Advertising

Dan Roitman's company is called Stroll , a most ill-fitting name. From a growth perspective at least, Stroll's evolution has been anything but a leisurely pace. Born 12 years ago in a Maryland dorm room, the Center City company is an impressive display of the potential of any small business, though perhaps in the extreme. In just the last year, its revenue has exploded from $17 million to $40 million, with another doubling expected by the end of 2012. Profit growth was 400 percent last year, Roitman said.

The city is targeting more than 450 illegal advertising benches on sidewalks throughout Philadelphia, with a plan to remove them and fine their owners beginning next week. The concrete-and-wood benches are regarded as safety hazards and eyesores by the city, said acting Streets Commissioner David Perri. After originally planning to begin Saturday, the city Thursday decided to give owners five more days to voluntarily remove them. A four-member Streets Department crew, using a flatbed truck and front-end loader, is scheduled to begin confiscating the benches Thursday.

INDIANAPOLIS - Super Bowl spots are still the hottest ticket in advertising. Comcast Corp.-owned NBC has sold all the commercial airtime for the Feb. 5 game in Indianapolis and even has a waiting list of advertisers. The average cost for a 30-second spot this year was $3.5 million, with some time slots costing as much as $4 million. Seth Winter, senior vice president of NBC Sports group sales and marketing, said in a recent interview that the last time slot was sold just after Thanksgiving.

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  Philadelphia City Council passed a bill Thursday to allow advertising on municipal property - an idea championed by President Darrell L. Clarke to raise money without hiking taxes. The bill is just the first step, giving zoning permission and setting up a task force that would explore which buildings and other property would be appropriate for advertising and what kinds would be allowed. Ultimately, Mayor Nutter would have to sign a contract with a vendor that would seek and manage advertising.

Philadelphia City Council President Darrell L. Clarke first proposed selling advertising on city property as a way to raise extra cash in November 2011, and he championed the idea again two months later from the stage at the Academy of Music before Mayor Nutter's second inauguration. Reporters afterward wanted to know if Nutter and the new Council president could get along, considering their past political animosities. If Clarke's municipal advertising proposal is any barometer, that relationship hasn't been going very well.

WILL THERE soon be digital ads on publicly owned property? A bill sponsored by Council President Darrell Clarke that would authorize ads on city-owned property was overwhelmingly approved yesterday, but Clarke remained skeptical, noting that the city pulled back a request for proposals (RFP) on a similar bill last year. "The opportunities are limitless," Clarke said. "I would like to see us move ahead, get the RFP out, get a contract done and start bringing in some much needed revenue.

Philadelphia International Airport has awarded a $20.4 million, seven-year contract for airport advertising to Clear Channel Airports, of Allentown, the company said Wednesday. The company will install 76 large digital screens to display advertising, including thirteen 70-inch screens in baggage-claim areas and 50-square-foot digital walls on the overhead arches of concourses B and C, said president Toby Sturek. The city-owned airport will receive a minimum of $20.4 million over the seven years of the contract, or 60 to 65 percent of gross ad sales, if that amount is greater, under terms of a contract signed this month by Mayor Nutter.

The Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. yesterday fired Earle Palmer Brown Cos./Philadelphia as its advertising agency and hired Shaeffer & Associates. The account is valued at $400,000 a year. Joan McCallion, PIDC's director of marketing, said the corporation decided to switch agencies because several employees at Earle Palmer Brown who had worked on the account no longer worked at that agency. She said their departure followed the change in the ownership and the name of the agency in 1984 - from Kalish & Rice to Earle Palmer Brown.

Richard S. Meyer, 96, of Melrose Park, a retired department store advertising executive who restored vintage telephones, died Wednesday, Aug. 31, at Abramson Center for Jewish Life in Horsham. Mr. Meyer began his career at 15, working in the advertising office at the Hecht Co. in Washington, his hometown. During World War II, he worked for Martin Aircraft in Maryland. After the war, he did advertising for Lansburgh & Bro. in Washington before returning to Hecht's as advertising manager in 1948.

The city is targeting more than 450 illegal advertising benches on sidewalks throughout Philadelphia, with a plan to remove them and fine their owners beginning next week. The concrete-and-wood benches are regarded as safety hazards and eyesores by the city, said acting Streets Commissioner David Perri. After originally planning to begin Saturday, the city Thursday decided to give owners five more days to voluntarily remove them. A four-member Streets Department crew, using a flatbed truck and front-end loader, is scheduled to begin confiscating the benches Thursday.

