Seventeen colleges and universities, including Harvard,
Duke and Notre Dame, announced yesterday that "they would be
the first to join" the Fair Labor Association, the new White
House-supported "factory-monitoring association" in an
effort to "ensure that apparel carrying" school names is
"not made in sweatshops," according to Steven Greenhouse of
the N.Y. TIMES. The move is "expected to help attract more
companies and colleges" to the Fair Labor Association, which
has established a code of conduct for factories and includes
companies like Nike and Reebok (N.Y. TIMES, 3/16).
GRIN AND BEAR IT? Three of the ACC's "top partners --
Bank of America, Food Lion and Pepsi -- had their logos
intermittently" placed on the video screen at the Charlotte
Coliseum during the ACC men's basketball tournament, while
"several" of these companies' competitors -- First Union,
Harris Teeter and Coca-Cola -- are sponsors of the Hornets
and have "permanent signs throughout the arena," according
to Erik Spanberg of the CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL.
Coliseum Authority Managing Dir Mike Crum: "The permanent
signs weren't lit up. That's the most we could do." Bank
of America Senior VP/Olympics & Events Marketing Dockery
Clark: "Sometimes you just have to put up with (rivals'
signs)" (BUSINESS JOURNAL OF CHARLOTTE, 3/12 issue).
OPERATION NIKE: Peter Nguyen of the ORANGE COUNTY
REGISTER gives Nike's "March Madness" spots an "A+." He
calls the spots "unmistakably Nike in concept and style" and
writes that they "ingeniously take the traditional term
'March Madness' and extend the idea to an 'X-Files'-like
biological epidemic" (ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER, 3/14).
