New Balance this week teamed with popular educational program Sesame Street for a co-branded collection of children’s shoes that will debut in July.

The athletic footwear and apparel company will launch the collection across major retailers including Finish Line, Foot Locker and others, in addition to its own stores.

With a premium price point—$43 for infant styles, $65 for grade school styles—the shoes will be backed by a national campaign that includes TV spots during Sesame Street, which airs three times daily in most major U.S. markets. Print executions start running in July issues of Cookie and Parenting. Within New Balance’s own retail network, themed street sign displays (carrying the Sesame Street nameplate) will anchor the children’s section.

While the athletic company has been catering to children for years, it needed to go after the category more aggressively and create better brand awareness among mothers. “We’ve always looked at the kids business as a huge opportunity, and retailers have said as much to us,” said Christine Maddigan, director of global marketing and brand management at New Balance, Boston.

“For us to be successful with specialty athletic, sporting goods and even our own store, we need to have that full range of categories,” Maddigan added. “We noticed that we did have high brand loyalty from the moms [for themselves], but we didn’t have high brand awareness of our children’s shoes.”

The partnership, according to Maddigan, is mutually beneficial for both brands, offering Sesame Street access to the specialty athletic retail segment while providing New Balance with the TV show’s name as an anchor for its kids business.

Spending for the campaign was not revealed. Last year, New Balance spent close to $15 million on U.S. advertising, plus $7 million through the first quarter of this year, excluding online, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

The FDA continues to be slow in sending warning or untitled letters to pharmaceutical companies that it suspects of violating direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising rules, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Last year, the agency took an average of six months to issue regulatory letters citing violative DTC materials, Marcia Crosse, head of the GAO’s healthcare division, told a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee last week. In one case, the agency took more than three years to issue a regulatory letter, she said.

Before 2002, when the FDA decided that all draft warning or untitled letters had to undergo legal review — a policy for which there was no apparent need — it took less than a month to send such letters, Crosse said.

The FDA has not improved since a 2006 GAO report found that “by the time the agency issued regulatory letters, drug companies had already discontinued use of more than half of the violative advertising materials identified in each letter,” according to the GAO report accompanying Crosse’s testimony. “In addition, FDA’s issuance of regulatory letters had not always prevented drug companies from later disseminating similar violative materials for the same drugs.”

Moreover, only two regulatory letters on DTC advertising went out in 2007 — one warning letter and one untitled letter — compared with 15–25 regulatory letters each year between 1997–2001, before the legal review policy. Meanwhile, the FDA “has received a steadily increasing number of advertising materials directed to consumers,” the GAO report said — approximately 6,000 in 1999 as compared with 21,000 in 2007.

The GAO report can be viewed at http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08758t.pdf.

Get a big hello from your pal Alex Covington?

She’s glad to see you, sure.

But she may also be hoping to move some merchandise for Macy’s.

Covington, 20, a junior at Northwestern University, plans Macy’s events on campus, from a sorority slumber party to a casting call for a Web documentary. She hands out fliers, sends out mass e-mails and text messages, and angles for articles in the student newspaper.

And whenever she gets a compliment on her tailored white blouse or her California-casual sundress, she makes sure to credit the company that provided them free of charge.

“I got it from [Macy’s’] American Rag” collection, she says.

“You should check it out.”

Welcome to Brand Nation, where private citizens have corporate endorsements just like professional athletes and Hollywood stars. Lured by free goods and cash, everyday people are talking up products both in public and private, leading critics to envision a world in which every corner of American life is saturated with pitches and product placements.

“It shouldn’t be that there are no havens” from ad creep, says Robert Weissman, managing director of Commercial Alert, a non-profit that opposes many types of advertising.

“Authentic relationships between people ought not be corrupted by [commercial messages].”

Fans of the “brand rep” or “brand ambassador” model of marketing, on the other hand, say we’ve entered a more honest and less invasive phase of marketing, in which friends help friends find the products they really want and need.

“I feel like everyone’s kind of a brand rep in their own way,” says Covington. “If you like something, you’re going to get it and you’re going to tell your friends.”

Compensated “word-of-mouth” advertising—a broad category that includes both the structured brand rep model and more informal arrangements in which consumers are rewarded for pushing products—is growing by leaps and bounds. A study by PQ Media, which collects econometric data and researches alternative media, estimates companies paid outside agencies $1.4 billion for word-of-mouth marketing in 2007, up from less than $100 million in 2001.

