USA TODAY's Petrecca, Howard & Horovitz report InfoUSA CEO Vinod
Gupta, who owns Salesgenie.com and wrote and produced the company's heavily
criticized Super Bowl ads himself, is "going to give his ads a trial run
before they open on the Super Bowl stage next year." Gupta "doesn't
want to have to kill [an ad] after the game as he did last week after complaints
from people offended by his animated pandas with Chinese accents." Said
Gupta, who is Indian: "If it's produced by a big agency, nobody trashes
it. But if it's done by an Indian in Nebraska, you're gonna hear about it"
(USA TODAY, 2/11).
NOTES: WALL STREET JOURNAL's Stephanie Kang reports new media
research company TRA, which stands for True ROI Accountability for Media, "merges
data from people's cable set-top boxes with consumer-purchase databases, such
as the information stores gather from frequent-shopper cards." With the
data, a company "could see whether households that watched an ad for its
toothpaste later bought that brand" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 2/11)....Reebok-CCM
Hockey on March 21 will "start phasing out manufacturing" at its Sport
Maska Inc. facility in Cowansville, Quebec, in a move "that will lead to
90 layoffs." The company will transfer the making of "high-end wood
one-piece composite and goalie sticks" to its plant in St. Jean sur Richelieu
(MONTREAL GAZETTE, 2/9)....The Bucks and Harley-Davidson have inked
a multi-year sponsorship deal for games at the Bradley Center that will include
an in-game feature in which a Harley "journeys onto the court at full roar."
Harley also has court signage for all home games (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL,
2/9)....Basketball HOFer Bob Cousy signed to endorse the PF Flyers
brand as he did back in his playing days. A special edition of Conveyor
Bob Cousy shoes were unveiled Friday and will be available in Boston at Bodega
and Louis Boston (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/11).
