Luxury groups use movies, dinners to boost image

By Jo Winterbottom
PARIS (Reuters) - Luxury groups are turning to films, the Internet and private dinners to attract customers as they search for more cost-effective ways to advertise to fight falling sales, executives told the Reuters Global Luxury Summit.
Hermes is increasing its overall marketing budget by just under 10 percent this year to a touch above 100 million euros ($141.1 million), but only a third will be on advertising, Chief Executive Patrick Thomas said this week.
"The rest of the budget goes on shop windows, exhibitions, private public relations operations," he said, including invitations to 10-15 customers to themed store openings.
Thomas said the world's second-biggest luxury goods group after LVMH wanted "to communicate one-to-one and not mass communication."
"We don't believe so much in advertising to explain the particularity of Hermes," he added.
Hermes is using the Internet to push sales with merchant sites in the United States and most European countries. Web-based sales account for only about 1 percent of the total currently but are growing at 40-50 percent annually.
LVMH Chief Executive Bernard Arnault said in May it planned to invest more on Internet ads and better targeted publicity.
Luxury groups are also using the Internet in innovative ways to draw attention to their brands.
One of LVMH's stable, Christian Dior, launched an Internet only advertising film featuring Oscar winner Marion Cotillard to promote its Lady Dior line. Rival Gucci and owner PPR have backed HOME, a film exploring environmental challenges.
Boutique hotels group Baglioni sees the Internet as "an efficient channel" for advertising.
"The Internet is now the best way to reach the biggest number of people in the cheapest way," Guido Polito, vice president of the Italian company, told the summit.
PRIVATE DINNERS
For low slung sports car maker Lamborghini, television and magazine advertising is banned, although some dealers use print.
Chief Executive Stephan Winkelmann said motor shows, factory tours and product placement were more important to boost the brand's image along with test drives for prospective buyers.
"Where we placed all our marketing money is mainly on the motor shows," Winkelmann said. "We have a Lamborghini magazine and we have product placement." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Father's gerbil obsession gives writer a voice

By Belinda Goldsmith
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Some children grow up living with their father's obsession for golf or fishing. For Holly Robinson, it was gerbils.
As a child, Robinson accepted her father Donald Robinson's job as a gerbil breeder as normal, but it was only as his health began to decline in his later years that she started to question how this former navy commander became caught up with the rodents.
His obsession began in 1965 when he read about "America's newest pet" and bought a few pairs, but his interest grew and the family eventually settled on a 90 acre farm with nearly 9,000 gerbils which were sold for medical research and to pet shops.
Robinson spent three years working on her memoir, "The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter," that has just been released. Her father died in January, aged 80, ahead of the book's release.
The Massachusetts-based writer spoke to Reuters about her childhood and making the shift from magazine writer and ghost writer of health and science books:
Q: Was it hard to move from ghost writer to your own book?
A: "Not really. We can keep learning and get better and sharper at writing until our death beds. You learn from every piece that you write. I see my career as more of a staircase that has all been leading up to writing books."
Q: Why this book first?
A: "My father was getting ill and he had had such an interesting life. My (five) children started asking questions about it and I had never really talked to him about it. He was a braided captain who had served in Korea and Vietnam but they were taken aback when I told them he had bred gerbils. That is when I started thinking that the life I had led that seemed so ordinary to me was not the life that most people know."
Q: Did you ever work out why gerbils became his obsession?
A: "As a kid, my dad was one of those boys who was a collector. He was this geeky kid who took a mail-order taxidermy class when he was 12. He really was a scientist from the time he was born. When he first read about gerbils he had never heard about them before and could not find information from the library, so he ordered some and they arrived by mail. He started watching them and breeding them in our garage."
Q: Was his interest based on science?
A: "He was the one who found gerbils have these natural seizures likes epileptic seizures. He made a movie of this because it was so interesting and pursued this working with a vet in Los Angeles so that they could be used in medical research. I had a sister with cystic fibrosis who was ill for a long time and she died at a young age. I think because he found it hard to talk about her and this was his way of contributing to the medical world."
Q: Were the gerbils pets or a commodity to you?
A: "I always saw them as pets. I was 11 when he started keeping them and I had one in particular that I trained called Kinky, because she had a crooked tail. She would sit in my pocket when I rode my bike. Later we weren't allowed to touch them because my dad did a lot of behavioral experiments." Continued...
Source: Reuters