RepNation, the company that employs Covington to promote Macy’s, has about 5,000 brand reps working on college campuses in a given year, according to the company’s parent agency, Mr. Youth.

RepNation policy requires representatives to be upfront about their identities, say whom they are speaking for and give their own, honest opinions.

Tensions between cutting-edge capitalism and youthful idealism surfaced during a recent visit to Northwestern, with one student calling brand rep work “a sellout” and another lauding it as valuable work experience.

The first stop was a busy campus plaza where Covington, dressed in her American Rag sundress, a thin jacket, black leggings and flats, shivered in the lakefront wind. Still, she smiled gamely as she handed out Oreos and Macy’s fliers to passersby.

“You like shopping?”

“I love shopping.”

“Hey, want to go to a shopping event at Old Orchard on Sunday?”

The flier distribution, promoting a one-day sale, went smoothly. Still, it was hard to tell what the crowd really thought.

A student in a pumpkin-colored wool jacket, for instance, took a flier graciously but then expressed doubts when Covington was out of earshot.

“I went for the cookie,” said Leah Bettag, 18, a freshman from Chicago.

And the flier? “I threw it away.”

Upon hearing the basics of brand rep work, Bettag said: “I would think that’s kind of a sell-out move. If someone else chooses to do it, I wouldn’t throw paint on them, but I wouldn’t do it.”

Covington’s friends were supportive, with her roommate Alex Curlee, 20, offering to take some fliers and hand them out at the gym.

“[The brand rep] is becoming part of our vocabulary and our general understanding” at Northwestern, said Claire Young, 20, a Covington pal who sees the trend as a positive: “It gives students a chance for work experience.”

The only child of a banker and a homemaker, Covington is interested in a career in marketing or television production. She has played on the Northwestern women’s soccer team, studied in France and interned for “The Today Show.”

“I just love being around people and getting to know people and finding out new things about myself and other people. I like experiencing new things,” she said.

Seeking a spring internship, she found an ad for the Macy’s position at the RepNation Web site, which recruits brand reps for a range of businesses.

The rewards of Covington’s job include a $400 gift card and a one-time stipend of about $450.

RepNation’s ethics policy Covington said that when doing brand rep work, she reveals her ties to Macy’s about 85 percent to 90 percent of the time.

Sometimes, however, full disclosure isn’t practical. If a classmate she doesn’t know compliments her clothing in passing, for instance, she may only have time to give American Rag a quick plug. She has pitched to about two dozen people without saying that she has ties to Macy’s, she said.

Sitting at a campus Starbucks with sweeping views of Lake Michigan, Covington defended such exchanges as a way of helping out fellow students. They wouldn’t have commented on her clothes, she argued, if they weren’t interested.

Still, as the conversation continued, she wrestled with some of the questions raised by mixing friendship and salesmanship.

“I guess there’s sort of a conflict there,” she said.

“How pure can you be when you’re trying to persuade somebody, because clearly you have intentions? But if you’re a person who’s conscious of that and who wants to be ...” she faltered, folded her arms and frowned.

But when she spoke again, it was with renewed confidence.

“If you’re a person who wants to be truthful in their message, and how they go about it, then it can be a pure thing. And I feel that’s kind of what I would do.”

She talked about an essay she wrote in which she said she wants to transform society’s image of beauty. She wants to see more ads like Dove soap’s, in which women of varying sizes are portrayed as beautiful.

“I feel like I want to make marketing more positive. I want to make sure that it’s being honest. Those are my intentions when I go into the field,” she said.

“I would never want to work for a company where you’re selling a product that was promoting something that could potentially have negative repercussions. I want them to be socially conscious. I’m going to choose an area where I know I wouldn’t have to manipulate anybody to [succeed]. I want to invoke change.”

A noble vision, to be sure.

But will it sell on the streets of Brand Nation?

NBC and GM announced an important cross-platform marketing and programming partnership that will make GM the exclusive automotive integration partner for NBC’s new fall drama “My Own Worst Enemy” (starring Christian Slater). The show (Mondays, 10-11 p.m. ET starting this fall) will prominently feature two different GM cars—one for each of the personalities embodied by Slater’s character.

The deal was borne from NBC’s April “InFront” meetings, where the company presented a full 65-week programming schedule six weeks before the traditional upfront presentations.

The announcement was made by Ben Silverman, Co-Chairman, NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios; Mike Pilot, President, NBC Universal Sales and Marketing; and Dino Bernacchi, GM’s Director of Branded Entertainment.

