9144: Money Talk & More With Earl G. Graves.

Advertising Age President and Editor-in-Chief Rance Crain interviewed Black Enterprise Founder and Publisher Earl G. Graves, who was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame this year. BTW, why did it take so freaking long to include Graves in the elitist club?

Earl Graves on the Importance of Black-Owned Media

The Newest Member of the Advertising Hall of Fame on the ‘Paucity of Publications’ Reaching an Audience Hungry for Information

By Rance Crain

There are definite advantages to publishing a magazine aimed at a black audience.

That’s the opinion of Earl G. Graves Sr., the founder and publisher of Black Enterprise and one of this year’s inductees into the Advertising Hall of Fame.

“Because there’s such a paucity of African-American magazines that are out there, I don’t think we are going to have the diminution that some of our fellow publishers might have,” Mr. Graves told me in a video interview. There’s Ebony and Jet, Black Enterprises and Essence (no longer African-American-owned).

“And so there’s a paucity of publications that are really first class that are reaching an audience more and more hungry for information.” But, he added, that audience wasn’t always appreciated.

“When I was first out selling Black Enterprise, I had people that would ask me, ‘What black business class?’ and they would ask me, ‘What black professionals?’ And I actually had people tell me in the very beginning that they didn’t want to associate their brand with the African-American market.”

But some advertisers signed up. Mr. Graves told Fortune Small Business in 2003 that Black Enterprise’s first long-term advertiser, Carter Products, wrote a check for a full year of ads before the magazine hit newsstands. Carter’s Little Liver Pills, Mr. Graves said, “were supposed to be so effective that even after you died your liver would still be flapping around and you’d have to beat it to death with a stick. In that first year we had $900,000 in ad revenues, and the magazine was profitable by its tenth issue.”

And on the race-relations front, progress was being made. At the Hall of Fame dinner, Bill Cosby was presented the President’s Award for Special Lifetime Contributions to Advertising. “What Bill Cosby did was to convince all of America to like Jell-O. And now we have an African-American president. And that’s not to say that Jell-O had anything to do with making Mr. Obama president, but the environment was there in order to let that happen,” Mr. Graves observed.

So compared to what he encountered back in the ‘70s, when he started Black Enterprise, “we’re making enormous progress in this country. … I never really, quite honestly, thought that we would see an African-American president in my lifetime. I was thrilled to be able to contribute to his campaign,” he said.

Mr. Graves has built an impressive media operation. In addition to the magazine, the family business includes a book-publishing house (he wrote the best-seller “How to Succeed in Business Without Being White”), two syndicated TV shows and business and lifestyle events. He also co-founded a private-equity fund with Citigroup to invest in minority businesses.

So does he see the day when he would align himself with a larger publisher? “Not at this time. These are very tough times, I want to be very clear. And were it not for the other entities we’re involved in, it would be difficult. The events that we have. The internet, which obviously is a big thing and which my son is still explaining to me how it works, in terms of why it will make the money that he thinks it will.” (Mr. Graves has three sons in the business.)

He added that “there’s something to be said for an entity which is owned by people who don’t look like everybody else. … I want my grandchildren to tell their children about what we did at Black Enterprise and how we brought people together at conferences, and how our Women of Power conference, which we have every year, is probably one of our most dynamic. You know, black and white women, when they decide to do something, they get on with it.”

Mr. Graves said he “married over my head. My wife, Barbara, is my partner. She has made an enormous difference in my life. I love her more each day.” He and his wife “are set back with cancer right now,” and she is undergoing radiation treatment. But “she gets up every morning, she’s out the door by the time I get out of bed, going right over to get the treatment, and then coming right back. You wouldn’t know—you might think she went down to the laundromat.”

Mr. Graves doesn’t think now is the best time to start a new magazine. “We’re bringing along a generation that doesn’t want to cuddle up in bed with a magazine—they want everything that’s quick. And I think that’s unfortunate. I don’t think they have a chance to relax and see life a little bit slower. And my sense is the country’s not going to be the better for it. They’re not going to enjoy the kind of things that my wife and I did growing up.”

9143: Trumping Trolls & Digital Defamation.

Gee, ReputationDefender ought to be posting its banners at AgencySpy—the service would make a fortune.

9142: Diversity Or Diversion For SC Johnson?

Now that Ogilvy and Energy BBDO have officially been named as AORs for SC Johnson, expect both shops to go on hiring binges. After all, the two offices are relatively small compared to Chicago’s Draftfcb, and they do not currently have the human resources to handle the incoming SCJ assignments.

“Obviously we’ll be expanding the agency further,” said Energy BBDO President and CEO Tonise Paul in a recent interview. “It’s a natural trajectory when you’re in a growth phase as an agency. We’ve had other phases in our history where we’ve had growth spurts, and it really makes for incredibly exciting times.”

It will be incredibly exciting to see the diversity of candidates considered for positions. The Ogilvy website presents quite a commitment to creating an inclusive workplace, as does the website for BBDO parent Omnicom. Additionally, the SC Johnson website features a personal/personnel pledge from Chairman and CEO Fisk Johnson.

Given that Ogilvy and Energy BBDO are owned by major holding companies—WPP and Omnicom, respectively—it’s a safe bet that the corporate bean counters are furiously working to determine the exact FTE formulas for profitability. The Chief Financial Officers will definitely be heard on how to proceed. But have the Chief Diversity Officers even entered the picture yet?

WPP Overlord Martin Sorrell and Omnicom Overlord John Wren publicly agree on the talent issues within their companies. However, neither leader has achieved much in the area of diversity. Sorrell openly admitted his network does a lousy job of recruitment and retention—and to be clear, Sorrell was talking about recruiting and retaining White people. Wren charged his agencies to come into compliance with the agreements made with the New York City Commission on Human Rights by 2008. To date, the bulk of network hype on the matter involved the assembly of a Diversity Development Advisory Committee and anointing a new Chief Diversity Officer.

Will soon-to-be-ex-Draftfcb drones migrate to Ogilvy and Energy BBDO? Or will the shops exclusively appoint friends, family and former partners? The shifting of $1 billion in billings presents a unique opportunity for WPP, Omnicom and SC Johnson to deliver on their promises regarding diversity and inclusion—or to perpetuate the outdated practices that have stifled progress for over 60 years. Which, incidentally, is roughly the same amount of time that Draftfcb and SC Johnson held a professional relationship.

