are not expecting such quick returns. In the Internet boom, the mantra was to change the world and get rich quick. This time, given the size and scope of the energy market, the idea is to change the world and get even richer -- but somewhat more slowly. Those drawn to the alternative-energy industry say that they need time to understand the energy technology, and to turn ideas into solid companies. After all, in contrast to the Internet boom, this time the companies will need actual manufactured products and customers. ''There are real business models and real products to be sold -- established markets and growing economics,'' said George Basile, who has a doctorate in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley and specializes in energy issues. Mr. Basile has just stepped into the fray himself. In January, he became the executive adviser for energy issues at Bite Communications, a San Francisco public relations firm with scores of technology clients that is now working to attract energy start-ups. The sudden interest of lawyers, accountants and other members of the wider Valley ecosystem strikes some as opportunistic. ''There's a large amount of bandwagon-jumping right now,'' said Mark Hampton, chief executive of Blanc & Otus, a technology-oriented public relations firm whose clients have included TiVo, Sybase and Compaq. Still, he understands the interest of relative newcomers: ''There's a huge opportunity.'' They are all, plainly, following the money. In the first three quarters of 2006, venture capital firms put $474 million into a broad range of Silicon Valley start-ups in energy storage, generation and efficiency, according to Cleantech Venture Network, an industry trade group. Energy was by far the fastest-growing area of interest, and the amount was on par with what was put into telecommunications and biotechnology. Yet the amount of money involved is still relatively small compared with the boom years. Over all, venture funding last year was still less than a third of the nearly $34 billion venture capitalists invested in the region in 2000, the peak of the bubble, according to the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy, based in Palo Alto. ''This is not 2000. It doesn't feel like 2000 on the street,'' said Stephen Levy, the center's director. But, he said, ''there's no doubt there's a buzz.'' Mr. Levy said that Silicon Valley was getting a lift from the public's interest in finding energy sources and from government involvement in creating subsidies and policies that promote such sources. Still, he said, the ventures are clearly risky. ''We'll have a sense very quickly -- within two to four years -- whether any of this venture capital has produced any products or services that are market-worthy,'' Mr. Levy said. Apart from the profit motive, many here say they are driven by more unselfish concerns: cleaning up the atmosphere and creating energy independence for the United States. One of the phrases heard most often in the industry is: ''Do well by doing good.'' Al Gore, with his warnings of global warming, has been a Valley darling of late. ''The resumes I'm getting now are almost identical to the ones I got seven years ago for CarsDirect.com,'' said Larry Gross, chief executive of Altra , a company he founded in Los Angeles that is producing ethanol and developing fuels made from plants. ''The quality, the schools, the work experience, the enthusiasm for wanting to fix something.'' Mr. Gross in 1991 helped found Knowledge Adventure, which made educational software, making him one of the many tech alumni in the energy world. For that company, he said he attracted around $20 million in venture capital; he has received $245 million for Altra. Mr. Gross said investors and entrepreneurs are drawn to energy by what drew them to hardware and software: the chance for huge growth in volatile markets. Mr. Gross is the brother of Bill Gross, a technology-era icon whose business incubator Idealab spawned many successful start-ups, including Citysearch and WeddingChannel. Bill Gross is now chief executive of Energy Innovations, the solar panel start-up based in Pasadena, Calif., with Mr. Beebe as president. Mr. Beebe said there were profound similarities between the Internet boom and the miniboom in energy. For one, he said, just as the Internet promised to decentralize computing and put control in the hands of users, the Silicon Valley version of energy innovation intends to decentralize the industry by making power generation more local -- like solar panels on rooftops. In 1998, Mr. Beebe was a co-founder of Bigstep and raised $75 million in venture funding. At its peak, the company had 150 employees, with most of them laid off during the bust. The company was later sold for less money than it raised -- hardly a dot-com success. So does Mr. Beebe have the track record to make a solar energy company profitable? ''I face that question on a regular basis,'' he said. ''Only my actions will be able to answer it.'' But he added that he felt confident about the political and market conditions for energy start-ups. He said the entrenched oil, coal and gas companies could not ultimately compete with the more efficient and environmentally friendly concepts Silicon Valley envisions. ''The idea of them turning a supertanker is an apt analogy,'' he said. ''They cannot take us over, they can only try to resist.'' Yüklə 4,36 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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