“This great partnership helps GM leverage our content and utilize our platform in a transformative way” said Silverman. “They are a market leader and we are a market leader. It validates our Infront strategy to be early and create a two-way conversation with our clients.”

“Ben and his team have been very creative in their approach. It’s not just been about media units, it’s also about how we as an advertiser can dig deeper into their brands ... and ours, “ said Dino Bernacchi, GM’s Director of Marketing Alliances and Branded Entertainment. “NBC has really been aggressive to promote alternative ideas in-program and around-the-program that leverages multiple touch points. We call it Fusion Marketing - partnering with the creative community around ideas that build relationships with a passionate audience but done through the lens of the entertainment property to showcase the cool, new great cars and trucks we offer. This deal sets a tone for how we’ll be approaching this year’s upfronts.”

In addition to the on-air integration, the complete 360-degree agreement includes an on-air media buy, presence on NBCU’s digital platforms and Out-of-Home properties, as well as additional outside promotion. The deal is the centerpiece of a larger strategic partnership between the two companies for the 2008/09 programming season involving some of NBC’s premier entertainment and late-night properties.

“By partnering with GM so early in the process, we can take the necessary time to design a highly impactful integration that achieves their marketing objectives and resonates with their customers,” said Pilot. “This is exactly what we were hoping to accomplish by getting a jump start on the season and starting an early dialogue with our clients.”

Henry Spivey (Christian Slater, “Bobby") is a middle-class efficiency expert living a humdrum life in the suburbs with a wife, two kids, a dog, and a minivan. Edward Albright is an operative who speaks 13 languages, runs a four-minute mile, and is trained to kill with his teeth. Henry and Edward are polar opposites who share only one thing in common—the same body.

When the carefully constructed wall between them breaks down, Henry and Edward are thrust into unfamiliar territory where each man is dangerously out of his element. “My Own Worst Enemy” explores the duality of a man who is literally pitted against himself. And it raises the question: who can you trust when you can’t trust yourself? The series is produced by Universal Media Studios. Jason Smilovic ("Kidnapped") is the executive producer; David Semel (director of the “American Dreams,” “Heroes” and “Life” pilots) is the director and executive producer. 

Money talks, and schools are listening.

Just name your price.

Florida Gulf Coast University is enticing donors by promising their name in lights — rather, on buildings, walls or plaques across campus.

A pilot fundraising program has established a menu of donation levels, letting donors pick their price and the room they want named in their honor. Options at Lutgert Hall, the business school’s new building, start at $5,000 for a notation on the “Wall of Honor,” and rise to $250,000 for the courtyard. Holmes Hall, the engineering complex, has a similar pricing scenario.

That approach to fundraising — give us money and we’ll put your name on the wall — is blunt, but it’s working. FGCU has raised millions of dollars, and neither building is even complete. Other colleges, and even private schools in Southwest Florida, are renaming buildings if the price is right.

“They want their names associated with a quality program,” said Linda Lehtomaa, senior director of advancement. “They also want students to see their name.

“They want students to stay here in this area and consider them potential employers.”

None of the money raised through the naming rights campaign pays for construction costs. Instead, Holmes Hall donations will outfit the building with scientific equipment, and Lutgert Hall donors are contributing to an endowment that funds scholarships, faculty positions and initiatives.

The Business of money
Senior Kirsten Crame, 23, anxiously awaits the fall opening of Lutgert Hall, the 62,000-square-foot, $19.4 million future home of the Lutgert College of Business. In 2005, Raymond and Beverly Lutgert of Naples pledged $5 million, which is the threshold for naming rights on an entire building at FGCU. Raymond Lutgert is founder of the development firm Lutgert Cos.

Once it opens, students will enter Lutgert Hall through the Health Management Associates Atrium, then could head to the Source Interlink Companies Case Study Classroom or the Wasmer, Schroeder & Company, Inc. Trading Room.

When students want to cram a bit on exam days, they can stop by The Fifth Avenue Advisors or The Wynn Family study rooms. Or they could pop into the ALLETE Properties Faculty Lounge for a chat with their professor.

While it might seem Crame will be walking into a commercial, she sees the trade-off.

“I don’t think it’s selling out,” said Crame, an accounting and finance double major from Friendswood, Texas. “It’s a creative way to bring money to the school, and is working great for students, faculty and staff.

“With the budget problems in Florida, it’s all that much more important.”