9141: Mo’ ‘Fro.

As a follow-up of sorts to the recent Afro Wig post, here’s a picture of Al Pacino portraying Phil Spector.

9140: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 14.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

There’s no debating Donny Deutsch is a douchebag. The only potentially arguable point involves deciding how big of a douchebag he is.

Deutsch recently appeared on The Today Show to discuss “Sugar Daddies” and the increasing number of young women (a.k.a. “Sugar Babies”) who hook up with old rich guys in order to collect money to pay off debts. While the other panelists, Star Jones and Nancy Snyderman, dismissed the women as essentially being hookers, Deutsch defended the females’ financial transactions.

“Shame on us for passing judgment,” scolded Deutsch. Well, sure, it would’ve been wildly hypocritical for an adulterer to condemn others for their questionable choices. Deutsch makes Don Draper look like a choirboy. Does anyone doubt the probability that the man has exchanged sexual favors and bodily fluids for cash, drugs or employment opportunities at his advertising agency?

Given the continued controversy surrounding the alleged discrimination women face in our industry, it’s nice to see another prominent leader proudly providing a Neanderthal’s perspective.

Deutsch also mentioned his three daughters and quipped, “My children are growing up in privilege, so [becoming a ‘Sugar Baby’ is] not going to be an option for them, of course.” This statement is nothing short of obscene. First, Deutsch unwittingly acknowledged the desperate and demeaning aspects of the “Sugar Daddy” scenario—plus, he sniffed at the socio-economic components that women in his elite class will never have to worry about. Worse yet, the comment helped spotlight the White privilege Deutsch has enjoyed his entire life. After all, here is a man who basically inherited an advertising agency from his Daddy.

C’MON WHITE MAN!

9139: Hip Hop Is Fruity With Vimto.

This Vimto commercial shows that even in the U.K., White adpeople love hip hop.

9138: Contextual Advertising Or Not?

Google—or whatever device matches digital advertising to content—is messed up. Take the banner ad above, for example, which appeared at AdPulp. The banner was likely placed at the site because the posts there often reference advertising agencies and their clients—which share zero characteristics with the clients that law firms might seek. So it doesn’t really make sense for this banner to be on AdPulp. Unless firms specializing in employment law realize adpeople are increasingly pursuing legal action for wrongful termination and discrimination.

9137: Draftfcb Checks Out Of Hampton Inn.

Adweek reported the Hampton Inn account is going into creative review, and incumbent Draftfcb will not be defending. Howard Draft once admitted he’d prefer to be running a small shop. Given the agency’s recent and impending losses, it looks like he’s making his wish come true.

Hampton Inn Launches Creative Review

Incumbent Draftfcb not defending

By Andrew McMains

Hilton Hotels has launched a review of its Hampton Inn creative account, with annual revenue estimated at $2 million.

Incumbent Draftfcb in Chicago is not defending. As a result, the agency will lose its last piece of Hilton business. The Hampton Inn split comes four months after Homewood Suites left and three years after the exit of Doubletree.

In a statement, the agency attributed the latest split to “philosophical differences,” adding, “The financial impact on our agency will be minimal.” The Interpublic Group agency had worked on the brand since 2003. Hampton Inn could not be reached late Friday afternoon.

Draftfcb’s Hilton divorce comes just a week after S.C. Johnson ended its 58-year relationship with the agency. That split, however, is much more painful, given that SCJ was a global account and supplied $50-60 million in revenue. The agency’s Chicago office steered the business and will have to make deep cuts as a result. That office now employs about 1,000 staffers.

Other top clients at Draftfcb Chicago include MillerCoors (Coors, Coors Light, and Miller Lite), Kmart, Volkswagen (direct marketing), and Coca-Cola (shopper marketing). The office also works on Beiersdorf, Draftfcb’s largest global account.

Historically, Hilton has considered both roster and non-roster agencies for its various hotel assignments. Other roster shops include Publicis in New York (Hilton, Hilton Honors), BBDO in Atlanta (Embassy Suites) and Laird + Partners in New York (Doubletree).

Hampton Inn’s media spending totaled about $19 million last year, up from more than $17 million in 2009, according to Nielsen. Those figures don’t include online spending.

9136: Eating Healthy Just For Wealthy…?

From USA TODAY…

The high cost of healthy eating out of reach for many

SEATTLE – A healthy diet is expensive and could make it difficult for Americans to meet new U.S. nutritional guidelines, according to a study published Thursday that says the government should do more to help consumers eat healthier.

An update of what used to be known as a food pyramid in 2010 had called on Americans to eat more foods containing potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium. But if they did that, the journal Health Affairs said, they would add hundreds more dollars to their annual grocery bill.

Inexpensive ways to add these nutrients to a person’s diet include potatoes and beans for potassium and dietary fiber. But the study found introducing more potassium in a diet is likely to add $380 per year to the average consumer’s food costs, said lead researcher Pablo Monsivais, an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.

“We know more than ever about the science of nutrition, and yet we have not yet been able to move the needle on healthful eating,” he said. The government should provide help for meeting the nutritional guidelines in an affordable way.

He criticized some of the marketing for a healthy diet — for example, the image of a plate of salmon, leafy greens and maybe some rice pilaf — and said a meal like that is not affordable for many Americans.

Food-assistance programs are helping people make healthier choices by providing coupons to buy fruits and vegetables, Monsivais said, but some also put stumbling blocks in front of the poor.

He mentioned, as an example, a Washington state policy making it difficult to buy potatoes with food assistance coupons for women with children, even though potatoes are one of the least expensive ways to add potassium to a diet.

The study was based on a random telephone survey of about 2,000 adults in King County, Wash., followed by a printed questionnaire that was returned by about 1,300 people. They note what food they ate, which was analyzed for nutrient content and estimated cost.

People who spend the most on food tend to get the closest to meeting the federal guidelines for potassium, dietary fiber, vitamin D and calcium, the study found. Those who spend the least have the lowest intakes of the four recommended nutrients and the highest consumption of saturated fat and added sugar.

Hilary Seligman, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said Monsivais’ research is an interesting addition to the debate about healthy eating and food insecurity, her area of expertise.

A lot of people assume the poor eat cheap food because it tastes good, but they would make better choices if they could afford to, said Seligman, who was not involved in the Health Affairs study.