Acts flock to Edinburgh Fringe despite recession

By Ian MacKenzie
EDINBURGH (Reuters) - A record number of performers from around the world are flocking to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year despite the global recession, and organizers are hoping audiences will match their enthusiasm.
Oddly, Britain's dour and embattled Prime Minister Gordon Brown fails to make a noticeable appearance yet again in the satirical sketches that are a feature of the Fringe.
A number of Britain's leading comedians and actors got their break in Edinburgh, which also hosts Britain's top annual comedy award. The Fringe combines with the city's international book, art and jazz festivals and military tattoo to make up the world's biggest annual showcase of the arts.
An estimated 18,901 performers, with shows from 60 countries including comedy, music, theater, musicals, opera and dance, will gather for the Fringe, which runs from August 7 to 31.
"We're really heartened that so many performers have decided to come to the Festival Fringe, more than ever before, and I think that's a really good sign that the Fringe continues to be a strong attraction in these difficult economic times," the Fringe Society's Chief Executive Kath Mainland told Reuters.
"ART MARKET"
She noted that as well as catering for mass audiences -- in good times the Edinburgh Festival attracts around 750,000 people through a six-week season -- the Fringe is also a major global "art market" in which performers display their talents.
"Lots of people come here looking for works to buy or take and promote in other countries, and that's a big part of the appeal I think."
Comedy makes up 35 percent of the performances, with such notables as Jo Caulfield, Jimmy Carr, Frank Skinner, Alistair McGowan and American Greg Behrendt.
Theater and music offer a broad range of productions. This year's program also offers the first virtual show presented through an online video streaming format, Soul Photography by Russian-born Mikhail Tank.
Mainland said the Fringe had worked through the winter to correct a major computer problem that had hit ticket distribution last year, and she hoped for good times ahead.
The Edinburgh International Festival of music, opera, dance and drama was founded in 1947 to brighten the dark days of austerity after World War Two. The more anarchic Fringe was born the same year.
(Fringe program details and the box office are available through www.edfringe.com )
(Editing by Mike Collett-White and Paul Casciato)

Source: Reuters

"Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert says he's gay

Adam Lambert says he's gay
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By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert has told Rolling Stone magazine he is gay, answering a question that followed the singer for months since he gained millions of fans on the No. 1 U.S. TV talent show.
"I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay," Lambert told the music magazine in excerpts from an interview released Tuesday as it was announced that he had secured a record contract with his debut album due out in fall.
"I'm proud of my sexuality," he said. "I embrace it. It's just another part of me."
The issue with Lambert on the cover hits newsstands this Friday, with the full interview inside.
During his "American Idol" run Lambert was known for his falsetto singing, outlandish costumes, eyeliner and fingernail polish. He was nicknamed "Glambert" and Entertainment Weekly magazine called him "the most exciting 'American Idol' contestant in years."
When he lost in May's finale to the more buttoned-down Kris Allen, some fan websites and the media buzzed with speculation that being gay cost him votes from viewers who pick a winner.
Lambert, who was widely considered the front-runner going into the finale, had never publicly said he was gay. In March, when photos appeared on the Internet of him kissing another man and dressed in drag, he said only: "I have nothing to hide. I am who I am."
His sexuality became an issue widely covered in the media because "Idol," seen by an average of about 26 million viewers a week in 2009, had never crowned an openly gay winner.
The runner-up in 2003, Clay Aiken, hid his sexuality for years after his run on the show, coming out as gay in 2008.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a group that advocates for homosexual rights, said it hopes Lambert's "decision to live openly and honestly inspires gay people and opens the hearts and minds of his fans."
On Tuesday, producer 19 Recordings said it had signed Lambert to a record contract and that his debut album will likely be released in the fall through RCA Records.
The announcement came a day after 19 Recordings said it had signed Allen to a record deal, a guaranteed result of his first-place finish on "American Idol." 19 Recordings is run by Simon Fuller, executive producer of "American Idol."
Lambert, 27, grew up in San Diego, California, and starred in musical theater before trying out for "Idol" last year.
In the Rolling Stone interview, he said he had a "psychedelic experience'' at an annual festival held in the Nevada desert called Burning Man, and that experience convinced him to try out for "American Idol."
"I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen," Lambert told Rolling Stone. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Film aims to expose dangers in U.S. food industry