  Philadelphia City Council passed a bill Thursday to allow advertising on municipal property - an idea championed by President Darrell L. Clarke to raise money without hiking taxes. The bill is just the first step, giving zoning permission and setting up a task force that would explore which buildings and other property would be appropriate for advertising and what kinds would be allowed. Ultimately, Mayor Nutter would have to sign a contract with a vendor that would seek and manage advertising.

WILL THERE soon be digital ads on publicly owned property? A bill sponsored by Council President Darrell Clarke that would authorize ads on city-owned property was overwhelmingly approved yesterday, but Clarke remained skeptical, noting that the city pulled back a request for proposals (RFP) on a similar bill last year. "The opportunities are limitless," Clarke said. "I would like to see us move ahead, get the RFP out, get a contract done and start bringing in some much needed revenue.

Philadelphia City Council President Darrell L. Clarke first proposed selling advertising on city property as a way to raise extra cash in November 2011, and he championed the idea again two months later from the stage at the Academy of Music before Mayor Nutter's second inauguration. Reporters afterward wanted to know if Nutter and the new Council president could get along, considering their past political animosities. If Clarke's municipal advertising proposal is any barometer, that relationship hasn't been going very well.

Five years ago, Comcast Corp. was the nation's 50th-largest advertiser. Comcast, now with movie, news, and entertainment giant NBCUniversal under its corporate umbrella, rose to second-largest last year behind Procter & Gamble. The New York research firm Kantar Media says Comcast uncorked $1.7 billion in ads on consumers in 2012. Procter & Gamble, whose brands include Tampax, Pantene, Pampers, and Duracell, spent $2.8 billion. No. 3 was General Motors with $1.6 billion. Kantar tracks advertising on multiple platforms - radio, TV, billboards, the Internet, magazines, and newspapers - and then estimates the cost.

ATLANTA - The thing you notice about the members of the 49ers' defense - besides the fact that they're very, very good - is that they play the game very businesslike. You'll seldom see them celebrating a big play with the uh, for lack of a better word, gusto, of many of their NFL colleagues. They're not big on sack dances or cock-a-doodle-doo struts or doing that standing-over-ballcarrier thing that Eagles safety Kurt Coleman is so fond of. You can thank Jim Harbaugh for that.

Colin Hanna , who runs the national conservative advocacy and fund-raising network Let Freedom Ring in West Chester, used to buy millions in ads on TV and news and political websites. But not this year. "We're doing it the opposite way: We're buying the audience," Hanna said. Hanna and his group are following voters from dozens of targeted social groups and tracking them by their online habits. Then they send the voters targeted ads, not visible to others, at hundreds of popular sites - Comcast's Infinity, MTV.com, Pandora, Yahoo , and magazine and game websites - says Hanna, a former Chester County commissioner.

"FUN SIZE" is a 90-minute theatrical release from Nickelodeon Productions that, if anything, should have aired as a half-hour Nickelodeon special. Instead, here it comes into multiplexes five days before Oct. 31 to try to steal some box-office cash from bored teens or parents who would rather take their kids to a crummy Halloween comedy than spend the weekend carving jack-o'-lanterns. Moms, dads, do what you have to do. But know this: Submerging one's hands in gooshy pumpkin guts is a pleasure compared with sitting through this often crass romp about a teenage girl (Victoria Justice)

Thomas J. Quigley, 74, of Moorestown, an advertising and public relations agency owner, died of lung cancer, Tuesday, Oct. 16, at Virtua Marlton Hospital. For more than 20 years, Mr. Quigley operated Quigley Communications in Center City and later in Haddonfield. His accounts included Thrift Drug, CBS3 (KYW-TV), and Philadelphia Ad Club, where he published the newsletter for more than 10 years. Mr. Quigley closed his business six years ago but continued to work for Ideal Lab Marketing in Moorestown.

James M. Rock, 84, of Bryn Mawr, a former advertising sales representative, died Sunday, Sept. 30, at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Mr. Rock was born in Marshall, Minn., graduated from the University of Minnesota, and was in the armed services. He met his wife, Rita Ann, who died in 1999, while they were working one summer at Glacier National Park, according to their daughter, Anne Rock Maurer. "They were the best of friends, complemented each other perfectly," she said. Mr. Rock spent most of his advertising sales career at the Farm Journal, the nation's oldest agricultural publication, in Philadelphia.