“Almost 15 percent of households in America say they don’t have enough money to eat the way they want to eat,” Seligman said. Recent estimates show 49 million Americans make food decisions based on cost, she added.

“Right now, a huge chunk of America just isn’t able to adhere to these guidelines,” she said.

But Monsivais may have oversimplified the problem, according to another professor who does research in this area. Parke Wilde, associated professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, said it’s not expensive to get all the nutrients a body needs to meet the federal guidelines.

What is expensive, in Wilde’s opinion, are the choices Americans while getting those nutrients.

He said diets get more and more expensive depending on how many rules a person applies to himself, such as eating organic or seeking local sources for food or eating vegetables out of season.

“The longer your list gets, the more expensive your list will be,” he said.

Seligman said her list can get longer than Wilde’s, but not everything is a choice. Adding to the cost of buying healthful food could be how far away from home a person needs to travel to get to a grocery store that sells a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The government also affects food prices through the subsidies offered to farmers growing certain crops, she added.

9135: Innovation That’s Not Very Bright.

Is anyone ever impressed by advertisers promising innovative ideas with images of light bulbs?

9134: The World According To Google—Part 11.

The World According To Google presents content discovered while searching for other things.

Today’s search words: Afro Wig.

9133: New Flavor At Burger King…?

Advertising Age reported Burger King plans to hire Flavor Flav as its new global CMO. While the announcement may seem surprising, the fast feeder would hardly be the first advertiser to tap a hip hop artist for a key marketing role. And as the photo above shows, Mr. Flav is comfortable wearing crown. Oh, wait a minute. Misread the Ad Age piece. Burger King plans to hire Flavia Faugeres. Never mind.

9132: Sensible Nonsense.

Adweek reported on the Sensible Food Policy Coalition—a confederacy of dunces from the food industry and assorted advertising wonks seeking to stop the proposed governmental plans to restrict the marketing of food to children. The organization’s name indicates the obscenity of it all. Manufacturers and hucksters facing the threat of losing a major meal ticket are anything but sensible. The majority of shit being sold barely qualifies as food. With these assholes, dishonesty is the best policy. And coalition should really be replaced with cabal.

Industry Group: Government Plan Would Muzzle Advertising of Popular Foods

Food lobby keeps pressure on government to change guidelines

By Katy Bachman

WASHINGTON—Looking to hammer home its message that the government’s proposal for voluntary guidelines that would restrict the marketing of foods aimed at children are out to lunch, the Sensible Food Policy Coalition released Thursday a list of popular foods that would not make the cut as healthy enough to be advertised to kids. Under the government’s plan, the Coalition said, makers of foods including oatmeal, ready-to-eat cereals like cornflakes and Cheerios, whole wheat bread, canned vegetables, rice, even diet soda and bottled water would be muzzled.

Of the 100 most popular foods, only 12—foods like 100 percent fruit juice, raw fruits and vegetables, and nonfat yogurt—would meet the requirements of the guidelines, according to the Coalition, which is made up of food and media companies.

“It’s amazing to me that many healthy foods the government is now saying that they are bad and shouldn’t be advertised,” said former USDA official Beth Johnson, a registered dietician who’s principal of government relations firm Food Directions, during a press conference Thursday morning. “The government is inconsistent. The FDA has different definitions than the new guidelines. Foods allowed under USDA’s WIC [Women, Infants, and Children] program, such as 2 percent milk and peanut butter, don’t meet the new guidelines.”

Since an interagency working group made up of the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control proposed the guidelines in April, the food, beverage, and advertising industries have fought hard against them, urging that they be withdrawn. The voluntary guidelines propose that food, beverage, and restaurant companies either modify product formulations or cut out all marketing of the products, from TV ads to packaging to sponsorships, aimed at children under 18.

Despite convincing 141 congressional members to write to the working group to ask it to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the guidelines, and language in two House appropriations bill that would cut off funds for the program, the Coalition is taking no chances.

“We’re not holding our breath that there will be any changes in the proposed guidelines,” said Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, which is one of the 150 organizations that are part of the Coalition. “We see no signals there will be major changes.”

Proponents of the guidelines think the Coalition is over-reacting to what they say are suggestions to help alleviate the childhood obesity epidemic.

“They’ve been aggressively lobbying against these voluntary guidelines which are simply a model to give companies an idea of what science-based standards would look like,” said Dr. Margo Wootan, the director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

As for the Coalition’s analysis of the top 100-selling foods, Wootan called it “a PR stunt.”

“Very few of the products on the list such as beer, coffee and bacon, are marketed to children, so it’s completely irrelevant,” she said. And companies have already agreed not to market to children products like candy bars, donuts, and other junk food.

Wootan believes the Coalition’s analysis is also misleading. “It’s not true that certain products, like cereal, don’t meet the guidelines. There are a good number of cereals that do meet the guidelines, but those aren’t cereals companies are marketing to kids,” Wootan said. “What they’re really concerned about is that the standards suggest they can’t market Fruit Loops or Spaghetti-Os.”

9131: Not A Movin’ Performance.

OK, maybe this California State Lottery commercial had a small production budget that prohibited using Ja'net Dubois—but did they have to bring in a blonde singer to perform Movin’ On Up?

9130: C’MON WHITE MAN! Episode 13.

(MultiCultClassics credits ESPN’s C’MON MAN! for sparking this semi-regular blog series.)

Jeff Goodby of Goodby Silverstein & Partners has been spotlighted in this semi-regular blog series a whopping three times. So it only seems fair to honor Rich Silverstein too.

When the iconic advertising agency decided to create a new logo, Silverstein partnered with his shop’s Co-Director of Digital Imaging to invent the graphic on the left side of the image above. However, the identity mark is virtually identical to the monogram on the right, which was originally made in 1905. Here’s how Silverstein described the GS&P rip-off:

From the very beginning, the agency always used the building they were housed in as its identity. As it has grown and is now in multiple buildings and cities, this solution no longer was relevant, but the classic quality of those past identities needed to still play a part in the new identity. That fundamental passion for craft and design is a foundation of the agency. There had to be a sense of the old and the new in the design. … The goal was to create a new identity for the agency that would signal a new era. The design needed to work in static form as well as in motion, and ideally it should capitalise on the shorthand name for the agency: GSP. … After playing around with various renditions of the letterforms—from modern typography to more genre-specific—we arrived at a solution that was born out of classic monograms. The forms are purposely somewhat rough, in reference to hand-drawn type. But we have stripped out secondary decorative elements so it has a more modern, austere feel.

