WADE DANIELS Staff Reporter After nine years in the business of making signs, Dan Pulos still gets a thrill when he’s driving along and sees a sign made by his company, Signs 2000. These days Pulos doesn’t have to drive far. His company’s signs are all over greater Los Angeles, at businesses like Carlson Travel Network, L.A. Cellular or many a national fast food restaurant. “I see our work all over the place, and it’s still rewarding to see something and realize it’s ours,” said Pulos, who founded the company in 1990. The Canoga Park-based company makes mostly smaller and medium-sized signs that can be used inside or outside a business, everything from exit signs and company department listings to larger promotional banners and illuminated plastic signs. Pulos prints the company’s signs on a special vinyl film that can then be applied to wood, glass, metal or other surfaces. Signs 2000 also makes decals, including glow-in-the-dark varieties, that can be affixed to cars, trucks, buses or emergency vehicles. Through direct mail marketing and word of mouth, Signs 2000 has seen its revenue double since 1996 to a projected $2.2 million this year. To keep up with the demand for signs, the company is working two shifts, and it is looking for a 10,000 square foot space locally to add to its 4,000 square feet of storefront and production space. The added space will allow Signs 2000 to bid on larger jobs, allowing the company to compete for work outside the L.A. area. In July it opened its first outside sales office, in Denver. “We haven’t had the capacity to go after the size of jobs we’d like, so that’s our next step,” Pulos said. About 40 percent of the customers are from fast food companies, 40 percent are from general retail and the rest are “architecture signs” used in and around buildings. He attracts new business through direct mail campaigns, in which the company invests about $30,000 a year. Through the mailing of postcards and brochures. the company has attracted some of its largest customers. One of Signs 2000’s oldest customers is the Kenneth Management Group Inc., a Woodland Hills-based property management firm. Signs 2000 makes all the signs used at the company’s commercial and residential properties throughout Los Angeles, identifying the managers, rooms, offices and other incidentals such as directions to certain departments. “They always have the leading edge sign computer technology that makes our signs look modern and professional, the way we want,” said Kenneth Becker, the company’s president. While Signs 2000 uses computerized sign making equipment, it is still able to please customers that want an old-style look. “Our restaurants have to have a 1940s look in all respects, and our signs from Signs 2000 keep with the look,” said Alethea Rowe, director of marketing for The Ruby Restaurant Group. Signs 2000 makes all the interior signs for the Newport Beach-based, 28- restaurant Ruby’s diner chain, such as “no smoking” signs, hours of operation, posted menus and even health code signs the eateries are required to post. Rowe said Ruby’s used to have an artist that hand-painted all these signs, but that became expensive. She said that Signs 2000’s work is on par with the hand-painted signs. Pulos started the company about a year after losing his job in 1989 as chief financial officer of a high-tech firm that made light-measuring equipment. He decided he wanted to try running his own business, and looked at lots of small businesses for sale but found none that excited him. Frustrated, he drew up a list of about 18 characteristics he wanted in a business, including business-to-business sales (so the company would be dealing mostly with other professionals) and a small number of employees (so the firm would have a family-type atmosphere.) A former boss suggested he look into the sign industry, given the sector’s fast growth, and Pulos found a business that matched nearly all the criteria he was looking for. He investigated opening a franchise, but decided against it because of the royalty requirements every month and restrictions on the size of his region. For that reason, Pulos is glad he decided to go it alone. “We have customers in other areas of the country, and we couldn’t do that if we were a franchise,” he said. For example, Signs 2000 makes the car decals and signs for all 30 Malibu Gran Prix race tracks strewn around the country. Pulos said he is expanding in part to keep ahead of competition, which has grown substantially since he opened eight years ago. The company has 20 full-time employees, five of which have been there for at least six years. In 1990, he was the only sign store near the busy intersection of Sherman Way and Topanga Canyon Boulevard. After a few years, there were five other sign stores within a mile, and now there are three.