By Christine Kearney
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bigger-breasted chickens fattened artificially. New strains of deadly E. coli bacteria. A food supply controlled by a handful of corporations.
The documentary "Food, Inc." opens in the United States on Friday and portrays these purported dangers and changes in the U.S. food industry, asserting harmful effects on public health, the environment, and worker and animal rights.
Big corporations such as biotech food producer Monsanto Co., U.S. meat companies Tyson Food Inc. and Smithfield Foods, and poultry producer Perdue Farms all declined to be interviewed for the film.
But the industry has not stood silent. Trade associations across the $142-billion-a-year U.S. meat industry have banded together to counter the claims. Led by the American Meat Institute, they have created a number of websites, including one called SafeFoodInc.com.
"Each sector of the industry that's named is doing its part to counter a lot of the misinformation in the movie," said Lisa Katic, a dietitian and consultant with an unnamed coalition of trade associations representing the food industry.
Their campaign promotes the U.S. food supply as safe, abundant and affordable, whereas the film asserts that images of animals grazing on grassy farms emblazoned on U.S. food product labels are misleading.
"Food, Inc." explores the argument that food comes not from friendly farms but from industrial factories that put profit ahead of human health.
"The film pulls back the curtain on the way food is produced," said Michael Pollan, who appears in the film and is the best-selling author of several books including "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
"Products with farm labels attached -- this stuff comes from factories now," he said.
But an industry spokesman said 98 percent of U.S. farms were family owned and operated and they accounted for 82 percent of farm production.
Mace Thornton of the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest farm group, said the industry was interested in the well-being of farm animals.
"If a farmer or rancher is not the kind of person to take care of their animals, they're not going to be in business long," he said.
A PEEK INSIDE
The film shows footage inside cattle, pork and chicken production plants, some secretly recorded by immigrant workers under cramped conditions for both workers and the animals.
Maryland farmer Carole Morison let cameras in to show chickens collapsing and dying before they are put on the market because, she said, of fast weight gain caused in part by antibiotics in the feed. Morison said she lost her contract with Perdue. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Two Tony-nominated Broadway shows to close

By Michelle Nichols
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Broadway productions of musical "Guys and Dolls" and the play "Reasons To Be Pretty" will close on Sunday, one week after failing to win any of U.S. theater's top honors which could have boosted ticket sales.
"Guys and Dolls" opened on March 1 and was nominated for two Tony Awards, including best musical revival, and "Reasons To Be Pretty" opened April 2 and picked up three Tony nods, including best play.
The Tony Awards, Broadway's top honors, were announced on Sunday with "Billy Elliot The Musical" winning 10 prizes for a season that defied the recession with record ticket sales.
But for shows like "Guys and Dolls" and "Reasons To Be Pretty" making it through the competitive, tourist-filled summer season is difficult without any awards to promote on billboards and in advertisements.
"Broadway is cyclical; shows open and close," said Charlotte St. Martin, executive director of The Broadway League. "It has been a spectacular spring and both of these shows have had enormous competition for theatregoers."
During the 12-month Broadway season ending May 24, 43 shows opened -- the most in more than 25 years, said the Broadway League. There were 10 new musicals, eight new plays, four musical revivals, 16 play revivals and five special shows.
A spokesman for director Neil Labute's "Reasons To Be Pretty" noted that the summer can be long and hard for "straight plays" to run at a profit. "Without a Tony Award win, it would have been very hard to survive," he said.
"Guys and Dolls" producer Howard Panter said in a statement "the final Broadway performance saddens us," while director Des McAnuff told the Toronto Star the show had been "hanging tough, but we just never managed to turn the corner."
"I believe in a different economy, there would have been room for us as well as 'Hair' and 'West Side Story,'" he told the newspaper, referring to rival musical revivals which both picked up Tony Awards and have proven to be box office hits.
Although "Reasons To Be Pretty" received strong reviews, The New York Times reported that it struggled to build an audience and "was frequently among Broadway's lowest-grossing shows at the box office," which producers blamed on the strong slate of plays and play revivals it was competing against.
The Broadway League said the 39 theaters in the famous district contribute $5.1 billion per year to the economy of New York, on top of ticket sales, and support 44,000 jobs.
Broadway's paid attendance was 12.15 million tickets, down from 12.27 million the previous season, but gross takings rose $6 million, or 0.6 percent, to $943.3 million, beating the previous record set in the 2006/07 season of $938.5 million.
"There are usually a handful of closings in late June and in July, but we're eagerly awaiting an exciting fall with numerous new shows gearing up for rehearsals," said the Broadway League's St. Martin.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Source: Reuters