The quote is actually from an entry form Silverstein completed when he submitted the logo for an award in the 2011 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Lo and behold, the man nabbed a Design Lion. Which sorta puts Silverstein in the same league as the Boys from Brazil behind the scam Kia campaign—who have been banned from the 2012 festival.

C’MON WHITE MAN!

9129: McCann NY Shedding Old Mad Men?

Adweek reported on potentially deep layoffs at McCann Erickson NY, publishing a lame agency statement that read:

“As part of McCann’s reinvention, the agency has had to make some very difficult decisions. One result is that some employees will not make the transition with us. Protecting both individuals and the health of the company is a difficult balance. The decisions made were hard. But they were based on a clear strategy for the agency.”

Of course, the “clear strategy” is not being publicly defined, flying in the face of the company’s “Truth Well Told” slogan. But Adweek appears to be hinting at the reinvention plan with its stock photo selection featuring a mature executive who has just been terminated. Then again, BDAs are notorious for keeping their Old White Guys employed—although Universal McCann did have an age discrimination lawsuit pending.

9128: A Waste Of Ad Space.

Even Waste Management is doing pharma ads. Could there possibly be a worse assignment for adpeople to work on?

9127: Grey Is White.

Grey Advertising—the agency pushing cultural stereotypes for DIRECTV—is now doing likewise for Purolator. The campaign demonstrates that even a Geisha and Amish guy are capable of doing an oil change. Is the implication that Geishas and the Amish are as dumb as, say, cavemen? Regardless, perhaps they should produce a version featuring a Grey employee changing an oil filter. It would clearly prove that the most ignorant among us could do the job.

9126: Movin’ On Up, But Not Out.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Rich minorities live in poorer neighborhoods

The most successful blacks and Hispanics are more likely to have poor neighbors than are whites, according to new analysis of Census data.

The average affluent black and Hispanic household — defined in the study as earning more than $75,000 a year — lives in a poorer neighborhood than the average lower-income white household that makes less than $40,000 a year.

“Separate translates to unequal even for the most successful black and Hispanic minorities,” says sociologist John Logan, director of US2010 Project at Brown University, which studies trends in American society.

“Blacks are segregated and even affluent blacks are pretty segregated,” he said.

“African Americans who really succeeded live in neighborhoods where people around them have not succeeded to the same extent.”

The disparities are strongest in large metro areas in the Northeast and Midwest where segregation has always been high. It’s lowest in more recent booming parts of the Sun Belt.

“White middle-class families have the option to live in a community that matches their own credentials,” Logan says. “If you’re African American and want to live with people like you in social class, you have to live in a community where you are in the minority.”

9125: Miller Lite Has One Big Problem.

Advertising Age reported Miller Lite is suffering in sales. The truth is, the once-iconic brand has been sliding into irrelevance since its “Great Taste, Less Filling” heyday. At the same time, the current advertising has gone from culturally clueless to insultingly idiotic. Don’t mean to kick an agency while it’s over $1 billion down, but Howard Draft did admit that the majority of his shop’s work lacks great taste and feels less filling. Even the gratuitous sex of the Miller Liteguards is uninspired. The client surely shares the blame for diminishing the brand’s image. All the packaging innovations, for example, are bullshit that blur with Coors. But MillerCoors executives must “man up” and realize there’s a simple, one-word answer to Ad Age’s question, “What Is Wrong With Miller Lite?” Draftfcb.

What Is Wrong With Miller Lite?

MillerCoors CEO Blames Bad Weather, Weak Economy for Sales Drop While Analysts Point to ‘Strategy,’ ‘Marketing Front’

By EJ Schultz

MillerCoors still has a Miller Lite problem, with the brand failing to emerge from its long-running slump in the second quarter.

Sales to retailers fell by “mid-single digits,” which contributed to a 2.7% sales decline across all of the brewer’s brands in the quarter, the brewer reported today. MillerCoors, a joint venture of Molson Coors and SABMiller, was still able to grow earnings by 2.6% in the quarter to nearly $400 million, thanks in part to strong cost management, the company said.

But Lite’s decline, which came at the beginning of the all-important summer beer-selling season, is an ominous trend, considering that it had shown signs of life in the first quarter, with sales to retailers only down slightly. The slump could also put more pressure on the brand’s ad agency, Interpublic Group of Cos.’ DraftFCB, to find marketing solutions quickly in advance of the upcoming football season, another key period for beer sales. (DraftFCB is already under stress after losing one of its biggest accounts last week, SC Johnson.)

“Miller Lite definitely took a step backward in the second quarter and it does suggest they still have some work to do in the marketing front,” said Benj Steinman, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights.

Still, MillerCoors did not signal any major marketing changes for the brand, instead pinning some of the losses on external factors such as the weak economy, record rainfall in many parts of the country—which could limit beer occasions—and higher fuel prices, which officials said “all impacted consumer spending on beer.”

“We would like [Miller Lite] to be growing faster, obviously,” MillerCoors CEO Tom Long said on a call with analysts. “We are putting more pressure on its marketing position,” he said. He added that “we do not plan to fundamentally change our policy on Miller Lite, but we are going to keep working on it.”

In an interview, MillerCoors spokesman Julian Green said: “We very pleased with DraftFCB’s work on our flagship brands.” Miller Lite is the nation’s fourth-ranked beer brand by shipment volume, but has suffered declines of 3.9% last year and 6.6% in 2009, according to Beer Marketer’s Insights.

With DraftFCB at the helm, MillerCoors has sought to position Lite as the light beer with the most taste with its “Man Up” ads that mock men who choose other brands. It is arguably a tougher sell than the cold positioning MillerCoors uses for sibling brand Coors Light, which has ridden the “world’s most refreshing beer” message to stellar growth. That growth has put it on the verge of overtaking Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser as the nation’s second-ranked beer by shipments. (A-B’s Bud Light is the No. 1 beer brand.) Coors Light is also handled by DraftFCB.

