Market Research

This year, says Patrick Baldasare, hundreds of thousands of Americans will become victims of a "sugging" - and he's upset about it. Sugging? The term originated in England. "Sug" is short for Selling Under the Guise of market research. It refers to a telemarketing practice in which the caller claims to be conducting a survey, when the real object of the call is to sell something. As Baldasare sees it: "This is unethical and an injustice to the public. " It is also hurting his business.

Timothy J. Mahoney has decided to flip the land on which he planned to build the city's tallest residential skyscraper. Real estate experts say the 22,433-square-foot plot could fetch $60 million because, after six years of market research and planning - and three years of legal wrangling - Mahoney has a clearly established right to build a 57-story tower at 1441 Chestnut St., just off the Avenue of the Arts. "The market has come to him. There has been a tremendous amount of unsolicited interest in buying the project," said Robert Fahey, executive vice president of CB Richard Ellis Inc., the real estate firm hired by Mahoney, an Ardmore developer, and his partner, Brook J. Lenfest.

The summer of 1996 officially ended this weekend. It may be remembered for many things: rain, a horrible plane crash, more rain, and the triumph of marketing over everything else. What the summer will not be remembered for is indelible entertainment, sports or politics. This past summer was the one packed thick with big events: the Olympics, political conventions, very expensive movies. But big events, especially those ruled by marketing and polling predicting human behavior, do not make for memorable moments.

Bette Schwartz considers her chronic hay fever to be an annoying fact of life, but at least on Wednesday, it was profitable. For her sniffling, Schwartz, of Philadelphia, earned $40 in two hours as a paid respondent in a market research focus group. She is typical of many of the 50 or so people a week to visit the Philadelphia Focus market research lab in Whitemarsh. They are paid for telling manufacturers what they think of their toilet-bowl-cleaning products, their hay fever medications, the bounciness of their basketballs, the look of their handbags, the appeal of their swing sets or - often - the appeal of the advertisements for such products.

It was all about jeans for many teens shopping for back-to-school clothes at Cherry Hill Mall last week. "I like the ripped jean, and more loose-fitting. Not tight," said Andrea Bialon, 16, of Marlton, who was browsing at the mall's American Eagle Outfitters store with her sister, Amanda. Peasant skirts and T-shirts bearing humorous sayings also are expected to be big sellers in the next few weeks, taking some of the spotlight back from the iPods, laptops and other gadgets that ruled last year.

The advertising business, Stanley Elkman was saying, "is a whole new ball game today. " In the early 1950s, when he founded the Elkman Advertising agency here, the process of creating a campaign for an advertiser was a fairly straightforward one, he recalled. Back then, an advertiser would hire him to create an ad campaign. He and his two employees would put their heads together and, in a creative flash, would come up with a catchy slogan or a clever piece of copy that they would bang out on noisy, manual typewriters.

Charming Shoppes, the Bensalem women's apparel retailer that operates Fashion Bug and Fashion Bug Plus, yesterday announced that it had selected Earle Palmer Brown to handle advertising, strategic planning, market research and, perhaps, public relations. The Philadelphia advertising agency bested four other finalists for the lucrative account. Among them were Baltimore heavy hitter W.B. Doner & Co. and New York's snappy and irreverent DeVito/Verdi, known here for its bus advertisements for Daffy's, the discount clothing store on Walnut Street.

DiMark Inc., a Langhorne direct-marketing company with $73.4 million in revenues, will be acquired by Harte-Hanks Communications Inc. in a $155 million stock swap that will create the largest direct-marketing company in the United States. The roughly $15-a-share deal will boost Harte-Hanks' direct-marketing business to more than $300 million a year, said Jack Freeman, director of investment relations for DiMark. Harte-Hanks, of San Antonio, Texas, provides market research and advertising services and publishes six daily newspapers.

It was about marketing, and that's what Jim Moran found appealing about working with Creative Real Estate Innovations (CREI), the development company run by Gagandeep Lakhmna and his partners, Harbir Singh and Amardeep "Billy" Grewal. What Moran didn't anticipate was being stiffed for his work to the tune of $140,000 - the cost of getting CREI's first and priciest condo project, 101 Walnut, on the market and sold. "It has been the most frustrating year and a half," said Moran, who with Paul Newman founded and owns Co-op Branding in Manhattan, an international marketing firm with a host of high-powered clients, including Johnson & Johnson and Loews Hotel Group.

I have been a broadcasting talent for 12 years and an executive in management for six years, also in broadcasting. I possess solid skills in many areas of radio station operation. However, I wish to move on either to something on a higher plane in broadcasting or preferably to another industry. How do I market myself to make a career change? How do I find a new career? - P.U.P., Philadelphia First, try to parlay your accumulated broadcasting experience into something bigger in the same field.