Architecture Marc Lallanilla has joined Ware & Malcomb Architects as project manager for the Woodland Hills office. He most recently worked as a studio designer for Merle Norman Cosmetics. Also, Michael Cristilli and Ignacio Villarin have joined the office as job captains. Cristilli was most recently project manager at Pittman Group Architects. Villarin comes to the firm from Amador Whittle Architects. Banking Steven L. Reich has been named vice president of sales and marketing at the Calabasas office of Digital Insight. His principal objectives will be to extend the company’s leadership role to the retail and commercial banking industries and to expand the company’s international presence. Prior to joining the company, Reich served as vice president of sales and marketing at Treasury Services Corp. Education Gretchen Lightfoot has been named assistant director of development and alumni relations at Viewpoint School. Her responsibilities will include grant writing, alumni affairs, external relations and work on special events. Before joining Viewpoint, Lightfoot served as a public relations officer at Union Bank of California. Entertainment Kraig T. Kitchin has been named president and chief operating officer of Sherman Oaks-based Premiere Radio Networks Inc. He will oversee all aspects of company operations. In addition, he will continue to act as the director of sales. Kitchin was recently promoted to chief operating officer. Previously, he was executive vice president and director of sales. Jed Petrick has been promoted to executive vice president of advertising sales at Burbank-based WB Television Network. Before joining The WB, Petrick was the vice president of sales for The Baseball Network, a division of Major League Baseball. Brett Robinson has been named controller of Burbank headquartered Dick Clark Productions Inc. Robinson previously was assistant controller of the company. In addition, Jack Seifert has been named vice president of production for Dick Clark Productions. He will be responsible for supervising the negotiation of services and facilities, and the formation of budgets and schedules. Previously, Seifert has served as producer for a number of sitcoms and has served as production executive for Hearst Entertainment. Corie Van Deutekom has been named director of international sales at Studio City-based Hamdon Entertainment. She will be overseeing the international sales of Hamdon’s new telefilm acquisitions, as well as its library, on a worldwide basis. Prior to joining the company, Van Deutekom was director of international sales at Mainline Releasing. High Tech Tom Govreau has been appointed chief financial officer of the Westlake Village office of Sandpiper Networks Inc. He previously was a partner with Ernst & Young. Also, Joe Eskew has been appointed vice president of sales. He previously was vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at Air Media Inc. In addition, Gerald Kobelski has been appointed vice president of network services. Prior to joining Sandpiper, he served as vice president for GTE Internetworking. Hospitality Joseph Kruvi has been appointed general manager of the Hilton Hotels Corp.’s newest acquisition, the Hilton Burbank Airport & Convention Center. Kruvi began his career in the catering department of the Hilton New York, and returns to Hilton after a 14-year absence. Most recently, Kruvi served as general manager of a new resort property on the Dead Sea in Israel. Insurance James Faustina has been appointed senior underwriter for the Glendale office of Amwest Surety Insurance Co. He will provide service to clients in eight Southern California counties. Previously, he was in the surety division of American International Group. Real Estate Anna Ma has joined the Glendale offices of Chicago Title Insurance Co. as vice president and sales team leader. She brings a four-member sales team with her. Those members are: Young Lee, sales representative; David Kim, sales representative; Julia Yu, sales representative; and Chris Lee, sales representative. Ma will be overseeing her team’s operations throughout the entire Southern California area.

SHELLY GARCIA Staff Reporter Plenty of builders use unusual architecture or lush landscaping to spruce up their industrial parks, but Royal Clark Development Co. has gone one step further in its design for the Cascades Business Park in Sylmar. The company is building a golf course. Royal Development, which is constructing the 67-acre business park on a 300-acre parcel, will devote more than 100 acres to develop an 18-hole public golf course on property the company was unable to use for the industrial center. “When we had the business park all set up, we had a lot of geography that would not be conducive for a business park but was conducive for recreation,” said Tom Clark, general partner with the Honolulu- and L.A.-based development company. “The city of Los Angeles is one of the most under served per capita for golf, with basically great weather, and we thought it would be a nice amenity for the business park.” Also affecting the decision were community groups who were concerned about the density of the industrial park in an area bordering the Angeles National Forest. “They took a homeowner’s association that was probably not pro-development and turned it to their side,” said Greg Barsamian, broker with CB Richard Ellis Inc., which is representing Royal Clark on the development. Royal Clark has begun construction on an 18-hole golf course, complete with club house, driving range and restaurant. The company hired Bob Cupp, an Atlanta based course designer, who also designed Pumpkin Ridge in Portland, and International Golf Group, a Marina del Rey company, to manage the course. Royal Clark expects the course to open next June. Though details are not yet completed, Clark expects that the public course will charge greens fees “in the $50 range” weekdays and somewhat higher on weekends. Though the course, which will be accessible through the same entrance used for the industrial park, will be open to the public, the company also will be able to help tenants with tee times and in organizing company tournaments, Clark said. The park’s current tenants include Frito-Lay Co., which last year acquired a site and built a 70,000-square-foot distribution facility; MS Aerospace, which has leased a 40,000-square-foot building; and Sears, Roebuck & Co., the development’s newest tenant, which has just leased a 90,000-square-foot building for a distribution center. The company also has begun construction on a 122,000-square-foot speculative building on the property. So far, the tenants at the park have not expressed any particular interest in the golf course, but the developer and broker expect that it will emerge as a selling point. Indeed, with municipal-owned golf courses getting maximum use, and few public courses in the immediate area, Clark believes the course will be a sure-fire hit, even if the industrial park tenants do not make use of it. “Our motive going into it was based on the business. Like anybody else, we intend to make a profit,” Clark said. Can this solution be the wave of the future as community groups become more active in development projects? Other developers point out that there are few projects of the size of the Cascades, and many industrial parks currently under construction simply wouldn’t have the space to include a golf course. On the other hand, it does offer a way to turn the open space requirements often placed on developers into income-producing ventures, and developers applaud the creative use of the land. “I’m all for it,” said Jerry Katell of Katell Properties. “As a developer, you always need to be thinking outside the box, so this is a good example.”