On today’s earnings call, analysts suggested more radical changes for Miller Lite, prompting a few testy exchanges with Mr. Long, who took over as CEO on June 1. Credit Suisse’s Carlos Laboy suggested the brewer was placing too much blame on the economy and weather, noting that its other brands fared better, such as Coors Light, which was up slightly in the quarter, and Blue Moon, which continued its double-digit growth. “The only unemployed consumers who keep getting rained on are the Miller Lite consumers,” Mr. Laboy said sarcastically. He suggested that MillerCoors try dropping the price on Miller Lite. (In an analyst’s note published Monday, he called Lite “structurally impaired” and said it “needs a new strategy.”)

Mr. Long on the call replied that “we consider the price on the brand every day by market.” But he said a general price decrease would not work because “taking a brand down, it almost never comes back.”

So why is Miller Lite underperforming Coors Light? MillerCoors officials suggested one reason could be that Lite relies more on sales in bars and restaurants, which have been weak because fewer people have gone out in the tough economy.

9124: Pitching Perdue.

Advertising Age reported the Perdue account is going into review. Seems like a perfect opportunity to let a minority shop pitch for the business—because Black folks LOVE chicken!

Perdue Puts Marketing Accounts Into Review

Move Ends Poultry Marketer’s 40-year Legacy of Deutsch and Lowe Shops

By Maureen Morrison

Poultry company Perdue has ended its 40-year relationship with Deutsch and its predecessor shops, opening up its creative account for review, as well as digital planning and buying handled by RJ Palmer, social media handled by PR firm Fleishman Hillard, and possibly the website work at Marriner Marketing. The consultancy SRI is overseeing the review.

RJ Palmer will continue to be agency of record for traditional media planning and buying. Fleishman-Hillard has been invited to participate in the review.

The company said it is looking to consolidate marketing duties at one agency. “Perdue Farms is conducting a search for a strategically based, highly creative and innovative lead agency to handle our integrated traditional and nontraditional (digital/social media) advertising and communications,” Perdue spokeswoman Julie DeYoung said in a statement to Ad Age. “The motivation for the search is to consolidate marketing services for greater integration and efficiency.”

Deutsch’s New York office had been working on the account through the 2009 U.S. merger with Interpublic sibling Lowe. The account had been with Deutsch and its predecessor shops for 40 years; Frank Perdue in 1971 hired Scali, McCabe, Sloves. Ad Age named Scali McCabe’s “It takes a tough man to make tender chicken” as one of the Top 100 advertising campaigns of the 20th century.

“We greatly respect Jim Perdue and the heritage of quality the Perdue brand has always delivered,” said Val DiFebo, CEO, Deutsch, New York. “We are proud of our recent campaign ‘We believe in a better chicken,’ which has exceeded all expectations across the board, resonates with consumers and has given the company a new rallying cry and will continue to be implemented by the new agency. We wish them well.”

Deutsch in late June had launched the new campaign for Perdue. But a person familiar with the matter said the account went up for review due to fair compensation constantly being a debate.

This is the first loss of 2011 for Deutsch’s New York office. Recent wins include the Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics brands. Deutsch’s Los Angeles office in late June lost the CiCi’s Pizza account.

Perdue in 2010 spent about $18.8 million on U.S. measured media, according to Kantar, up 42.4% from 2009.

9123: Time To Make Out With The Donuts.

From USA TODAY…

N.J. Dunkin’ Donuts worker caught in ‘extra sugar’ sex sting

By (Morristown, N.J.) Daily Record

ROCKAWAY, N.J. — A 29-year-old woman working the night shift at Dunkin Donuts faces prostitution charges for allegedly taking breaks from selling donuts and coffee to provide sexual services in exchange for money.

Melissa Redmond, 29, of Mine Hill, was arrested after a six week investigation known as “extra sugar” that began when police got a tip that people could go to the Dunkin Donuts on Route 46 and arrange a liason with Redmond.

“I had gotten an anonymous tip,” Detective Sgt. Kyle Schwarzmann, who led the investigation. “She was a night time employee (working 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.), supposedly a very good one.”

Schwarzmann began gathering information and doing surveillance at the scene. He noticed on multiple evenings that she would go out to cars to see customers and would spend 10 or 15 minutes there, he said.

“Sometimes I’d even see money changing hands,” Schwarzmann said, adding that sometimes the cars would stay in the parking lot and other times they would drive to another nearby location.

An undercover operation was developed wth the assistance of Officer Robert Koehler and Officer Scott Haigh acting as the undercover “John.”

“He went in plain clothes through the drive-thru window,” Schwarzmann said. “He spoke to her and she said if he wanted a good time to call her and she gave him her phone number.”

Haigh parked in the parking lot and Redmond allegedly came out, approached him and gave him a specifc price list for her services.

Haigh returned on another occasion and inquired about her services, was offered a new, and lower, price so he said he needed to go to a bank machine but would return with the money.

When Haigh returned, they drove to the back of the building and the arrest was made. Redmond was then processed, served her complaint and released.

Dunkin Donuts employees declined to comment Monday morning.

9122: Patriotic Muslims.

From The New York Times…

Muslims Say They’re Loyal Americans, Poll Finds

By Laurie Goodstein

A decade after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a Gallup poll released on Tuesday found that the vast majority of Muslim Americans say they are loyal to the United States and optimistic about the future, even though they are more likely than other religious groups to say they recently experienced discrimination.

Nine out of 10 Muslim Americans said that their co-religionists in the United States were not sympathetic to Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization held responsible for the attacks 10 years ago. Majorities in other religious groups agreed that Muslim Americans did not sympathize with Al Qaeda, although the percentages were much lower.

The poll in many ways contradicts the stereotype of Muslim Americans as an alienated and discontented religious minority. It was conducted by telephone from Feb. 10 to March 11, 2010, and Oct. 1 to 21, 2010, by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center, a Gallup-affiliated research group based in the United Arab Emirates. The poll, which included interviews with 2,482 adults of whom 475 said they were Muslim, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus seven percentage points for Muslims.

“It’s not a completely rosy picture,” said Mohamed Younis, senior analyst with the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies in Washington and a main author of the study.

“The prejudice and discrimination are definitely there, and that’s something we have consistently seen in the data,” Mr. Younis said. “But at the same time many of the people in the Muslim-American community seem to be doing relatively well, and part of their doing well is being able to be full-fledged Americans, to participate in the American experience.”