Hollywood actors approve new labor contract

By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Members of the Screen Actors Guild overwhelmingly approved a two-year contract with Hollywood studios on Tuesday, ending a year-long standoff that pitted top stars against each other and slowed production.
The union, which represents about 120,000 performers, was bitterly divided over the proposed deal, with SAG president Alan Rosenberg leading a hardline faction that demanded better terms, especially for work carried on the Internet.
But going into the postal-ballot count, many members feared a repeat of the 100-day writers strike that cost the Los Angeles area economy as much as $3 billion before it was settled early last year.
Indeed, filmmaking slowed in the past year as producers worried about starting productions and then being forced to shut them down if actors walked off the job.
SAG said 78 percent of members voted to approve the contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the Hollywood studios. The margin was wider than expected.
SAG's old contract expired on June 30, 2008, but actors continued working under its terms. The new pact gives actors a 3 percent wage increase this year, 3.5 percent next year and coverage for work done for the Internet.
Experts say the new deal, which takes effect immediately, should pave the way for some increase in moviemaking even as the industry battles the economic recession.
SHEEN VS. CLOONEY
Rosenberg, the estranged husband of "CSI" co-star Marg Helgenberger, told Reuters he was disappointed his side was "unable to get our message out there as clearly and strongly as the other side."
But he said he plans to seek a second two-year term later this year, and hoped SAG members would seek a better contract in 2011 -- a view shared by moderates.
Other opponents included Martin Sheen, Ed Harris, and former SAG president Ed Asner, the voice star of the animated movie "Up."
Supporters of the deal included Tom Hanks, George Clooney and Sally Field. Adam Arkin, a SAG board member who starred in the recently canceled NBC show "Life," welcomed its approval.
"I had no doubt that it would be ratified, I didn't anticipate that it would be this overwhelming," Arkin told Reuters. "It's very encouraging to see."
Entertainment attorney Jonathan Handel said he was surprised by the strong support for the deal.
"The margin is stunning and indicates that the membership overwhelmingly wants to get back to work, and it discredits the hardliners' strategy over the last 12 months," he said. Continued...
Source: Reuters

Stars urged to deliver uplifting entertainment

By James Hibberd
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A group of Hollywood creatives are taking a cue from bestselling "Power of Now" author Eckhart Tolle and forming an organization that promotes uplifting messages in entertainment.
The organization is called GATE -- the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment -- and its invitation-only inaugural meeting on the Fox lot last Thursday attracted such celebrities as Adrian Grenier, Jackson Browne, Virginia Madsen, Garry Shandling and Billy Zane.
"Clearly, these are times of unprecedented transformation, both individually and globally," said founder John Raatz of the PR firm the Visioneering Group. "Everywhere you look, people are questioning values, identity and meaning. We're intending for GATE to support entertainment and media professionals who realize media's power to effect positive change, and want to contribute to this transformation through their work."
The concept was partly inspired by the works of Tolle, whose Zen teachings have encouraged millions to "live in the present moment." Tolle's books received global recognition after the author appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
At the GATE event, Tolle cited instances of inspiring themes in movies. He noted, for example, that war movies such as "All Quiet on the Western Front" showing "the insanity of war" can be transformational, as well as movies depicting spiritual growth of the main character (such as "The Last Samurai").
Tolle recalled the modern classic "Groundhog Day," where Bill Murray's jaded character is trapped in a small town, reliving the same day over and over, until he finally stops resisting the present moment, makes the most of the time he has and accepts everybody around him.
Though Tolle was the event's headliner, many also turned out to see Jim Carrey, whose film last year "Yes Man" embraced a message of spiritual acceptance.
"We live on a planet where we are all really crammed together and yet we do really well," Carrey said. "But when we watch the news and we watch entertainment it's all about conflict. And you imagine that the world is an explosive, horrifying place. It's really non-representative of the way the world is and what the world wants."
(Editing by Dean Goodman at Reuters)

