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Page 10 NORTHWEST HERALD taction B Wednesday, Augu«t7, lft5 Nation Doonesbury gang ignores sales' $iren $ong By Susan Postlewaite UPI Business Writer MIAMI -- Garfield is wearing a jogging suit, fishing and plajfag golf at a Florida retirement devel­ opment. Snoopy is selling life insur­ ance in New York. Popeye is hawk­ ing Kodak cameras. Wimpy is thinking of switching from ham­ burgers to Lipton soup. Some of the nation's most famous comic strip characters are earning millions for their creators and agents this year plugging every­ thing from T-shirts to real estate. Except for the characters in Doonesbury, who don't sell any­ thing. Creator Garry Trudeau doesn't rent his strip. Soon, Garfield, the chubby cat, will be splashed across 130 bill­ boards along a stretch of highway in northeast Florida where a subsid­ iary of ITT Corp. hopes to lure prospective home buyers off the highway to visit model homes. On every third billboard or so, Garfield sighs, "Live the good life at Palm Coast." Gerry Sorkin, director of market­ ing for ITT-Community Develop­ ment Corp., said he considered many other personalities for Palm Coast, located about 30 miles north of Daytona Beach, but his market­ ing research indicated "most people feel good about Garfield." "We looked at all of the comic strip characters and some televi­ sion characters in terms of Expo­ sure and adaptability to what we had to sell overall and really Gar field came out on top," Sorkin said. "The cat itself is sort of happy-go- lucky. Not so philosophical, but with the intention of enjoying the good life," he said. There may be a risk that the billboards will deter some prospec­ tive buyers who dislike Garfield, or cats in general, Sorkin admitted, but he said he did not think it was a significant one. "There is always some risk that somebody's not going to like what you do on billboards, on television or in magazines. There are some people who don't like Donald Duck. But they are few and far between," he said. Palm Coast might have liked to have had Donald Duck on its bill­ boards, but Disney has teamed up with Arvida Corp., the Florida de­ velopment company, and Disney characters are not available. He said he considered Big Bird, Bullwwkle and others but felt their exposure wasn't as great as Gar­ field's. "We didn't even look at Doonesbury because the characters are totally unidentifiable as far as breadth of market," Sorkin said. Doonesbury's creator wouldn't have rented his characters to Palm Coast anyway. "He's Just not into it," said .Norma Stanley, publicity coordinator for Universal Press. "We're hoping he'll change his mind." Earlier this year, Metropolitan Life, the stodgy dowager of the in­ surance industry, surprised the competition by announcing it would put the bulk of its $25 million adver­ tising budget this year into a Pea­ nuts ad campaign. "It really began with Linus and his security blanket with Linus say­ ing something about security and Metropolitan Life. It sort of grew into using all the Peanuts charac­ ters," said Bob Weinstein, assistant vice president of marketing for Met­ ropolitan Life. Weinstein said Metropolitan will not try to measure the success of the ads until the end of this year. But he said the company did exten­ sive marketing studies before launching the $20 million Peanuts campaign in January. "We aid a lot of focus groups and one-on-one interviews. Every time we showed a Peanuts ad to people they responded, nine out of 10 times, positively," he said. In one ad, Shroeder is sitting at his piano. Lucy says, "I've heard creative people are terrible money managers." Shroeder responds: "On the con­ trary," and explains the benefits of a Metropolitan Individual Retire­ ment Account. Neither the clients nor the licens­ ing companies will disclose how much it costs to use a character. A spokeswoman for United Feature Syndicate, which licenses Garfield for creator Jim Davis, said a li­ cense could cost "anywhere from $100 to $1 million depending on what you're promoting." She said about 220 businesses, in­ cluding American Express, have contracts to use Garfield. Snoopy, who plugs everything from Cheerios to golf bags, and Garfield are some of the hottest comic strip characters this year, but many others are in prolific use. The prehistoric snake, ant and turtle in B.C. by creator Johnny Hart have promoted Pitney Bowes' copy machines for years. "We find his style very friendly to our equipment. The B.C. characters talk about current things and people McNugget a loser in fast food ratings Scripps Howard News Service CSPI, a consumer health organization in Washington, D.C., recently surveyed fast food restaurants and published a list of what staff members consider to be the "New Worst," "New Best," and "Honorable Mentions" among foods which entered the market during the past two years. The information appeared in last month's issue of CSPI's Nutrition