The poll found that Muslim Americans were the most likely of any religious group to express confidence in the fairness of elections. The researchers speculated that this might be because of their high levels of support for President Obama, who said early in his administration that he would make it a priority to repair relationships with the Muslim world.

Since the terrorist attacks 10 years ago, Muslim Americans have been the target of intense scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in counterterrorism investigations. Sixty percent of Muslims said in the survey that they had confidence in the F.B.I. That was fewer than those in other religious groups: about 75 percent of Americans in other religious groups said they had confidence in the F.B.I.

The sphere in which Muslim Americans were most critical of their country is in foreign policy. They are more likely than any other religious group to call the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a mistake. Muslims also have the lowest level of confidence in the United States military of any faith group (70 percent for Muslims compared with more than 90 percent for all other religious groups, with the exception of atheists, with about 80 percent).

Two-thirds of Muslims who were asked the question said that the reason people in Muslim countries have unfavorable views of the United States was “based mostly on what the U.S. has done” — and not “based mostly on misinformation.”

Among the most intriguing findings: two-thirds of American Muslims say they identify strongly with the United States, about the same percentage as those who say they identify strongly with their religion. But other religious groups identified far more than Muslims with the United States. Protestants, Catholics and Jews said they identified with the United States far more strongly than they identified with their respective faiths.

Almost half of Muslim Americans said that they had experienced religious or racial discrimination in the last year. That was far more than the members of any other religious group. About one-third of Mormons said they had experienced discrimination in the last year, putting them second in that category after Muslims. About one-fifth of Jews, Catholics and Protestants said they had experienced prejudice.

On many key questions in the poll, it was American Jews whose answers most resembled those of Muslims. Jews were the most likely of any religious group besides Muslims to say that Muslims are loyal Americans, and that the war in Iraq was a mistake. Jews were just as likely as Muslims to say that American Muslims face prejudice.

9121: Clichés, Not Contrived.

From The New York Times…

Flaunting Latino Clichés in Effort to Defuse Them

By Tanzina Vega

FOR some Hollywood movies, clichés are everything. An asteroid destroys a major city. A shadowy figure appears behind someone in the reflection of medicine cabinet mirror. A Latina maid marries a successful businessman and lives happily ever after.

A new ad campaign for the New York International Latino Film Festival makes fun of those clichés with the goal, its organizers say, of attracting attendees while also drawing attention to the blatant stereotyping of Latinos and others in some big budget movies.

“It was really intended to poke fun, but underneath there’s some truth to them,” Elizabeth Gardner, an executive director of the festival, said of the ads. “That doesn’t mean we’re suggesting anyone should boycott movies.”

Calixto Chinchilla, another executive director, said the festival started 1999 as a way to empower the Latino community and to develop audiences for Latino films.

“At the time there wasn’t really much that targeted the second-generation Hispanic,” Mr. Chinchilla said. The advertising for the festival has evolved from being focused on promoting a young, hip and urban event for Latinos to a broader goal. “It’s the art first and culture second,” Mr. Chinchilla said. The festival will take place Aug. 15-21 in New York.

To promote itself, festival organizers hired Wing, a unit of the Grey Group of WPP that specializes in the Latino market, as their new agency of record.

Gustavo Asman, the chief creative officer at Wing, said the campaign had to be provocative enough to attract New Yorkers who can choose from a wide variety of cultural events, while also appealing to a broad audience of Latinos and non-Latinos alike. “How good are the films and how interesting is this going to be for you regardless of your ethnicity?” Mr. Asman asked.

Some of the ads began running in a handful of New York movie theaters at the end of July, and additional spots will start being shown on television on Monday. Print ads will begin running the first week in August in The Daily News, Time Out New York, Latina Magazine, Hombre and other publications. The budget for the campaign is estimated to be $500,000 to $ 1 million, though much of the effort is pro bono.

The video ads, directed by Pepe Puenzo, feature a variety of scenes in a casting room with a director holding auditions. In one scene, a fruit stand vendor hurls himself on the floor, simulating a variety of car accidents. “That was a school bus,” screams the actor after tumbling to the ground. “Totally different technique,” he says.

The exasperated director, wearing dark-rimmed glasses and a sweater vest, replies, “I’ve seen everything I have to see. You’re very good at what you do, but we’re trying to do something else.”

A second scene features a scary man in a wet, black raincoat who appears in the mirror of a medicine cabinet after it is closed. “We’re kind of not looking for those clichés, you know?” the director says.

To poke fun more directly at Latino stereotypes, some of the print ads feature graphics that chart things like the roles of Latinas in movies. The chart shows the “maid” category as the highest by far, beating out surgeon, judge, architect and entrepreneur. A similar chart illustrating the gardener’s name in a movie shows the names José, Ramón and Juan dominating the name Steve.

William A. Nericcio, a professor at San Diego State University and the author of the book “Tex{t}-Mex, Seductive Hallucinations of the ‘Mexican’ in America,” said stereotypes of Latinos were part of American culture and that the ads were capitalizing on them effectively.

“With tongue in cheek, they are asking us to change our position when it comes to Latinos,” Mr. Nericcio said. The video ads, which were heavy on humor and light on cultural references, helped to blur the lines between the Latino and non-Latino market. “There’s a definite de-emphasizing of in-your-face Latino-ness,” Mr. Nericcio said. “It’s not Pancho Villa with a camera in his hand.”

Pancho Villa may not be directing any of the spots, but his likeness does show up in a second facet of the campaign where the agency, Wing, advertises itself.

Print ads that say “Let Your Latino Out” and show a thin man dressed in a fitted black suit, white shirt and straps of bullets encourage viewers to take a photo of themselves with the man’s handlebar moustache under their noses. A video ad for the Web shows a man who looks in his bathroom mirror and finds a long, dark wiry hair poking out of his upper lip. When he tries to yank the hair out, it becomes, you guessed it, a large, hairy moustache.

“Stereotypes are the baseline,” Mr. Nericcio said. “They’re a given; they’re not going anywhere.”

9120: Spider-Man Is A Black Man.

From USA TODAY…

The new Spider-Man: Half-black, all hero

By Brian Truitt, USA TODAY

We have an African-American president, so why not an African-American Spider-Man, too?

Revealed in Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Fallout Issue 4, out Wednesday, the new Spider-Man in the Ultimate universe is a half-black, half-Hispanic teen named Miles Morales. He takes over the gig held by Peter Parker, who was killed in Ultimate Spider-Man Issue 160 in June.