SHELLY GARCIA Staff Reporter It may feel like summer, but it’s starting to look a lot like Christmas in the malls across the San Fernando Valley. Since August, stores have been moving in and building out of their mall spaces as they get ready for the holiday ’98 selling season, with the bulk of the newcomers scheduled to open over the next two months. Because many of the Valley malls are nearly fully occupied, the new stores will not significantly change the profiles of the centers. Still, the newcomers will give shoppers the chance to buy everything from a $2,000 train set at The Great Train Store Co., to watches from Swatch that double as telephones. The question, of course, is what will shoppers buy and in what amounts. While consumer confidence remains high and unemployment low, several imponderables could upset the season, including a volatile stock market, possible presidential impeachment hearings and world economic troubles. “You’re starting to see cracks in the facade, more signs of a slowdown in the economy,” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles. “I think it’s going to be an okay Christmas, but I don’t think it’s going to be a barn burner.” Kyser and others say that Wall Street will be the one factor that determines the outcome of the holiday season. If the market stabilizes, consumers may well spend freely. But if the uncertainty of past weeks continues into November and December, shoppers are likely to become extremely, whether or not their own personal fortunes change. In general, the shop-till-you-drop mindset of the ’80s is definitely a thing of the past, say retailers and analysts. Consumers are demanding value for their money, even if they have a lot of it. Shoppers define value in two ways, either by virtue of the price or the quality of the product, said Richard Giss, a partner in the trade retail services group of Deloitte & Touche LLP. If a product doesn’t have a low price, then it has to have attributes that warrant the higher cost. At The Great Train Store, for example, items range from $1 for a novelty pen decorated with a miniature train to a $2,000 collector’s train set. Stocking a wide range of prices may be especially smart this holiday season. “If people pull back on what they buy, they’re still going to fall back on their flight to value,” Giss said. Retailers are nonetheless betting that consumers will ante up for merchandise that appeals to their sense of quality, fun and fashion. “People are looking for entertainment and to have a good time,” said Michael Glazer, vice president for real estate at The Great Train Store, which is opening its first Southern California store at the Glendale Galleria in early November. Unlike TV and the Internet, collecting and setting up train sets is something families can do together. “It’s something different to do, and parents can relate to it because they had trains,” Glazer added. Many of the new offerings for the upcoming season focus on home and hearth. Pottery Barn stores in Topanga Plaza and Fashion Square in Sherman Oaks will expand their square footage more than three-fold and add new lighting galleries, bath shops and bed linen assortments to the tableware, kitchen, housewares and decorative accessories mix. There will also be a “design studio” where customers can map out a floor plan of their rooms and then coordinate furnishings for the layout. “People are making a lot of money. They’re buying first homes and second homes, and as we’re able to expand, we’re doing so,” said Jennifer Drubner, a spokeswoman for the company. There will also be new apparel offerings. Betsey Johnson, a trendy women’s apparel shop, will open a new 1,400-square-foot store in the Sherman Oaks Fashion Square. Though the company has always preferred street locations, executives felt the Sherman Oaks location was a good one to attract the estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of its customers who are East Valley residents. Stacia Heath, director of West Coast retail, said the company has recently added a new line called Betsey Johnson’s Social Dresses, with party dresses selling at $250 to $500. “We anticipate those will be very big for holiday,” she said. Swatch, too, thinks that fashion, along with a distinctive brand image, can be a big draw for consumers in the current market. The backlash that followed the designer-label mania of the ’80s, is over, said Whitney Doherty, special events and public relations coordinator at Swatch’s U.S. headquarters in Weehawken, N.J. “What I see is a complete turnaround where people are much more into labels than ever before,” Doherty said. “It used to stand for quality and luxury and a sense of achievement. Now it stands for an identity. People are looking to belong to a group.” Like a number of manufacturers lately, Swatch is setting up its own stores. The first in Southern California will be a 460-square-foot store in the Glendale Galleria this month. The company is also opening in Santa Monica as well. The company’s hope is that by controlling the way its merchandise is presented and sold, Swatch can better establish its brand identity across a wider market. The Glendale Galleria is also getting a new California Orchards store, which will open its sixth store in the Galleria this fall. The store sells dried fruits and nuts, exotic olive oils and vinegars, pesto and other sauces and condiments along with a selection of 48 hot sauces. Ali Hashemian, the company president, said he’s not worried about his pricey, gourmet items because today’s shopper is looking for quality, and his products meet their criterion. Besides, he believes California Orchards would be relatively insulated from the effects of a downturn in the economy. “In a bad economy, where people are not able to indulge themselves in eating out, they turn to food (they can treat themselves to at home)”, Hashemian said. For those looking to buy a little peace of mind, Health & Wholeness may be just the ticket. The company is opening a 1,319-square-foot store its first in Southern California in the Topanga Plaza Mall in Woodland Hills. The retailer, with roots in the transcendental meditation movement founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and championed by the Beatles in the ’60s, sells herbal supplements with names like “Worryfree” and “Blissful Joy.” Health & Wholeness made the move into Southern California because its catalog sales division identified the area as having one of the largest concentrations of customers for its supplements, aromatherapy oils and prepared foods, such as Raja’s Cup, a coffee substitute that doubles as an anti-oxidant that is thought to be helpful in warding off diseases. But whether they target those seeking inner peace or those still clinging to the outer trappings of wealth, these newcomers all share one thing in common: They are niche players hoping to capture a bigger slice of middle America’s discretionary income. “We’re going mainstream, big time,” said Kelly Lunsford, retail operations coordinator for Health & Wholeness, the retailing division of Maharishi Ayurved Products International, which plans to open three more stores in the Southern California market by next spring.