Action , Health Letter. The newly named worst foods are: Hoy Rogers' crescent sandwich with ham, Wendy's cheese stuffed potato, McDonald's chicien McNuggets, Hardee's bacon cheeseburger, and McDonald's sausage biscuit. When informed that chicken McNuggets hit the worst list, a representa­ tive for McDonald's Corp. replied, "It's one of our most popular items." And a representative for Wendy's said of the cheese-stuffed potato: "We also have a plain baked potato available." Best on the CSPI list are Long John Silver's basket fish, Jack in the Box shrimp salad without dressing and Wendy's reduced calorie dressings. Honorable mentions go to Arby's roasted chicken breast and Wendy's multigram bun. Last month, CSPI tried to further help the consumer make wise fast food choices. The center, along with the food allergy committee of the American College of Allergists and the New York State Consumer Protection Board, petitioned the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture to require ingredi- ! ent labeling on fast foods. Arby's already lists the ingredients on its roast beef sandwiches, but not in its other foods. Currently, the consumer can get , 'a list of ingredients only by writing to fast food companies. While the Food pnd Drug Administration requires ingredient labeling for packaged, > canned and bottled foods, it doesn't require it for restaurant foods. Most fast food restaurants will mail nutritional information to consumers and information about ingredients if a consumer has an allergy. Arby's was the only fast food restaurant queried which gave its complete ingredient information to CSPI, but most will give consumers nutritional information. ! the companies also will give ingredient information about a specific item if a consumer has an allergy to a substance. 47 LUCKY HOMEOWNERS WANTED SATELLITE TO EARTH TV SYSTEM Why lust Watch Local TV or Cable Whan You Can Watch Tha World? Ovor 200 Chanmte of Television Lhro Via SatolUto To introduce this new SATELLITE SYSTEM to the Northern Illinois market, the first 47 home owners responding to this ad will have •he installations of tneir new systems purchased from London done FREE, IF YOU ACT NOW! ~ LONDON HOME IMPROVEMENT CO. CaM Collect S1S-043-7400 _ HARVARD, IL YEAR and they adapted very' well to talk­ ing about copy machines," said Kirk Jewett, vice president of ad­ vertising for Pitney Bowes in Stam­ ford, Conn. "It's been highly suc­ cessful for us." Popeye has drunk Dr. Pepper, driven Toyotas in ads with Olive Oil, and taken pictures with Kodak video cameras. Wimpy, the hamburger freak in the Popeye strip, is being tested in a commercial for Lipton Soup, said Ita Goldzman, director of domestic licensing for King Features Syndicate. Blondie has made sandwiches for Dagwood using Kraft cheese. Dag- wood is soon to.be munching Dailey pickles and installing home insula­ tion for Guardian Fiberglass, Goldz­ man said. The British character Little Miss has been selling Arby roast beef sandwiches and Olivetti machines. Publicists for the characters say they often are flooded with requests for certain personalities and have to discard ones which would not por­ tray the image they want the char­ acters to convey. "With Cathy, they wanted her to do toilet paper and we said no," said Norma Stanley, publicity coor­ dinator for Universal Press Syndi­ cate, which syndicates the Cathy strip created by Cathy Guisewaite. She said Cathy would be well suit­ ed for a diet ad and the company is now negotiating with Weight Watchers. • , "We get requests practically ev­ ery day for one thing or another," said Nancy Nicolelis of United Fea­ ture Syndicate, which licenses Snoopy, Garfield, and others. "We would not do a liquor company. That's not the image we want Snoopy and Charlie Brown to project." United Feature meanwhile has high hopes for a new character called Robotman, a lonely robot who wears a whirligig beanie and befriends a middle class kid. The strip, by creator Jim Med- dick, made its debut in February. United Feature already is picturing Robotman promoting high tech products, like satellites and cellular phones. While some characters are more versatile than others, the publicists say any of the figures can relate well to one product or another. Even Hagar the Horrible has about 20 licenses for products such as mugs and greeting cards. WANTED: People who care about their hair because... "We Care About You!" Paul Hyland's Hair Design 256 Oak St. • Crystal Lake 455-0780 Call for appointments with Lori, John and Steve VCR Repairs by Specialists! Bring us your \/CR and this ad for $5.00 off on a maintenance inspec­ tion and head cleaning or $10 off on repair service. JBfeT he , {(Satellite Source A subsidiary of Howard-Shadim Electronics. Inc. Where Electronic Engineering stands behind our Sales 221 Liberty Crystal Point Center Crystal Lake, IL 815*455-6100 FIRST INSTITUTE OF TRAVEL! 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