June 15, 2004
Written
by Bob Meyer, Editor of BarterNews
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Clos
du Val Winery Uses Barter Strategy With Hollywood
Clos du Val,
a small maker of premium wine, could never afford to hire a star
of Tom Hanks stature as an endorser. But by devoting 240 cases of
its 65,000-case annual production as Hollywood freebies, the winery
has won dozens of stealth product placements near big-time celebrities.
In last year’s
Academy Award-nominated film 21 Grams, Sean Penn contemplates
death over a bottle of the Napa winery’s Cabernet. James Gandolfini
serves Clos du Val in the HBO mob drama The Sopranos. Ray
Romano pours it on the CBS sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.
Malinda Williams sipped it in the Showtime series Soul Food.
Clos du Val
is in the minds of Hollywood bigwigs...primarily by figuring out
which directors, actors, and prop masters should get bartered wine.
The winery offers up cases of Clos du Val to be served at premieres
and other showbiz galas.
Do the winery’s
bartering efforts pay off? Apparently. The company’s wine
sales in the first quarter of this year were almost 50% higher than
a year ago.
And there is
a long term payoff as well, thanks to technology, because Clos du
Val’s product placement gains new life when television shows
hit syndication and when movies and TV programs become DVDs.
Red
Bull Follows Similar Path
Red Bull, a
high-octane energy drink known for its popularity at bars and clubs,
is branching out and targeting golfers by sponsoring the PGA European
Tour. Players will be served free Red Bull at all tour events. There
will also be a traveling trailer, the “Red Bull Physio Unit,”
where the company will treat tired golfers.
To broaden its
market, Red Bull is also handing out free cans to commuters, cab
drivers, and car-rental agencies to promote the drink as a way to
stay alert on the road.
Trade
Exchange Owners...
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The most powerful
marketing tool in the barter industry, The Competitive Edge
newsletter, is a monthly, ready to use, professional 4-page publication...no
work is needed! Click here
You
Won’t Believe This Trade...
Six
Bottles Of J&B Scotch For Lou Gehrig’s Uniform
Barry Halper,
a New Jersey collector of sports memorabilia, made one of the greatest
trades ever when he bartered six bottles of J&B Scotch with
Lou Gehrig’s wife for her husband’s uniform.
It was the flannel
pin-stripped New York Yankee uniform worn by Gehrig 65 years ago,
when the first baseman declared himself, “the luckiest man
on the face of the earth.”
In July, 1999
Halper auctioned off the uniform for over $450,000!
Get
New Money-Making Ideas And Valuable Contacts!
You can obtain
useful, informative ideas and contacts in every available back-issue
of BarterNews.
BarterOne
Says Older Technology Still Very Important For Traders
BarterOne of
Charleston (SC) has announced its intentions to supplement broadcast
e-mails to its members with “snail (postal) mail” as
well as fax technology.
According to
IT Director Tim Ross, “With the amount of unwanted e-mail
our members are receiving daily, it is no wonder our message is
getting lost, or deleted, as spam-blockers gain in popularity.”
Inasmuch as
trade exchange bartering is about availability, the need to reach
members in a timely manner with useful information is of utmost
importance...otherwise the potential deal may never come to fruition.
Did
you know that your classified ad gets one full year exposure in
the
Tuesday Report archives?!
For
information on The Barter Marketplace click
here.
The
Barter Marketplace archives click
here.
New
Banking Law Affects Small Businesses
This fall, October
28, a new banking law goes into effect. The “Check 21”
banking law will change the way many firms do business—not
only with banks, but with customers and suppliers, too.
Succinctly,
Check 21 will enable the nation’s banking system to be more
flexible, as banks will no longer have to transport original checks
between institutions. Instead, the new law will let banks transfer
and print electronic facsimiles of the checks.
Bottomline:
When the law takes effect it could theoretically cut the time it
takes a check to clear from days to hours. Small businesses who
relied on a float-period will be facing a new world. Just another
reason for embracing barter...thus avoiding expensive overdrafts,
in addition to embarrassment and possible loss of business.