By SHELLY GARCIA Staff Reporter A local San Fernando Valley property owner has proposed the development of a big-box shopping center on Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks. The center would be located at the site of the former Coast Savings bank between Van Nuys and Sepulveda boulevards. It would be the only big-box development in Sherman Oaks, whose retail community generally consists largely of small, neighborhood shops. H & M; Konjoyan, a family-owned owned business which owns several properties in the Valley, closed escrow on the Coast property several weeks ago, paying around $2 million, the original asking price for the coveted corner lot, said Carrie Konjoyan, co-owner of the company and a past president of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce. The family owns an adjacent property, the Lindora Medical building, and plans to tear down those two facilities for a two-story center with a total of about 100,000 square feet of selling space and parking facilities both above and under ground. “We’re hoping to break ground in the next year or so,” said Konjoyan. Before that happens, H & M; Konjoyan will have to overcome several hurdles, including obtaining a zoning variance to build a taller structure than the specific plan currently allows and finding a way to ease the potential traffic congestion, which is the greatest concern of community groups. But if the company is able to navigate its project through the city and neighborhood groups, it stands to profit mightily, developers said. “It’s a home run,” said Cliff Goldstein, a partner with J.H. Snyder Co., which is currently developing a big-box center in Woodland Hills. “All the big boxes want to be on Ventura Boulevard, and there are so few spaces to get.” With a few exceptions, there has not been sufficient space along the boulevard to develop centers that can accommodate retailers requiring 20,000 square feet of space or more. The site already has drawn interest from a number of national chain stores, attracted by the demographics of Sherman Oaks and its central location in the East San Fernando Valley. “It meets almost every requirement for population and income,” said Art Ross, whose Ventura-based brokerage, A.J. Ross Commercial, represents Konjoyan. “You have a dense area. You have a higher than average income.” The center also is located between a Pavilions market and a newly-remodeled Sav-On Drugs store, making it even more attractive, he added. Besides local residents, big-box retailers can also draw on the significant daytime traffic generated by surrounding businesses, particularly if a proposal to redevelop the nearby Sherman Oaks Galleria and with it, an additional 45,000 square feet of office space goes through, the developers said. One potential tenant for the Galleria’s office space is Warner Bros., which is in discussions to locate its animation facilities in the center’s office complex. Such a move would add an estimated 150,000 square feet or more of office occupancy, according to brokers. Ross said the interest in the big-box center has come from retailers of both soft goods and hard goods with space needs ranging from 17,000-50,000 square feet. The company expects to lease to no more than three stores. The Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, which has a strong presence in the community and has waged successful opposition to many development proposals, has given a tentative nod to the project. “We support the concept as long as traffic problems are solved,” said Richard Close, the association’s president. “But until we get the details, we can’t really evaluate the pluses and minuses.” In addition to the dense concentration of shops and restaurants along Ventura Boulevard, a free-standing Borders Books & Music unit is under development less than a half mile east of the proposed center site. “The combination of Borders and this use means traffic is going to be a major concern,” Close said. “I’m concerned about traffic too,” added Konjoyan. “We intend to address it to the best of our ability.” The zoning variance required may pose additional problems. “We don’t have a position on the project other than we have some concerns about the exception to the specific plan,” said Sharon Mayer, field deputy to City Councilman Michael Feuer. She said that while community support is important in deciding requests for variances, city officials also consider the intent of the specific plan. Although it does not directly prohibit larger stores, it does include height restrictions in order to encourage pedestrian traffic and to guard against congestion from automobile traffic. H & M; Konjoyan, which has hired the architectural firm John Ash Group to draft a preliminary design for the center, has begun meeting with local community groups and civic leaders.