In his first appearance, he simply breaks up a fight. But readers will learn the true origin of Morales and how he became the new Spider-Man when Ultimate Spider-Man relaunches in September with a new No. 1 issue.

“The theme is the same: With great power comes great responsibility,” says writer Brian Michael Bendis. “He’s going to learn that. Then he has to figure out what that means.”

The new Ultimate Spider-Man series, as well as Wednesday’s Ultimate Fallout issue, will be available digitally the same day as in stores.

In the regular Marvel Universe, Peter Parker will still be the same web-swinging Spidey as he has been since his first appearance in 1962. But in the Ultimate line, launched in 2000 to tell contemporary stories, he received a new origin and a reimagined supporting cast that paralleled the Spidey in regular Marvel continuity.

Morales’ journey will be a similar vehicle for today’s fans, says Marvel’s editor in chief, Axel Alonso.

“What you have is a Spider-Man for the 21st century who’s reflective of our culture and diversity. We think that readers will fall in love with Miles Morales the same way they fell in love with Peter Parker.”

In addition to an alliterative name, Miles has a connection to his predecessor in how he received his powers. But he will have different abilities, too. Supporting characters such as Peter’s Aunt May and Gwen Stacy also will give Miles nuggets of wisdom to help his transition from young kid to New York City superhero.

Italian artist Sara Pichelli, who was integral in designing the new Spider-Man’s look, says, “Maybe sooner or later a black or gay — or both — hero will be considered something absolutely normal.”

9119: More Eye-Rolling Idiocy From Brazil.

Look! More cultural cluelessness from Brazil! The New York Daily News reported on FC Santos preparing for the upcoming 2011 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan by having players pose slit-eyed for a promotion. The move is barely original, last executed by Spain’s 2008 Olympic basketball teams.

Neymar and Santos teammates pose ‘slit-eyed’ for ad promoting FIFA Club World Cup in Japan

By Jaime Uribarri

Fresh off their first Copa Libertadores title in nearly 50 years, FC Santos are looking to make history yet again in December during the 2011 FIFA Club World Cup in Japan.

The storied Brazilian franchise is going all out in preparation for the event that brings together the champion clubs from all six continental confederations, and has even launched a website and promotional campaign to celebrate the competition. Pretty standard stuff, except for one questionable photo.

The image features four Santos players — including star forward Neymar up front and center — slanting their eyes in front of the Japanese Rising Sun flag painted in the team’s black and white colors. This crass reference to the tournament host nation (and its people’s physical appearance) is bound to generate controversy, if a similar picture from three years ago is any indication.

Prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Spanish basketball team sparked outrage among the Asian community after posing slit-eyed for a full-page ad that appeared in the country’s most popular sports daily, Marca. Accusations of racism from groups such as the Organization of Chinese Americans soon followed, which forced Spain’s Pau Gasol to publicly apologize on behalf of his team.

If and when Santos’ borderline racist marketing campaign gets picked up by the same advocacy groups, be sure to expect more negative backlash.

9118: Bada Bing In Brazil.

Even the advertising hacks in Brazil stereotype people of Italian heritage. As if the South American country is devoid of crime and murder. TheGetz can expect to hear from UNICO National and
Order Sons of Italy in America.


Via Ads of the World

9117: A Show Of Hands That Hate Vagina Hands.

The Adweek Readers’ Poll for the Summer’s Eve “Hail to the V” campaign is nearing 1,000 responses, and the percentages are holding pretty firm, with over half of the voters saying the work deserved to get yanked. Granted, the results are hardly scientific. But if an audience predominately comprised of professional adpeople wants to make talking vaginas shut up, imagine what actual consumers must be thinking.

9116: Soul Train Riding Through Chicago.

From TimeOut Chicago…

Soul Train Photo Exhibition at Expo 72 | Review

Posted in Exhibitionist blog by Zachary Whittenburg

There’s room on the walls for far more than the fifty-some photographs on display from the golden age of Soul Train, at Expo 72 through September 5. And the gallery floor is mostly empty—there are just two table cases. One displays dolls and merchandise, the other photos, press clippings and a letter on WCIU-TV letterhead from Soul Train creator Don Cornelius, dated January 25, 1971, informing Charles Bayliss of 1316 South Kolin Avenue that he and his dancing partner were invited to perform on the show, so long as neither was “over dressed.” (The letter, and other items in the case, are from the personal collection of music writer and TOC contributor Jake Austen. An article by Sun-Times critic Ron Powers for the newspaper’s television listings, calling the show “that soul-shaking, scintillating, ex-CRU-ciating, mighty, mighty vehicle of rhythm and blues,” is a must-read.)

But on July 22, like every Friday evening throughout the exhibit’s run, that empty space was necessary. Guest DJ Steve “Silk” Hurley spun classic platters from 4–6pm; when I left, a dance party was in full swing. A five-year-old was getting down with his dad, and a fifty-something woman, dressed to impress, was owning the line along rails on the floor, painted by Stephen Reynolds in the style of the original Soul Train set.

(Update: Weekly “Friday Night Groove” parties are now scheduled for 6–8pm during the exhibition’s run. See below for details.)

The images themselves erupt with energy and are thoughtfully combined although, while some get detailed air-date and episode-number credits, others are tagged vaguely, such as “Soul Train dancers circa 1973 to 1976.” Kool and the Gang in ’74 is next to Cameo in ’85; Jeffrey Osborne’s bedazzled 1980 outfit is next to Elton John’s bedazzled 1975 outfit. The lone black-and-white image is of Chaka Khan, on episode 128, the day after Valentine’s Day, 1975.

Beverly native Kim Porter Fluellen, director of integrated marketing and development at Soul Train Holdings, LLC in Los Angeles, says that the exhibit is part of a “year of rebirth” for the brand on its 40th anniversary. “Last month, we opened a music-and-dance series at Lincoln Center, we did a large donation to the Smithsonian and events on the National Mall, and now we’re coming here and planting ourselves in Chicago, where it all started.” The photos come from a collection of more than 300,000 images and have never before been released.

Michelle T. Boone, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, spoke with me outside of the gallery, still sounding a little bit disheartened that she wasn’t old enough to be on the show before it left Chicago. Her favorite memory of Soul Train happened during Joe Tex’s performance of his 1972 hit single, “I Gotcha.”

