MIXED BLESSINGS

Beyond Good and Evel, More Families Afloat, New Playgrounds, Etc.And this just in from the Less Is MoreDepartment: Thanks to the high costs of paper and postage, magazines that use direct mail to build circulation are enjoying the best response rates in years. A survey of circulation directors conducted by New York-based Gruppo, Levey & Capell finds 50 percent of respondents saying their most recent year-end mailings performed better than those of the year before, versus just 10 percent reporting a decline. Why do the rising costs yield rising success? They've driven lots of magazines away from direct mail, cutting down on the clutter in consumers' mailboxes and leaving people more disposed to answer the solicitations that do arrive. One suspects there's a disturbing lesson here for advertising in general, but let's not think about it.How to become a celebrity endorser for a line of radiology equipment? Just become a professional daredevil and fracture half the bones in your body. That, at any rate, is the bumpy route one Evel Knievel traveled en route to fame and fortune as spokesperson for Fuji Medical Systems. 'Fuji medical imagers produce the highest quality images you've ever seen,' says a headline that presents Knievel's view of the matter. 'Take it from a guy who's seen a lot of them.' Emphasizing the unique credentials of the ad's resident expert, copy refers to 'Mr. Knievel's crash course in radiology.' Concluding with a Knievelesque flourish, the ad (created by agency Marquardt & Roche/Meditz & Hackett of Stamford, Conn.) invites readers to 'jump at the opportunity' to judge Fuji quality for themselves. But without motorcycles, please.Will parents put out to sea in a desperate effort to escape their children? They're probably tempted at times. But a survey on leisure travel, conducted for Orlando, Fla.-based Yesawich, Pepperdine & Brown, finds one-third of adults express-ing a preference for a family cruise--kids and all. The survey finds an overall rise in consumer interest in cruises, with 58 percent of respondents saying they're 'extremely' or 'very' interested in taking a cruise, versus 51 percent saying so in the previous year's poll.As myths proliferate about commerce on the Internet, debunking such myths has become a growth industry in its own right. The latest debunking comes from Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, which gainsays the notion that on-line games will draw sizablesubscription fees to the Internet. The firm estimates that just 1.2 million U.S. consumers will pay to play games on-line by 2001. But it forecasts that advertising and sponsorship will take up the economic slack--to a tune of some $1.3 billion in revenues--as on-line 'game centers' spring up on the Net.Copyright ASM Communications, Inc. (1997) ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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MIXED BLESSINGS

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