WADE DANIELS Staff Reporter Amid an array of brass doorknobs and cabinet handles displayed behind the counter at the Deco-Brass store in Tarzana are five mirrors from France. Costing as much as $600 apiece, they are the same mirrors that a Deco Brass Inc. customer went crazy over at the Ritz Hotel in Paris a few years back and had to have. So store owner Ernest Amster made several overseas calls, found the maker called French Reflection and had them imported from France. “That’s how I find a lot of what I sell,” Amster said. “People tell me about something they saw, or come in with a type of drawer handle that I haven’t seen, and we find it where it’s from and add to our line.” The story helps explain how Amster, his wife Talma and their seven employees at Deco Brass have built what customers call a one-of-a-kind store in the region. As property values rebound in the San Fernando Valley, stores like Deco Brass are finding that people are putting more money in to sprucing up their homes. “We are certainly busier than a couple years ago,” said Amster. “People are buying new houses or improving their homes. Sometimes they buy cheaper items, but most people are buying the high-quality stuff.” Wedged between a fast food joint and an auto body shop on Ventura Boulevard, the store is easy to miss, though its customers say it has the broadest selection of handles, knobs, faucets, sinks, toilets and other decorative home implements around. “I’ve been to Home Depot and other places, but nowhere is there such a selection of these things,” said Kathryn Paddock, a homemaker from Hidden Hills, who came to buy some towel hooks for her family’s home. “I’ve bought sinks here, and lots of brands of kitchen things that I didn’t see anywhere else.” Amster had been working as a civil engineer for a Valley home-building company, and his boss kept an account at Deco Brass, meaning Amster often stopped by to pick out goods for the houses. He struck up a friendship with the owners, and they offered to sell him the business on special terms he could meet, coming in with little down. “I was scared to death, because I had no business experience and knew little about this field,” Amster said. “But they convinced me and my wife convinced me to buy the business.” After taking over, Amster said he listened to the store’s employees, and decided that to be competitive, Deco Brass needed to expand its selection. “We had to have a larger stock, new suppliers, find the interesting imported goods,” said Amster, who emigrated from his native Czechoslovakia in 1948. “Now we’ve got products from companies in Italy, in Hungary, France, many places.” He estimates that the store has more than 100 brands of decorative goods on its walls and in the catalogs it has amassed. More than that, Amster wanted his store to have most goods available for customers instantly, and has devoted about four-fifths of the store’s 10,000-square-foot building to warehouse space. While Amster has noticed an increase in customers seeking fixtures for their homes, he has also noticed an increase in competition. Not from increasingly popular home stores like Home Depot which he says have a poor selection of decorative goods but from “cut-throats,” who visit construction sites and sell decorative goods to builders at very low rates. “They have no overhead, and their price makes the buyer care a little less about selection,” Amster said. “It’s not a super profitable business, but it’s a special business that I make a decent living at.”

WADE DANIELS Staff Reporter Carl Schatz swears he never intended for Encino State Bank to have more than the one flagship branch it opened last October. Encino State was the fourth San Fernando Valley bank that Schatz founded (the others were sold to larger banks), and he figured this one would keep just one location and provide service to a focused area. Now the no-expansion plan has been scrubbed, with Encino State Bank set to open a Santa Monica branch in mid-October. It aims to fill what’s perceived as a void in the personal banking market as a result of Santa Monica Bank being acquired early this year. “With the Santa Monica Bank merger we feel that a window of opportunity has opened up,” said Schatz, Encino State Bank’s chairman and chief executive. “We can’t replace the nostalgia for Santa Monica Bank that some people have, but we think we can offer the personal service they were known for.” Santa Monica Bank was acquired in January by Newport Beach-based Western Bancorp. Schatz said the idea for a new branch came from former executives of Western Bank and Santa Monica Bank, whose positions were eliminated in the merger. Richard Lawrence, who was executive vice president and regional manager at a Western Bank branch in Santa Monica until the acquisition, was a longtime friend of Schatz and approached him early this year with the idea of expanding over the hill. Schatz said the proposal for the new branch, and the chance to have some trusted friends in the business run it, led him to support the idea. The original concept for Encino State Bank was that it would be a “unit bank,” a one-location entity, as was the previous bank Schatz founded in 1986, the Bank of Encino. “I figured that the way the business is run nowadays, it might be a good idea if we were spread around some,” Schatz said. The new branch will be in the vicinity of Wilshire and Lincoln boulevards, Schatz said, and like the original branch will focus on serving everyday depositors and businesses with annual sales of less than $20 million. Will having the word “Encino” in the bank’s name be a turn-off to Westside customers? Not really, said Michael Chesser, a certified public accountant at Satriano & Hilton Inc. in Brentwood, which will be moving its accounts to the new branch. “Generally, entrepreneurs and business people are pretty practical and will welcome whatever offers them solutions, regardless of name,” he said.