“There was a regular dancer on the show named Damita Jo Freeman, this thin, beautiful, dark black woman with an Afro. And for that song, she got to go up on stage and dance with Joe Tex. I was watching with some friends and we just [Screams quietly]. It was great.”

The Soul Train Photo Exhibition is on display at Expo 72 (72 E Randolph St, 312-744-6630) through September 5. Guest DJs spin during “Friday Night Groove” dance parties in the gallery from 6–8pm, Fridays through September 2. Admission is free.

9115: Omnicom’s Frito Bandito-Like Maneuvers.

Advertising Age reported PepsiCo shifted Frito-Lay assignments among various Omnicom shops without a review. The client offered mumbo-jumbo excuses about globalizing their brands, when it’s really just another example of Corporate Cultural Collusion

Trying For More Global Approach, Frito-Lay Shifts Agencies on Three Brands

Lay’s, SunChips, Stacy’s Pita Chips Move Within Omnicom to TBWA, EnergyBBDO

By Maureen Morrison

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay has moved marketing duties for its Lay’s and SunChips brands to EnergyBBDO, Chicago, as well as the Stacy’s pita chips brand to TBWA/Chiat/Day, from Omnicom Group sibling Juniper Park without a review.

A spokesman for Frito-Lay confirmed the moves, saying: “Frito-Lay and PepsiCo continue to globalize their brands and consumer marketing efforts,” and that the move “allows Frito-Lay to better leverage PepsiCo’s global relationship with Omnicom by tapping into the BBDO network.” Juniper Park is a subsidiary of BBDO.

BBDO and TBWA already work on several Pepsi beverage brands, as do other Omnicom agencies, such as Goodby Silverstein & Partners, Dieste for Hispanic marketing and OMD for media. BBDO handles Amp, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew; TBWA handles Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi Max and Gatorade.

PepsiCo in 2009 had unveiled its compostable bag for SunChips, with Juniper Park working on the campaign. But in October 2010 the company pulled the packaging after complaints that the bags were too noisy, although the bags were to remain in Canada. Juniper Park will continue to do work for PepsiCo’s global nutrition group and continues to work on the Quaker portfolio, an account it won from Goodby in 2009, though Quaker is in the midst of a hunt for a new chief marketing officer. Kirsten Lynch, Quaker’s CMO since late 2009, left the company earlier this year. Kathryn Matheson, a 15-year veteran of PepsiCo in Canada, is interim CMO.

For EnergyBBDO, this is the second account win reported in under a week, as the agency last Friday won significant chunks of the SC Johnson business, an account it is splitting with WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather, both of which beat out incumbent DraftFCB after a protracted review. EnergyBBDO will take on marketing duties for SCJ’s pest control and storage products, as well as digital marketing across all categories.

Shuffling work among Omnicom agencies is something Pepsi has been known to do. In October 2008, for example, the marketer handed Goodby its $120 million Quaker portfolio after pulling it from Element 79, an agency formed primarily to handle PepsiCo’s business.

Globally and in the U.S., Lay’s is the category leader by share, according to Euromonitor. In 2009, the brand had 28.4% share globally, followed by sibling chip brand Ruffles. In the U.S. in 2009, Lay’s had 31.2% market share, again followed by Ruffles.

Frito Lay in 2010 spent $24.2 million on U.S. measured media for SunChips, down from $27.6 in 2009; $14.5 million on Stacy’s pita chips in 2010, down from $16.8 million; and about $25.5 million on the Lay’s brand in 2010, up from $23.4 million in 2009.

9114: Covering The Nudes.

Taking off the news in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• Kelly Rowland posed topless for the cover of VIBE magazine. “I just wanted it to be skin, I’m so comfortable in my skin,” said Rowland. “As a woman, sometimes that takes so long to get to.” Yes, but the desperation associated with selling records can accelerate matters.

• Larry Flynt has offered Casey Anthony $500,000 upfront plus 10 percent of all profits to pose nude for Hustler magazine. To promote her new album, Kelly Rowland is probably willing to do a duo shot.

9113: LGBT Crime Targets.

From USA TODAY…

Crimes against LGBT community are up, despite social gains

By Natalie DiBlasio, USA TODAY

Violent crimes, including murder, increased last year against people identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), and people of color among those groups were most likely to be targeted, an advocacy group reports.

A report last month by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, a group that supports victims of anti-LGBT harassment, found:

• Hate incidents against LGBT people and HIV-affected persons increased 13% from 2009 to 2010.

• Murders of LGBT people numbered 27, the second-highest total recorded.

• Half of victims did not report the crimes to police, and 61% of victims who did said they experienced indifferent or abusive police attitudes.

• Offenders were mostly strangers, white and non-transgender men.

This rise is no surprise to Suzanna Walters, professor of gender studies at Indiana University and author of All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America.

Walters says that ongoing homophobia is hidden because of increased visibility of support for the LGBT community, including New York’s legalizing same-sex marriage and the repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

“These positive changes are very real, there is no doubt about it, but the more visible you are as a community the more vulnerable you are, too,” she says. “There is a protection in the closet, as awful as that is. Real homophobia with violent outcomes is not a thing of the past and there is much more work to be done.”

Nationally, violent crimes are in decline, according to the most recent FBI statistics. Preliminary figures published in May show a 5.5% decrease in the number of violent crimes, including murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault from 2009 to 2010.

The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 gave the FBI authority to investigate hate crimes involving sexual orientation, says Peter Kaupp, FBI supervisory special agent and hate-crimes program manager.

A look at major cities:

• New York. Incidents happened in popular gay neighborhoods such as Chelsea and the West Village.

• Chicago. The Center on Halsted Anti-Violence Project reported 73 incidents, a 12% increase over 2009.

• San Francisco. Incidents rose 65% to 213 last year, reports the Community United Against Violence.

• Kansas City, Mo. Kansas City Anti-violence Project documented a 52% increase to 31.

Mattie Leyden, 40, was born a man but legally changed her documents to reflect a female identity two years ago. Every day she says she fears becoming a crime statistic. “I’m waiting for it to happen someday,” Leyden says.

Contributing: Nicole C. Brambila, The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun

9112: Zappos’ Booty Call.

When did Zappos become American Apparel?