Latest Headlines

Yum hits 52-week high; Pizza Hut kicks off a new flick football game box; Papa John’s, Calipari in Louisiana flood-relief effort; and up to 100 students brawl at New Zealand KFC

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 4:59 p.m.

YUM shares traded at a 52-week high of $90.93 today, before easing back to close moments ago at $90.76. It’s all-time record high came May 20, 2015, when it traded for $95.90 a share (Google Finance).

AMAZON said this afternoon it plans to open a distribution center in Monee, Ill., an hour south of Chicago; it didn’t provide a timetable, however (press release). In the Louisville area, Amazon employs 6,000 workers at two centers, in Jeffersonville and in Shephardsville. More about the retailer’s area operations.

Pizza Hut flick football box
The flick football box promotion ends Oct. 14.

PIZZA HUT: Starting today, and just in time for the start of football season, Pizza Hut is serving medium pizzas in a Flick Football Field box, featuring a football field printed on top, detachable goal posts, football triangles and a scorecard. Flick football is a tabletop game played with a piece of paper folded into a small triangle. Players flick the “football” across a table, scoring points based on where the football lands. Adding a social media marketing component, the Yum unit is asking customers to share videos of their flick football skills for a chance to win free pizza from the chain’s $5 Flavor Menu. The promotion runs through Oct. 14. It follows Pizza Hut U.K.’s far more novel box less than two weeks ago: a very limited edition (as in just five) cardboard box with a workable DJ mixing board (CNBC).

John Calipari
Calipari

PAPA JOHN’S and University of Kentucky men’s basketball coach John Calipari are teaming up to raise money for victims of the Louisiana flooding. Yesterday, Calipari announced the pizza chain would offer a large two-topping pizza for $10, with 10% of the proceeds going to the Calipari Family Foundation, earmarked for flooding victims (Today’s U Sports). Papa John’s founder John Schnatter has supported the foundation in the past, donating $53,000 since 2012 for its programs helping children.

KFC: In New Zealand, four people were arrested today after a massive brawl involving up to 100 students from rival schools erupted at a KFC fast food outlet in South Auckland. Weapons used included knives, chairs and bits of wood, a police spokesperson told NZME, and witnesses said the students involved both boys and girls, with some appearing to be less than 16 years old (7 News via Yahoo).

Ronald Ganett
Gantt

UPS: In Prattville, Ala., a UPS driver was taken to the hospital in stable condition after he was accidentally struck by a crossbow bolt fired by someone while he was driving. The driver wasn’t identified. The bolt went through his upper right arm and lodged in his right chest, according to an Autauga County Sheriff’s Office report. Investigators say 55-year-old Ronald Curtis Gantt has been charged with assault in last Thursday’s incident. Gantt told authorities he was taking part in target practice in his front yard when he shot the driver. Investigators are calling the incident an accident, but charged Gantt due to the reckless nature of his actions (Montgomery Advertiser).

Travel

More fashionable (and cool!) than ever: Louisville to seaside R.I. for a $12,000 weekend getaway

An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.

Labor Day traditionally brings the summer to a close, and next weekend’s Louisville weather forecast calls for a scorcher, with temperatures rising to a steamy 90 degrees. Along with a presidential campaign that seems hotter by the minute, it’s time to scadadle — in style.

Todd Oldham
Oldham

Let’s follow the example of Gilded Age one-percenters, and head for a fresh summer getaway in Rhode Island. (That’s where telecommuting Boulevard Publisher Jim Hopkins is working right now.) Along the way, we’ll stop at the fabulous Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence for the new Todd Oldham fashion retrospective; that’s one of the designer’s more exuberant gowns in the photo, top. The exhibit runs through Sept. 11. Here’s our itinerary:

When: Friday to Tuesday. Airline: Delta. Route: Louisville to Detroit to Providence; total travel time is four hours, including a 40-minute layover in Detroit. We’ll then take a 42-mile scenic car ride to our final destination: Watch Hill. How much: $780 per ticket, for economy to Detroit, then premium economy to Providence. Delta reservations.

But with all the money we’ve saved without flying first/business, we can easily afford to stay at one of New England’s premier seaside resorts: Ocean House in Watch Hill. Part of the Relais & Chateaux group, Ocean House opened in 2010 as a meticulous re-creation of the original property lost to time and neglect. The present resort has 49 rooms and 18 suites.

Ocean House
The resort overlooks an emerald-green croquet lawn.

Our choice: The Spa Suite, with spectacular Atlantic Ocean views from its private 600 square-foot terrace. Price: about $9,500 for four nights, subject to availability. Plus, it’s just 10 seconds as the champagne cork flies to pop superstar Taylor Swift’s $18 million summer estate.

spa-suite-tile
The Spa Suite’s sitting area is an airy aerie.
Bottom line

Add meals and generous tips for staff maintaining amenities including the wear-only-white croquet green, and we’re looking at a $12,000 weekend for two.