FGCU, like all state colleges and public schools, are seeing their budgets reduced because Florida is generating less revenue during the economic downturn. That’s why colleges are seeking donors to finance programs otherwise not covered by state funds. The FGCU Foundation typically provides tax receipts, thus allowing some donors to recoup a portion of their contribution through their annual income tax returns.

Lutgert Hall will open in August, while Holmes Hall is slated for a January grand opening, just as the first group of engineering students wrap up their education.

“We don’t expect to have a name on every room when we open, but we will have a good representation of businesses in our buildings,” Lehtomaa said.

Davidson Engineering of Naples is among six donors who have contributed money through Holmes Hall’s naming rights campaign. Davidson has no ties to FGCU, other than its geographic proximity to campus. None of its 21 employees is an Eagles alumnus, and Davidson has never won contracts for any campus projects.

“Our donation was not based on what we could get for it,” said vice president Leaetta Davidson. “We want to help the engineering department grow.

“We try to back anything that supports the field of engineering.”

Davidson Engineering contributed $10,000, thus earning a plaque outside a small student club room.

“We gave what we could at this time, given the economic conditions,” Davidson said.
If business or engineering doesn’t strike a chord, Lehtomaa said FGCU is starting a similar campaign for Herbert J. Sugden Hall, which will house the university’s resort and hospitality management program. Additionally, several academic buildings, the arts complex, campus support complex, family resource center, center for performing arts, student housing complexes, student union and library are open to naming opportunities.

For those without deep pockets, FGCU’s Alumni Association offers engraved, commemorative brick pavers for $150, which includes a free one-year association membership.

Bid on Me Boulevard
Colleges aren’t the only ones approaching donors with plaques ready for engraving. Evangelical Christian School in Fort Myers recently held an auction on campus, selling naming rights to the school’s circle drive. “Bid on Me Blvd.” drew multiple bids, but ECS has yet to reveal the winner’s name or bid amount.

Evangelical also has tiers for naming rights: $5,000 for a portable classroom, $10,000 for the principal’s office, $25,000 for a locker room, $50,000 for the playground, $100,000 for the lobby, $250,000 for the baseball field or football stadium, $750,000 for the gymnasium and $3 million for the Fine Arts Center. All 1,516 seats inside the center are going for $300 a pop.

Canterbury School, also in Fort Myers, boasts an arts center, courtyard and faculty lounge all reflecting donors’ names. While the goal is to raise money for academics or construction, it doesn’t hurt to have prospective donors try to match or exceed contributions of their peers.

“We want to promote philanthropy to our school,” said Canterbury development director Chris Fusco. “If they can see people giving to the school, at times it can encourage others to donate as well.”

Canterbury offers naming rights during its capital campaigns, but places an emphasis on donations for its endowment fund. Those donors must contribute at least $50,000 for their name to be attached in perpetuity.

“You want to build your endowment,” Fusco said. “That is money that never goes away, and helps you plan for the future.”

Seminole County School Board members ought to tune in to an advisory committee’s recommendation to pull the plug on Bus Radio, the prerecorded music-and-advertising programming being broadcast to students.

Students are bombarded with enough advertising images each day without the school district blessing more ads on buses—where it would be impossible for kids to escape them.

The board approved this bad idea as a pilot project, but parents and consumer advocates immediately cried foul. It didn’t help that some of the music accompanying the ads came from albums with parental advisory warnings.

Music could help control students on the bus. Seminole County schools ought to look for a better way for bus drivers to play some tunes—ad free.

With domestic demand slumping, exports (up 15.5 percent in March) are keeping the economy afloat. So great is the demand for U.S. products, thanks to the weak dollar, shippers are complaining that there’s a shortage of empty containers. Exports of a product that doesn’t have to be packed onto seagoing boxes are also rising. Naming rights—for universities, libraries, and sports teams—have always been a great revenue source for prestigious outfits. Status-hungry rich people and corporations will pay top dollar to associate their name with a prestigious place or organization. In March, Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group donated $100 million to the New York Public Li­brary in exchange for having the midtown Manhat­tan landmark re­named for him. (The lion statues outside will retain their own names.)

As the geography of global wealth rapidly shifts—with rich American institutions becoming suddenly poorer and impressive pockets of wealth bulging around the globe—naming rights have quickly evolved into a major export. The trend is most evident in sports. Last year, Barclays PLC, the big British bank, paid a reported $400 million as part of a deal with the New Jersey Nets in which it acquired naming rights for the arena Frank Gehry is designing for the team in downtown Brooklyn.

