Advertising Industry

At a national cheerleading competition last month, girls wearing short skirts and purple eye glitter competed for points at the Anaheim Convention Center. But the real contest was going on in the beauty lounge. The prize: the loyal buying habits of brand-obsessed teens. At a vanity table in a corner of the convention center, Jessica Lopez, a 14-year-old from West Covina, learned how to make her tresses stand up on end with Herbal Essences hair spray.

new york -- The recent rush by major Internet portals to buy advertising companies and extend their sales networks is a sign that the business of being a one-stop shop for information and entertainment isn't what it used to be. Gone are the days of emphasizing strategies to attract and keep visitors -- the way television networks long have operated -- by creating destinations with anything people might need for work, leisure or companionship.

It used to be that you could gauge the strength of the advertising market by the beer the networks served at their "upfront" parties. If Heineken was on tap, it meant things were looking up. If it was Budweiser, well . . . Next week advertisers might consider bringing their own beer. This time the glitz in New York will be vastly toned down. Presentations of the new fall schedules once droned on for three hours but this year will be kept to a deflationary 90 minutes.

Apart from cruelty, I can think of few forms of human behavior that enrage me more than hypocrisy.

For sale: one life-size bobble-head figure of Shaquille O'Neal. For sale: 33 billboards featuring the logo of XTRA Radio next to the looming face of O'Neal, proclaiming, "My city. My station." For sale: advertising space on the side of a Team L.A. store at Universal CityWalk, where there is currently a 40-foot neon likeness of O'Neal.

State and federal tax and regulatory breaks are intended to free up corporations to spend more money on their businesses. But they won't revive big, troubled companies that are failing because they have fallen badly out of sync with their customers. Consider AOL Time Warner, whose share price has plummeted to less than $15 from more than $50 since the heady days at the end of the dot-com boom.

Signs of strength in U.S. television and magazines are keeping the advertising industry on track for a mild recovery this year despite the Iraq war and the spread of the SARS virus, a leading forecaster said. Advertising spending, recently hit by one of the worst downturns on record, will rise 2.7% this year in the U.S., media buyer ZenithOptimedia said. In April, it had forecast U.S. growth at 2.2%.

Actors and advertisers agreed Wednesday to a tentative three-year contract governing commercials, heading off a rerun of frictions that three years ago led to Hollywood's longest strike. Specifics of the deal won't be unveiled until directors of the Screen Actors Guild and its sister union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, meet next week. Members of the unions must ratify the deal, with a vote likely by late October. The current contract expires Oct. 29.

President Clinton's plan to further curb tobacco sales is one more headache for the besieged industry but, as a financial threat, the rules are a sideshow to the menacing litigation facing the $45-billion business. Experts said the prospect of expensive verdicts against the tobacco companies remains strong even though an Indiana jury late Friday decided in favor of the industry in a case brought by a smoker's family.

Have you ever wondered who pays for all that great stuff you find out there on the World Wide Web? Or who will pay for it when the providers get tired of footing the bill? The answer, so far, seems likely to be advertisers. Information providers on the Web are hoping that companies with goods and services to sell will pay for all the eyes drawn to a site by its attractive content. This model is well established in the world of print, where publications such as the L.A.