WADE DANIELS Staff Reporter Amid piles of documents in his office, Kenneth Jacobsen has videocassette copies of “The Truman Show” and “Godzilla,” complete with samples of the promotional ads and posters that accompanied their release this summer. The movies, which have not yet been officially released on video, are just two of the 292,000 illegally made videocassettes that the Motion Picture Association’s domestic anti-piracy forces have recovered in the United States during the first half of 1998. “This is what our future is becoming,” said Jacobsen, vice president and director of U.S. anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America, the MPA’s domestic arm. “It’s a new era of mediums like DVD and the Internet, and fighting digital piracy could end up a main focus for us in a few years.” Jacobsen’s Ventura Boulevard offices are the base of a global effort to stem the $2.5 billion a year that film companies like the Walt Disney Co. and Paramount Pictures lose each year movie bootleggers. It’s never been an easy job for the 190 or so staff members of the unit, who help coordinate and participate in police raids of piracy operations and lobby the U.S. and other governments for tighter copyright infringement laws. But counterfeit DVDs pose a special challenge: they can be made faster than videocassettes, and they are smaller and therefore easier to transport in larger numbers. “We are quite concerned about digital formats as they can be reproduced quickly, are smaller in size, and have same quality whether it’s the third copy or the thousandth copy,” said Judy Denenholz, senior vice president of worldwide anti-piracy for Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a division of The Walt Disney Co. As for Internet-based piracy, Jacobsen said, soon people may be able to log onto a site a download a movie that somebody illegally acquired. “That technology is in its infancy now,” he said. “Preventing all of this could involve encryption, but it’s too early to say.” Jacobsen said the department is meeting with the movie production companies as well as manufacturers of DVD movies and equipment and Internet industry officials to devise ways to head off digital movie bootlegging before it takes off. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is a trade group whose sole members are the seven largest movie production companies including companies like Paramount Pictures and Disney. Jacobsen, who was an FBI agent and official for 26 years before joining the association in 1995, commands a 40-person anti-piracy team that works primarily in Los Angeles and New York, and contracts with private investigators in other cities when needed. Another 150 international operatives report to Frederic Hirsch, the director of worldwide anti-piracy for the Motion Picture Association. The department, which works with a “multi-million-dollar” budget, has regional offices in Washington, D.C., Rio De Janeiro, Singapore and Brussels, plus more than a dozen branch offices, Hirsch said. Hirsch explained that it is not realistic to expect that piracy can ever be stamped out completely, but the unit aims to keep the activity at target levels in the countries the movie industry considers important markets. For example, the unit is generally meeting its goal of keeping the ratio of five or 10 illegal videos for every 100 legal videos sold in the United States, he said. The ratio is even more favorable in Canada, he said, probably because there appear to be almost no video reproduction labs there. “We generally have the resources to keep piracy from running rampant in many of the countries the industry is concerned about,” said Hirsch. “It’s different from country to country.” He said there are no financial estimates as to how much of a bite unit takes out of piracy each year. Much of the MPA’s foreign anti-piracy effort involves the organization’s representatives lobbying foreign governments to strengthen their copyright laws and provide stricter enforcement. Also, its Washington, D.C. office, where the MPA’s and MPAA’s president and chief executive Jack Valenti does much of his work, lobbies the U.S. Trade Representative’s office to pressure trading partner countries to be proactive against movie piracy. “If it’s a country that values trade with the U.S., then we can have some leverage with them (to help fight piracy),” Hirsch said. In countries that have little in the way of copyright laws, such as some African countries, the MPA makes almost no effort to fight what is often widespread piracy. At the same time, some of those same poorer countries are low priorities because are of “little commercial interest” to the studios. Hirsch said that fighting counterfeiting is an ongoing process because it is in some ways like dueling with Hydra all too often a shut down bootlegging operation will pop up somewhere else. Case in point is China, which until last year had factories devoted to reproducing counterfeit Hollywood movies, mostly on a format called video compact discs (VCDs). U.S. trade officials last year pressured the Chinese government to crack down on those operations. “It was a nice success at the time, but now pirates in surrounding countries are only too happy to supply China, which has a fairly porous border,” Hirsch said. The surrounding countries include Hong Kong, he said, which was the site of the association’s largest ever raid this past June. On that occasion, 55 facilities were raided in one day and 8 million counterfeit movie copies were seized, along with duplicating equipment worth over $60 million. VCDs, which are essentially movies on compact discs, are a popular, cheap, and unfortunately for anti-piracy forces more easily smuggled than videocassettes, as they are essentially the same size as music compact discs. In the U.S. where movie studios lose about $250 million a year the bulk of pirating involves videocassettes. This starts in labs where numerous VCRs pump out copies of films that the studios