Kresser Craig

Car-crazy California is naturally the nation's biggest tire market, where hundreds of dealers vie for a chunk of the state's roughly $1.3 billion in annual replacement-tire sales. Yet even in this crowd, one man is more familiar than most. He is Sam Winston, the chairman, majority owner and lead pitchman of Winston Tire Co., which operates 158 stores in California. Winston has become a household name after years of starring in his company's TV commercials ("Put Sams on Your Car!").

Soon after he learned he had cancer and just two weeks after a colostomy operation, Ed McNeilly flew to London on a two-week getaway. His wife, Jean Craig, had doubts about the trip, reminding him of his chemotherapy treatments. "So what?" McNeilly replied. "It's just a shot." And so they went to London, and then to the Caribbean and Hawaii.

Once, TV time was so costly that a spot buried in a Godzilla movie on a UHF station at 3 a.m. was all a local car dealer could afford. Now, thanks to the explosion in cable TV channels, Tony Buttacavoli of Fullerton Dodge is popping up at every click of the remote control. For $12,000 per month--his entire ad budget--Buttacavoli becomes an ubiquitous pitchman, with 30 commercials a week reaching 87,000 cable subscribers in Orange County.

It's tough enough to be creative in good times. Now, with the Persian Gulf War raging, those who create ads face a host of roadblocks in developing new ads--and airing current ones. "We're closely looking at all creative work to see if any of it might not match the mood of the country," said Steve Hayden, chairman and chief creative officer at the ad firm BBDO/Los Angeles. "Every piece of copy going out of here we look at in context of the war."

When Michael Jackson suffered chest pains last week, so did top executives at L.A. Gear. As it turns out, the singing star's chest pains, which hospitalized him for several days, were the result of an inflammation in his ribs. But when Jackson checked into the hospital, officials from L.A. Gear had to be wondering whether their high-priced spokesman--who had yet to appear in a single commercial for them--would soon be up and moonwalking. Executives from L.A.

A peculiar thing is happening to some of the most powerful women in advertising: They're disappearing. * Charlotte Beers, the most influential woman in advertising and chief executive of the Chicago agency Tatham RSCG, abruptly announced that she was resigning 10 days ago. * Renee Fraser, one of the West Coast's top female ad executives, was fired in November as managing director of the Los Angeles office of Bozell.

You have probably seen Michael Jackson moon walk. You might have seen his hair catch on fire while filming a TV spot. Maybe you even saw him attack a car with a tire iron in a recent music video. But there is one thing you've most certainly never seen Jackson do: Sip a Pepsi. Such details do not bother Pepsi one bit. Last week, the soda giant announced that it was once again turning to Michael Jackson to promote its soft drinks worldwide.

Los Angeles-area residents are about to face an onslaught of advertising that doesn't ask us to buy a thing. But the ads are going to ask us to change our lifestyles. Rebuild L.A. will begin to broadcast public service spots this week with the theme line, "Our L.A.," featuring compelling interviews with residents groping for answers to the city's racial tensions. Spots aimed at persuading Californians not to smoke will begin to air this week.

First there was Baby Ruth. Then the Reggie Bar. And now the Gay Bar. No, it's not a tavern catering to gay customers, but a $2 chocolate bar aimed mostly at the thousands of gay and lesbian athletes and spectators expected in New York City next week at the Gay Games IV & Cultural Festival, a weeklong athletic competition and artistic celebration.

Your computer--one of the last, great, untapped advertising mediums--is fast becoming Madison Avenue's next unabashed commercial vehicle. Already, the irrepressible Eveready "Energizer Bunny" is hopping across tens of thousands of computer screens nationwide. Last week, Universal Studios signed a deal with a computer software firm to send scenes from the hit film "Jurassic Park" swirling across computer screens.