Source: Reuters

"Futurama" has new future on Comedy Central

By Nellie Andreeva
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - It's back to "Futurama" for fans of the animated series.
Taking a page from the "Family Guy" resurrection guidebook, the canceled Fox animated comedy is returning with an order from Comedy Central for 26 new episodes to run over two seasons.
"Futurama" creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen already are working on stories for the new batch of episodes of the sci-fi cartoon, slated to premiere on Comedy Central in mid-2010.
Just as with "Family Guy," whose improbable return was triggered by big DVD sales and solid ratings for the show's reruns on Cartoon Network, the performance of "Futurama's" repeats on Comedy Central and on DVD was key to its resurrection.
The 26-episode order from Comedy Central was preceded by four feature-length original "Futurama" specials: "Bender's Big Score," "The Beast With a Billion Backs," "Bender's Game" and "Into the Wild Green Yonder," which have done well on DVD and on Comedy Central. (The most recent special, "Yonder," premieres on Comedy Central in September.)
Comedy Central was happy with the specials and with the 72 produced episodes of "Futurama" it acquired from 20th Century Fox TV in 2006.
"Yet there is nothing like new, self-contained episodes week to week," said Comedy Central's senior vice president programing David Bernath. "This is all about reinvigorating the franchise, giving it a new burst of energy."
"Futurama," which aired on Fox for five seasons (from 1999 to 2003) centers on Philip Fry (Billy West), a 25-year-old pizza delivery boy who accidentally freezes himself on December 31, 1999, and wakes up 1,000 years later with a fresh start at life and a "diverse" new group of friends including Leela (Katey Sagal), a tough but lovely one-eyed alien, and Bender (John DiMaggio), a robot who possesses human characteristics and flaws.
When the series returns with original episodes in 2010, it will be seven years after the show's last original episode aired on Fox. That's a much longer hiatus than the three years "Family Guy" spent on the bench before being summoned back by Fox.
The four "Futurama" specials, produced in the past two and a half years, helped bridged the gap, said Groening, who also created the Fox/20th TV long-running animated comedy "The Simpsons."
"It was a great way of keeping the show alive, and one of the great things was that everyone enjoyed doing them, so it's been relatively easy trying to get everyone who was originally on the show to come back," he said.
All key voice cast members are expected to return for the new original episodes of "Futurama," along with the series' core writing team.
Storyline-wise, the new episodes will pick up where the most recent DVD special, "Yonder," took off -- with the main characters fleeing death and flying into the unknown.
But after four epic-in-scope feature-length films, "what we will try to do is go a little bit back to pure comedy, characters and sci-fi," Cohen said.
(Editing by Sheri Linden at Reuters)

Source: Reuters

"Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert: "I'm gay"

By Alex Dobuzinskis
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "American Idol" runner-up Adam Lambert has told Rolling Stone magazine he is gay, answering a question that followed the singer for months since he gained millions of fans on the No. 1 U.S. TV talent show.
"I don't think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear that I'm gay," Lambert told the music magazine in excerpts from an interview that were released on Tuesday.
"I'm proud of my sexuality," he said. "I embrace it. It's just another part of me."
The issue with Lambert on the cover hits newsstands this Friday, with the full interview inside.
During his "American Idol" run Lambert was known for his falsetto singing, outlandish costumes, eyeliner and fingernail polish. He was nicknamed "Glambert" and Entertainment Weekly magazine called him "the most exciting 'American Idol' contestant in years."
When he lost in May's finale to the more buttoned-down Kris Allen, some fan websites and the media buzzed with speculation that being gay cost him votes from viewers who pick a winner.
Lambert, who was widely considered the front-runner going into the finale, had never publicly said he was gay. In March, when photos appeared on the Internet of him kissing another man and dressed in drag, he said only: "I have nothing to hide. I am who I am."
His sexuality became an issue widely covered in the media because "Idol," seen by an average of about 26 million viewers a week in 2009, had never crowned an openly gay winner.
The runner-up in 2003, Clay Aiken, hid his sexuality for years after his run on the show, coming out as gay in 2008.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a group that advocates for homosexual rights, said it hopes Lambert's "decision to live openly and honestly inspires gay people and opens the hearts and minds of his fans."
Lambert, 27, grew up in San Diego, California, and starred in musical theater before trying out for "Idol" last year.
In the Rolling Stone interview, he said he had a "psychedelic experience" at an annual festival held in the Nevada desert called Burning Man, and that experience convinced him to try out for "American Idol."
"I realized that we all have our own power, and that whatever I wanted to do, I had to make happen," Lambert told Rolling Stone.
Lambert also revealed a crush on Allen, who was his roommate for much of the two singers' run on "American Idol."
"He's the one guy that I found attractive in the whole group on the show: nice, nonchalant, pretty and totally my type -- except that he has a wife," Lambert joked. Continued...
Source: Reuters