Other interesting manifestations can be seen in the groves of acad­eme, where industrialists, financiers, and corporations each year swap billions in cash for prestige. While the American brand may be tarnished in foreign policy (Iraq), financial management (subprime), and even basketball (the 2004 Olympics), “U.S. higher education still has a sterling international brand,” said Peter Frumkin, professor of public affairs at the University of Texas. “People love to have their names associated with leading research universi­ties.” It was true of 19th-century steel mag­nates such as Andrew Carnegie. And it’s true of 21st-century steel magnates. The Brazil­ian company Vale, the world’s second-largest iron ore miner, has a mammoth market capitalization of about $180 billion but a minuscule public profile in America. In late April, Vale announced it was estab­lishing the Vale-Columbia Center on Sus­tainable International Investment at Co­lumbia University, “to promote learning, teaching, policy-oriented research and practical work within the foreign direct in­vestment (FDI).” In exchange for making a FDI of $1.5 million, Vale gets its name on an Ivy League institute, and its execu­tives get to rub shoulders with bigwigs like Jeffrey Sachs, head of Columbia’s Earth Institute.

Just as companies seeking to boost sales must dispatch emissaries to foreign mar­kets, university development has expand­ed far beyond the Forbes 400. “American university presidents today are all over the place in China, India, the Per­sian Gulf, doing the same things that pres­idents did when they went to Silicon Val­ley in the 1990s,” said Scott Jaschik, a founder and editor of Inside Higher Ed. That is to say, the presidents are buttering up alum­ni and schmoozing with rich locals whose children are shopping for college.

The purchasers of naming rights, espe­cially those from emerging markets who are seeking a greater role on the global stage, are less interested in imprinting their names on buildings, à la Schwarz­man, and more interested in associating themselves with programs or scholar­ships—as Vale did. In the past year, for ex­ample, the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies has an­nounced the creation of new fellowships or scholarships endowed by the Lebanese Mikati Foundation and the prime minis­ter of Dubai. “Doing so positions you as a thought leader and as part of the global conversation about the future of the field,” said Peter Frumkin.

Some deep-pocketed foreigners are still investing in bricks and mortar and thus creating a demand for exports of academic expertise. Saudi Arabia is building a mas­sive university de novo, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, which is slated to open in 2009. Last month, KAUST announced a $25 million, five-year deal with Cornell to create a joint center on nanomaterials science and tech­nology, with Cornell professors advising on curricular development. KAUST has struck similar partnerships with Stanford and Texas A&M.

Exporting naming rights can be problem­atic for universities, of course. There’s a long and storied history of roguish charac­ters—American and foreign—using uni­versity donations to burnish their reputa­tions, from John D. Rockefeller on. And when universities hook up with foreign donors, they’d be well-ad­vised to conduct extra due diligence. In the 1980s, American University thought it had tapped into a new vein of cash when it secured a $5 million pledge from Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi to finance construction of the Adnan Khashoggi Sports and Convocation Center. But Khashoggi’s name was removed from the building when he was implicated in the Iran-Contra scandal and failed to make good on his pledged donation. This might make a good case study for Joe Haslag, an economist at the University of Missouri. He holds the Kenneth Lay chair in economics.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona has launched a marketing campaign targeting Hispanic consumers with Webisodes as a central element.

The campaign uses five three-minute Webisodes aimed at various ages to convey its message. The insurer is building awareness through a print campaign in Spanish-language newspapers and magazines statewide.

The Webisodes are accessible on the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona site at http://www.azblue.com/webisode and also on MyTube and MySpace at http://www.youtube.com/azblueteresa and http://www.myspace.com/azblueteresa.

The setting for all five vignettes is Teresa’s restaurant, where the middle-aged female owner offers her own testimonial about the value of Blue Cross health insurance for her workers. A young Latina professional, a young Latino construction contractor and an older Hispanic man and a woman are the other characters offering their perspectives about their health care coverage.

Radio ads are also part of the campaign set to run through December. TV ads will be added to the mix in the near future.

“We know it’s a fast-growing segment of our population. We hadn’t previously had a program targeting Hispanics,” said Arizona Blue Cross spokesman Carlos DellaMaddalena.

Blue Cross also sees Hispanics in Arizona as underinsured in the context of health insurance. Of the 1.8 million Hispanics living in Arizona, representing 30% of the state’s population, approximately 500,000 lack health care coverage.

Urias Communications developed the media campaign for Blue Cross “to show that the insurer understood the market,” according to Urias account executive Carolina Guana.