Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 4, 1993 TAG: 9308040101
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
The Roanoke Valley McDonald's is one of 4,000 sites that bought into a new partnership among AT&T, local phone companies (C&P Telephone in the Roanoke Valley) and the fast-food world. There should be another 6,000 phones installed at McDonald's restaurants over the next year, said a spokeswoman.
Tom Kulis, director of operations for MKG Enterprises, which owns eight of the 12 local McDonald's, has the designer phones at seven locations.
AT&T gets the income from the long-distance calls, but restaurant owners and McDonald's Corp. also get some money, a spokesman said. He wouldn't give details, though.
However, not all the McDonald's sites in the phone program have gone as far as Kulis did.
"The exact design of the phone was up to the owner-operator," said Jon Mellor with AT&T. "We gave them several designs to choose from, from plain vanilla to more decorative."
Kulis liked the idea of coordination with his stores.
AT&T said it has contracts with seven other food chains, but none using their own logos.
Another recent marriage of food operators is with retail stores, specifically McDonald's and Wal-Mart. By fall, McDonald's should be selling its fare inside the Franklin Road Wal-Mart in Roanoke.
The store already has closed its snack bar so construction can begin for the new vendor.
This partnership puts the Roanoke Valley on the cutting edge of change, said a spokeswoman with McDonald's corporate offices. She said the first Wal-Mart McDonald's was put in a Vidalia, Calif., store in January, and there've been a couple others since then.
"But you're right near the beginning," she said.
She said some of the store operations are satellites of McDonald's already operating near the stores and some are corporate ventures. No one could confirm who is doing the Roanoke Wal-Mart. It's not the McPhone guy, though.
AT&T is advertising something called TrueVoice, which supposedly will improve the sound quality of long-distance calls.
Listen for yourself. By calling 1-800-932-2000 you can get a demonstration of current long-distance quality compared to TrueVoice. The difference is considerable. TrueVoice zooms comfortably into your ear - and the guy who's demonstrating it has a come-hither voice that gets more so when he mentions that TrueVoice makes a caller sound "closer, clearer, more true to life."
For a real treat, call 1-800-792-9100 and listen to the pitch in Spanish. If you don't understand Spanish, it'll be even more romantic, except when he says "AT&T TrueVoice," which sounds the same in any language.
You have to give your home phone number to hear the demonstration. How do you think that will be used? I bet you'll hear from AT&T.
Partnerships are fashionable - and profitable - and here's one that appears to be a winner:
It's E Style, a fashion catalog aimed at African-American women. It's a joint venture between Ebony magazine and Spiegel Co.
Spiegel said an ad about the catalog brought 100,000 requests for copies. The catalog is to be mailed Sept. 1.
Retail-industry statistics indicate African-American women each spend an average of $1,100 a year on clothing, compared to the $700 to $800 spent by other women.
Computers at my office use flying toasters, exotic fish, etch-a-sketch-type drawings and a number of other intriguing designs to keep idle screens clean of images.
I also know there's a "Star Trek" program that has Captain Kirk shooting out portions of the screen with a laser.
But, coming soon might be images of Coca-Cola cans and other advertising symbols to flash and stroll on the screens.
Screen Team of Claremont, Calif., has developed screen-saver software that will create the advertising images and is touting the software as a way for a brand to get "all-day-long" exposure. The company figures the average computer user spends more than 1,600 hours a year in front of the glowing screen.
Speaking of computers: The Super Mario Bros. action figures have hit the stores. Standing 5 inches tall, Mario, Luigi, Goomba, Koopa, Iggy and Spike sell for $5.99 to $6.50 each and promise to be as invasive as the computer game.
Other Super Mario accoutrements include the Devo gun, a life-size replica of the gun that Koopa and the Goombas use, and Dinohattan Police Car. Both sell for about $21.
The figures and their equipment are made by The Ertl Co. in Dyersville, Iowa, which, by the way, offers tours of its toy-making factory. If you'd rather have a tour than a Mario, the number is 319-875-2000 to check for times.
Levi Strauss & Co. has a new line of high-end casual wear for men. It's called Dockers Authentic and is intended to make the company competitive with outfits like The Gap Inc.'s Banana Republic chain. Dockers Authentic includes chino and cotton-twill trousers as well as shirts.
by CNB