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Starring Starwood

Maybe you’ve noticed the rising trend of advertisers placing products in movies and television programs. Like when Tom Cruise’s character in “Mission Impossible III” meets his undercover contact at the local 7-11 and orders a Slurpee. In the TiVo age, where commercials are often intrusions potential customers can skip, marketers are looking for new ways to maintain brand awareness.

photo courtesy of Mlici Valenti Ng Pack; istockphotography

Well, consider Starwood Hotels and Resorts among the trailblazers. Hawaii communications firm Milici Valenti Ng Pack has created a series of short films (each is several minutes long) that subtly promote the hotel chain’s Hawaii properties. Plots include a Mainland boy and a kid from Japan forming a lifelong friendship over a lost dog and a burnt-out fashion designer who finds rejuvenation in the Islands. The product placement? The central set for each movie is a Starwood property in Hawaii.

“We decided rather than telling people what we want them to know, let’s get them engaged and entertained and have them want to find out more information about us,” says William Weeshoff, account supervisor at Milici Valenti Ng Pack. Weeshoff, who declined to disclose the film production costs, says it’s the first time a tourism company has launched a short-film campaign in the United States.

The original intent of the short films was to distinguish Starwood among travel agents and meeting planners who sift through scores of traditional promotional videos, all of which uniformly tout white sandy beaches, refreshing pools and plush rooms. But the films are now also reaching out to customers through the Starwood Web site and even on Internet video sites such as GoogleVideo and YouTube. The films were released in late June and at press time, no data was available on how well watched they’ve been.

Weeshoff though is confident they will succeed. “From a strategic perspective, knowing how media is fragmenting and changing, you need content. The consumer is in control and so you need to plug content into those places where they are going to find information,” he says. “Content is king.”

-Scott Radway

Hawaii Business defines often-spoken words, new and old, to help you make sense of what’s being said. RIDONKULOUS This slang term combines the word ridiculous with donkey to describe something or someone so over the top it’s utterly absurd. According to urbandictionary.com, ridonkulous was first popularized by Fox’s fictional character Seth Cohen on “The O.C.” Coworker1: I’ve worked 40 hours on this project already this week and it’s only Wednesday. AND I’m not even getting OT. Coworker 2: That’s ridonkulous! Time to update your resume.

-Lisa Ro Email confusing words to hbeditorial@pacificbasin.net

Just Passing Through

Pop quiz: In 2005, what state’s leading exports were aircraft, spacecraft, launch vehicles and oil? Big ol’, crude-producing Texas, home of the Johnson Space Center, would be a good guess, but it would also be wrong. How about teeny, tiny oil-free Hawaii?

According to the Hawaii Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ), in 2005, the state exported $641 million worth of aircraft and spacecraft to foreign countries, followed by $99 million worth of petroleum and $37 million of ferrous waste and scrap. Other top export products included military apparel and military equipment ($26 million) as well as turbojets, turbopropellers and other gas turbines ($15.3 million). It’s not until you reach the ninth-top export, chocolate and other food products ($11.9 million) that things start to look vaguely Hawaiian.

While the FTZ’s statistics aren’t a good reflection of the products that are manufactured in Hawaii, it does paint a pretty clear picture of the commerce that flows through the state. The Islands aren’t a hub of aircraft or spacecraft production, as most everyone knows. But if those planes manufactured in other states, such as Washington or California, or cargo planes filled with spacecraft or aircraft parts touch down in Hawaii for refueling on their way to destinations in Asia or the Pacific, the products are classified as Hawaii exports.

Petroleum, the No. 2 export, is similarly classified. Jet fuel sold to a foreign carrier at an Island airport rings up not only as a sale, but an export.

A quick glance at the top-10 export list also gives a brief glimpse of what’s happening in the rest of the world: Military apparel and equipment was one of Hawaii’s fastest increasing exports, with a 496.6 percent increase over 2004’s $4.4 million. Also in 2005, ferrous (metal) waste and scrap increased by 60.9 percent and waste and scrap paper increase 29.7 percent. According to FTZ officials, nearly all the scrap metal and paper went to resource-hungry China.

-David K. Choo

Hawaii’s Top Exports 2005
RANK	COMMODITIES	VALUE
1	AIRCRAFT, POWERED; SPACECRAFT & LAUNCH VEHICLES	$641.1 mil
2	OIL (NOT CRUDE) FROM PETROL & BITUM MINERAL	$99.1 MIL
3	FERROUS WASTE & SCRAP	$37.8 MIL
4	EXPORTS MILITARY APPAREL & MILITARY EQUIPment	$26.1 MIL
5	WATERS, NATURAL, ETC.	$16.8 MIL
6	FERMENTED BEVERAGES (CIDER, PERRY, MEAD, ETC.)	$16.6 MIL
7	TURBOJETS, TURBOPROPELLERS & GAS TURBINES	$15.3 MIL
8	PARTS OF BALLOONS, AIRCRAFT, SPACECRAFT, ETC.	$14.3 MIL
9	CHOCOLATE & OTHER FOOD PRODUCTS CONTAINING COCOA	$11.9 MIL
10	WASTE AND SCRAP OF PAPER OR PAPERBOARD	$9.4 MIL

Entering the Blogosphere

photo courtesy of John-Paul Micek

With a Web site, any company, anywhere, anytime can inform a staggering number of potential customers. Now, companies, hip to the power of the Internet, are utilizing it to reach out in a whole new way: Businesses are blogging.

Says local business consultant John-Paul Micek of RPM Success Group Inc., blogging allows businesses to virtually interact with their consumers about products or services. Something that can prove to be a competitive edge.

But Micek says business blogs are not intended to market a product or service, in a traditional sense, but instead convey the personality of the business and its executives. It also gives the customer a voice. Micek, whose company runs advancedbusinessblogging.com, says best of all, business blogging is low cost and easy to manage.

For more information on business blogging and new media, visit Micek’s site or read his new book, “The Secrets of Online Persuasion,” headed for the shelf in September.

-Lisa Ro

Real Estate: Kailua Layover

Back in the early 1990s, Tom Watson, owner of Watson Properties, wanted to live in town, but the hot Honolulu housing market all but pushed him over the Ko‘olaus. So in September 1994, he closed a 1,400-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath house in Kailua that fit better into his budget. It was a fairly busy road, Mokapu Boulevard, but it sat on a canal that slid right out to the ocean. He got a yard, too, all for $400,000.

1210 Mokapu Blvd. House: 1,400 square foot, 3-bedroom, 2-bath, Land: Canal front, 0.3 acres, Bought: Sept. 1994: $400,000, Sold: Nov. 2004: $790,000 photo: courtesy of Tom Watson

By the early 2000s, Kailua’s small-town ambiance was making people less and less reluctant to take a ride over the Pali to commute to their jobs in town. At the same time, real estate was getting hotter and hotter across Oahu and Kailua’s housing inventory was static. Prices soared.

In November 2004, Watson cashed in, but not without some irony.

“I sold my house in Kailua, because I realized I could sell it and get more in town,” Watson explains. He found a 2100-square foot, three-bedroom, 2.5-bath house on Koko Drive in Wilhelmina Rise. The yard was a little smaller, but the view of Waikiki was stunning. So he sold the Kailua home for $790,000, minus commission.

The kicker? The Wilhelmina Rise home cost him $400,000 in September 2003, and, with $250,000 in renovations added and a continued hot real estate market that struck Wilhelmina Rise a little later, Watson estimates his home is now worth $1.1 million.

Watson adds that his old home in Kailua would probably go for $1 million in today’s market.

-Scott Radway

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