Few of us make a ripple in the grand river of time. We may leave descendants, some possessions passed along to subsequent generations. Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56, was not that sort of person. What he did, who he was, changed our lives, altering the landscape of technology, communication, and entertainment. He was the bend in the river. He imagined our future through brilliant marketing, making progress tangible and tactile. "You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.

WHILE federal regulators spent last weekend unsuccessfully hunting for the cause of last Thursday's momentary financial meltdown, I was monitoring a classic American enterprise. It featured a partnership agreement, product development and market research, not to mention an advertising plan, pricing strategy, concessions, negotiations and money-handling. Unlike the current financial markets and their fluctuations, this one didn't require a Ph.D. in economics to follow. It was a yard sale run largely by our three sons, ages 9, 12 and 14. Weeks ago, I'd proposed that they manage the sale with a twofold purpose: first, to relieve our garage and attic of all the stuff we'd accumulated but didn't need or want.

IMS Health Inc., which provides market research to the pharmaceutical and health-care industries, said yesterday that it agreed to be acquired for $5.2 billion, including the assumption of debt. The buyers are private-equity firm TPG Capital and the investment board of the Canada Pension Plan. IMS headquarters are in Norwalk, Conn., but its major employment center - with about 1,000 people - is in Blue Bell. The company employs 7,500 people globally, but it is still completing 850 job cuts announced in July.

It was about marketing, and that's what Jim Moran found appealing about working with Creative Real Estate Innovations (CREI), the development company run by Gagandeep Lakhmna and his partners, Harbir Singh and Amardeep "Billy" Grewal. What Moran didn't anticipate was being stiffed for his work to the tune of $140,000 - the cost of getting CREI's first and priciest condo project, 101 Walnut, on the market and sold. "It has been the most frustrating year and a half," said Moran, who with Paul Newman founded and owns Co-op Branding in Manhattan, an international marketing firm with a host of high-powered clients, including Johnson & Johnson and Loews Hotel Group.

Albert J. Wood, 95, a credit card pioneer, founder of a business research firm, and supporter of Penn's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, died Monday of a heart attack at home in Center City. He was a longtime resident of Merion. Mr. Wood got his break in marketing credit cards in the 1930s, when he persuaded Lit Brothers to offer charge cards to customers. Through his Center City credit bureau, Mr. Wood marketed them to corporations and banks. He founded A.J. Wood Research in 1936, which eventually became a top market researcher.

Timothy J. Mahoney has decided to flip the land on which he planned to build the city's tallest residential skyscraper. Real estate experts say the 22,433-square-foot plot could fetch $60 million because, after six years of market research and planning - and three years of legal wrangling - Mahoney has a clearly established right to build a 57-story tower at 1441 Chestnut St., just off the Avenue of the Arts. "The market has come to him. There has been a tremendous amount of unsolicited interest in buying the project," said Robert Fahey, executive vice president of CB Richard Ellis Inc., the real estate firm hired by Mahoney, an Ardmore developer, and his partner, Brook J. Lenfest.

Merck & Co. Inc. said yesterday that it would cut 7,000 jobs and close five plants worldwide, the biggest layoff in its history and a sign of deepening retrenchment across the drug industry. The closings and job cuts, amounting to 11 percent of its nearly 63,000 employees, are expected to save Merck $3.5 billion to $4 billion between 2006 and 2010, or about 5 percent of its estimated expenses. The reduction fell short of Wall Street expectations, but executives emphasized that it was just the first phase of a cost-cutting plan that also would include restructuring the marketing and research divisions.

It was all about jeans for many teens shopping for back-to-school clothes at Cherry Hill Mall last week. "I like the ripped jean, and more loose-fitting. Not tight," said Andrea Bialon, 16, of Marlton, who was browsing at the mall's American Eagle Outfitters store with her sister, Amanda. Peasant skirts and T-shirts bearing humorous sayings also are expected to be big sellers in the next few weeks, taking some of the spotlight back from the iPods, laptops and other gadgets that ruled last year.

Almost elbow-deep in "sticky-bun goo," the Delaware Valley College junior dreams of opening a bakery one day. "This gives me experience," said Karen Bartz, 20, who works at the college's new $1.4 million Farm Market on the Doylestown Township campus. The Ivyland resident, who stirred sugar, butter and honey in a 20-quart bowl, studies food-service management. She said she has learned how to make creme brulee, tarts, and other sweets sold at the Farm Market. In the market's produce section, the artistically displayed broccoli, beets, lettuce and peppers were grown on campus by agricultural students.

You can get a pretty good argument going about whether Eagles fans or Packers fans are the more passionate. But facts are facts. Compared to their counterparts in Wisconsin, the Eagles faithful are better-educated, better-paid, more tech-savvy and more widely traveled. You can look it up. This information comes from an impartial source - a survey of NFL fans, done market-by-market by Scarborough Sports Marketing and published last year by the SportsBusiness Journal. Appearances (at times)