might not release on video for months. These are often sold out of boxes on crowded city streets, at swap meets and even at video stores. While New York City is the most problematic area for piracy domestically, Jacobsen said, second-place Los Angeles area is no slouch. In fact, one of the largest residential pirating labs ever discovered was busted on August 7 in the city of San Gabriel, where over 160 electronic duplicating machines were confiscated. Association officials, working with the county District Attorney’s Major Crimes Unit, found over 1,000 unauthorized copies of unreleased movies at the house, and the duplicating machines were recording copies of “Man in the Iron Mask” at the time of the search warrant was served. Most of the association’s busts stem from tips that are phoned in to its hotline (1-800-NO-COPYS). They come from neighbors of pirates, friends and others, Jacobsen said. In some cases, a competitor of a video store suspected to be selling or renting illegal movie copies will make the call. About 80 percent of the domestic anti-piracy unit’s resources are devoted to fighting the production and distribution of illegal videocassettes, while the rest goes to fighting things like the illegal tapping of cable and satellite broadcasts of movies and unauthorized public showings. Since its inception in 1975, the MPAA, along with law officials and with help from studios, have seized more than 2.6 million illegal videotapes, 32,000 film prints and other goods that have led to over 1,000 criminal convictions, according to the association. While the MPAA has been located in the Valley since it was founded, the MPA’s international anti-piracy offices moved here from New York in 1993. The proximity is a plus for movie production companies like Disney, Denenholz said. “We’re sort of like a team,” said Disney’s Denenholz said. “You have better communication and coordination when all the team members are in the same area.” Disney and many other studios have their own anti-piracy departments, she said. She said that the studio benefits from MPA anti-piracy program, though the company’s department goes after cases sometimes with the help of law enforcement officials which specifically involve Disney products.

WADE DANIELS Staff Reporter Low mortgage rates and shrinking unemployment in the San Fernando Valley are adding up to big business for mortgage lenders. A total of $499 million was loaned to Valley homeowners in July, an increase of 58.1 percent from the like period a year ago, according to Anaheim-based First American Real Estate Solutions, an industry research company. That also was 7.2 percent above June lending levels, according to First American. Tim McGarry, a spokesman at the Chatsworth offices of Washington Mutual, said business has been brisk. “We’re making loans, and the activity is still strong,” he said. The number of home loans made during the year through July rose 46.7 percent over the like period last year. In July, a total of 2,836 loans were made. In addition, home sale prices were up by 10.8 percent in July compared to a year earlier, hitting an average of $244,517. McGarry noted that unemployment is at its lowest point in decades, and said customers have been rushing in to take advantage of “the low interest rate climate.” Average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rates, which were at about 7.1 percent in July, compared to rates as high as 8.25 percent last year. By mid September, the rates had fallen to around 6.8 percent McGarry said it’s uncertain whether the market will continue to be as strong into fall, given the potential for fallout from economic problems abroad. “A question (about America’s economic future) has arisen because of the economic difficulties in Asia, in Russia and which are starting to affect South America,” he said.

Alf Nucifora As an immigrant to the United States, I can say, admittedly with some bias, that this is the greatest country in the world. Most Americans would echo that sentiment. But the abundant degree of self-belief in our own superiority is both a major strength and weakness. Nowhere is this more evident than in our attitude toward ethnic citizens, both as a nation and as marketer. As a nation, we are woefully ignorant of most things foreign. From xenophobic politicians to inadequately taught high school students who can’t distinguish between Athens, Georgia and Athens, Greece, there seems to exist a cavalier air of disinterest about our ethnic brethren. Case in point: outside of cable’s Discovery and Travel channels, media coverage of ethnic cultural activity is sparse. But ethnic audiences represent massive business opportunities. It is estimated that ethnic spending power totals $500 billion annually. Ignoring for a moment the African-American community, a separate column in its own right, the major ethnic communities in the U.S. comprise Hispanic (Latin America, Mexico, Cuba), Asian (predominantly China, Korea, Japan), the Indian subcontinent (India and Pakistan), the Middle East and Europe (primarily eastern European countries and Russia). Looking at two particular sectors, Hispanic and Asian, the numbers are startling. The nation’s 22 million Hispanic-Americans are responsible for a household growth rate in the 1990s that is outpacing the general market by 4-to-1. Hispanic disposable income is increasing three times faster than the general market over the same period. In addition, approximately 7 million Asian-American consumers represent close to $225 billion in purchasing power. Space prevents the discussion of every ethnic sector, but two examples, Asian-Americans and the Indian and Pakistani communities, will highlight some interesting insights into ethnic marketing. What do we know about them? For one thing, they represent incredible buying power, both as a purchasing bloc and as individual consumers. Since many initially came to the United States to study, they tend to be very well educated. In fact, education