BarterNews
issue #62 is now available...Get
yourself a copy now! Orders are shipped within two
business days. (Click on Order Form.)
Follow-up—May
18th Tuesday Report “Is Homesourcing The Answer...?”
A
Rush To Rural America For Call Centers
In that May
18th article on outsourcing we reported on JetBlue Airways’
700 reservation agents in the U.S. working from their homes. Now
reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and corporate America,
indicate that the number of workers at U.S. call centers have increased
slightly this year after a six year slump. And leading the way,
as U.S. companies continue to search for cheap labor and locations
for call centers, are America’s small towns.
Simply by moving
out of major cities to less-populated areas, where real estate and
labor are cheaper, U.S. companies are finding they can save millions
of dollars. Not only do small towns have an eager labor force, but
they often have vacant warehouses and supermarkets that are suited
to call centers’ wide-open layouts. And with the high-bandwidth
fiber-optic cable additions over the last decade, the rush to rural
America is underway.
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Every
barter company in the world is listed on our web site,
click through to our Global List
of Barter Companies.
Here
& There...
- The city
of San Francisco and California exchanged some $15 million in
grants and incentives with Virgin USA, a startup discount airline
backed by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, so they would
base their operations in San Francisco. Virgin USA is expected
to hire about 1,800 workers in the next two years.
- Microsoft
recently bartered $75,000 in technology products and services
to two companies (winners of a contest with 10 to 50 employees)
in exchange for their 500-word essay as to why their company deserved
the prize.
Microsoft’s
“Technology Makeover Contest” was focused on demonstrating
its capabilities for complex office technology for smaller companies.
(California-based Alliance Portfolio of Newport Beach and Laguna
Niguel and Houston-based Anciso’s Concrete Specialists were
the national winners out of 7,000 entries.)
- According
to a recent poll by Harris Interactive, people in the Western
United States are the country’s workaholics. Not only do
56 percent work more than 40 hours a week, but 27 percent are
forfeiting more than a week of vacation.
- Ad spending
at airports nationwide climbed to $192.5 million in 2003, almost
double the $100.4 million spent in 1993. That kept pace with the
rise in outdoor advertising on billboards and at transit locations.
Advertisers spent a total of $5.5 billion on outdoor advertising
last year, compared with $2.87 billion in 1993.
- Denver-based
Thought Equity is providing a needed service to promotion-starved
small companies—high-quality commercials that have been
produced for clients who no longer want them. Thought Equity has
an online library of ready-to-recycle commercials, collected from
more than 300 ad agencies.
The
company handles rights and royalties and ensures that an ad is
resold only once within a region. So a small company can obtain
a slick commercial on the cheap, while agencies earn extra cash
if their ads are reused.
- Have
you signed up to receive a summary via e-mail of the
Tuesday Report every week? If not, go to the top of this issue
(right hand corner) and sign up!
- Worldwide
military spending rose 11% last year to $956 billion with the
Iraq conflict helping to push the U.S. share to nearly half that
figure, a Swedish peace Institute reports.
- Hotel rates
are rising. But aggregate U.S. hotel profits, which peaked in
2000 at roughly $23 billion, are still 23% or so from their highs
with profits expected to be near $18 billion this year. The greatest
price rises will be deluxe hotels with increases approaching four
percent. Economy hotels’ prices are expected to increase
only one percent.
- Back in 1981
when Ronald Reagan began his presidency, people were saving almost
10% of their income. Now the savings rate is 2.4%. And back then
homeowners owned 69% of the equity in their homes. Now they own
55%. Also, consumer credit as a percentage of personal income
has surged today.
- The National
Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation reports
that insurance captured the top three spots on a list of problems
facing U.S. small businesses. Health, liability, and worker’s
compensation insurance most worry business owners.
- The number
of U.S. businesses with no paid employees increased to 17.6 million.
(Nonemployers include 15.3 million sole proprietorships, 1.1 million
partnerships, and 1.2 million corporations that do not file payroll
taxes.)
- If you've
missed any of our weekly Tuesday Reports the past five
years we have an archive of issues for you at the bottom of this
week's letter...check it out!
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