is one for the most highly revered attainments within those cultures. They’re exceptionally hard working and goal oriented. They also tend to be more honest and ethical than most, with a low default rate on business loans, as well as with personal financial commitments. They’re also very entrepreneurial. Currently, for example, 55 percent of budget hotels in the U.S. are owned by Indians. The corner store retail environment, from convenience store to dry cleaner, is now owned, managed and run by Asian, primarily Korean, merchants in most major cities. Fast-food franchises from Blimpie to Dairy Queen are being gobbled-up by Indians and Pakistanis who are using these entry-level retail opportunities as a way of securing their American Dream. How do we approach them? If there is one distinguishing element of the ethnic market, it is brand loyalty. Ethnic consumers tend to be much more brand loyal than mainstream Americans. Once loyalty has been established, the consumer will maintain the relationship with the brand in many instances over a lifetime. Some of the smarter big boys are learning how to play the game, including AT & T;, American Express, CitiBank, MCI, and a few of the larger and more sophisticated insurance firms. All of these companies understand the potential inherent in ethnic marketing and have specified strategies and funds precisely for that purpose. Smart marketers understand that mainstream media is ineffective as an ethnic advertising carrier. Ad agencies, lacking verifiable data, tend to ignore ethnic media. With so many languages and cultures to address, the smart marketer will seek language specific media, both broadcast and print, as a way to communicate the brand message. The sheer fact that a company advertises its products in ethnic media is in itself reinforcement of the brand loyalty equation. Ethnic consumers will reward those who ask for the order in their native language. But remember: while first generation ethnic consumers are committed to print, their sons and daughters, like their mainstream peers, are big electronic media followers. High-end brands carry added cachet and many ethnic consumers, particularly the Japanese, will pay dearly for the right to carry a Prada bag or wear a Hermes scarf. They are quality conscious and will pay the price, whether it’s 22K gold in the jewelry they wear, or the predominantly foreign brand of automobile that they drive. Yet, they’re price-conscious as well. Money has been too hard to make to be frittered away indiscriminately. They’re intelligent consumers who expect real value for the purchasing dollar. The advice for any ethnic marketer is simple treat the marketplace as you would any niche market. Understand the culture. Life insurance companies have learned to appreciate this fact. That’s why they employ ethnic salespeople who successfully sell within their own communities. To that end, be willing to hire ethnic personnel or engage ethnic consultants to help formulate and implement strategy and direction. To ethnic communities, relationship is everything. Relationships are made and strengthened by understanding and appreciating the culture and making an effort to engage ethnic consumers on their own ground. Therefore, be prepared to invest in event sponsorship. It’s a classic case of dollars being put to work at the ground level within the community. And, ethnic consumers will reward that investment with additional brand loyalty. Get involved in ethnic community groups, civic and trade associations and any environment where leaders and influential business people congregate. Because of the commitment to family and leadership in these cultures, personal referral and word-of-mouth becomes an important strategy for spreading the message. We can no longer afford to be either ignorant or disdainful of the ethnic consumer. In the new millennium they will constitute a consumer juggernaut. Smart marketers will put prejudice and disinterest aside and look carefully at this rising opportunity that has been ignored by most to date. Where to Get Marketing Help I’m often asked to provide recommendations for additional marketing reading, particularly as it relates to small business. The following will get marketing novices started and kept up-to-date. I’ll add to the list as new entries pass my desk. Here are some books that are loaded with valuable insights and actionable steps: “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” by Jack Trout and Al Ries; “Marketing Warfare” by Jack Trout and Al Ries; “Bottoms Up Marketing” by Jack Trout and Al Ries; “Strategic Selling” by Robert B. Miller and Stephen E. Heiman; “Ogilvy on Advertising” by David Ogilvy; “Which Ad Pulled Best” by Philip Ward Burton and Scott C. Purvis; “Life’s a Pitch, Then You Buy” by Don Peppers; “The One-to-One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time” by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers; “Conflicting Accounts, The Creation and Crash of the Saatchi Advertising Empire” by Kevin Goldman “Whatever Happened to Madison Avenue?” by Martin Mayer I lucked upon a great source of useable marketing information about the Internet quite by accident. It’s called Iconocast, a weekly newsletter for Internet marketing executives that is packed with trends, statistics, inside scoop and even job opportunities. There is a lot of marketing information on the Net, but most of it is not as user-friendly as Iconocast. For your free subscription log-on at www.iconocast.com. Get your hands on Social Change Briefs, published bi-monthly by Campbell-Ewald Advertising. It’s a handy summation of trend behavior affecting the American marketplace a concise, informative and enjoyable read for anyone who wants to know what’s going on inside the consumer’s mind. For information, contact 1-810-574-3400. Alf Nucifora is an Atlanta-based marketing consultant. He can be contacted via e-mail at [email protected], at his Internet site at www.nucifora.com, or by fax at 770-952-7834.