Latest Headlines

Ford union in Canada votes to strike, and a Pizza Hut driver may have delivered love, too

A news summary focused on 10 big employers; updated 5:14 p.m.

FORD: In Canada’s Windsor today, 400 of 1,400 members of Unifor Local 200 voted overwhelmingly — 98.3% — in favor of a strike against the automaker. Ford had notified the union only last week it would cut production at its two plants there amid falling sales for vehicles powered by the engines they assemble (Windsor Star). In Louisville, Ford employs nearly 10,000 workers at factories building trucks and cars; more about Ford’s local operations.

Missed connections heartsPIZZA HUT: In the latest Craigslist “Missed Connections” ad of interest to Boulevard, a Pizza Hut customer in Beaverton outside Portland, Ore., writes: “You delivered my order on Saturday, asked to pet my dog. Long shot, but if you read this would you like to get coffee or a drink? You’ve the most stunning smile and beautiful eyes. If so, what was my dog’s name?” (Craigslist).

TACO BELL: In Gilmer, Texas, a newspaper writer recalls the tiny role a Taco Bell restaurant played in a chance encounter many years ago, when he and a friend saw a woman crying in one of the chain’s restaurants. “I mean, just crying her eyes out,” the writer says. “I remember looking at her and talking with a friend and judging her: ‘Why would she come to Taco Bell and just cry like that,’ I said. I can’t remember what my friend said exactly, but she scolded me and told me I didn’t know what she was going through. To that woman, now I understand” (Gilmer Mirror).

Wayback News

60 years ago today: a White House race amid Mideast troubles; the future mom of a ‘Silver Fox’ marries (again), and a strike threatens a big Louisville employer

By Jim Hopkins
Boulevard Publisher

The last Tuesday in August 1956 was quite like today: A presidential race geared up for the final, post-Labor Day push, amid boiling Mideast tensions and questions about one candidate’s health. Hot and humid, Louisville distracted itself with celebrity news: a very rich New York socialite with a blue-chip name had just married husband No. 3; years later, her son would become a famous TV news anchor dubbed the “Silver Fox.” And contract talks between a major local manufacturer and thousands of employees were the business story of the day. These were the headlines on The Courier-Journal’s front page that Aug. 28, 1956.

CJ front page August 28 1956
The Courier-Journal front page, Aug 28, 1956.

An editor’s playful headline, “Sweat-ery,” summed up what readers should expect that day: temperatures in the 90s, news to make them wince when many employers still didn’t have air conditioning. But the workplace differed in far worse ways.

Companies openly discriminated on the basis of gender and race. The help-wanted classifieds section for women included Curl’s Tavern on Brook Street, offering $30 a week ($265 in today’s dollars) for short-order cooks; applicants had to be white. Kleins Restaurant on Broadway needed a cook, too — but “colored,” adding: “apply at rear.”

White and colored clerks wanted
Help-wanted ads reflected 1956 segregated Louisville.

That summer’s presidential race was a rematch between the Republican incumbent Dwight D. Eisenhower, 65, and the long-shot Democratic nominee he’d beaten four years before: Adlai Stevenson, 56, and a former Illinois governor. Their dueling campaigns argued over whether the economy was adding jobs fast enough. But the greater concern was the crisis in Egypt, where new President Gamal Abdel Nasser had just nationalized the Suez Canal.

Eisenhower and Stevenson
Eisenhower and Stevenson.

Eisenhower, a retired five-star general, was heading back to Washington after a West Coast golfing vacation in Pebble Beach, Calif., with his wife Mamie; it was a pleasure trip, but also meant to project good health after a heart attack he’d suffered the year before.

The gossipy news? It was about Gloria Vanderbilt, born into one of the nation’s wealthiest families, and still known as the “poor little rich girl” because she’d been the subject of a high-profile custody battle between her mother and an aunt over a $4 million trust fund ($67 million in today’s dollars). She was 10 years old at the time.

Vanderbilt and Lumet
Just married: Vanderbilt and Lumet.

In a photograph on the CJ’s front page, the 32-year-old socialite posed for photographers with her new husband, the director Sidney Lumet; they’d wed the previous day. The marriage lasted 11 years until they divorced, and she married husband No. 4 — her last: Wyatt Emory Cooper. They would have two sons. The second, born when she was 43, was named Anderson Hays Cooper. (Her first son, Carter Vanderbilt Cooper, committed suicide at 23 by jumping from the ledge of the family’s 14th-floor apartment on Manhattan’s posh upper East Side, as Vanderbilt watched in horror, pleading for him to stop.)

The big business news was a strike Continue reading “60 years ago today: a White House race amid Mideast troubles; the future mom of a ‘Silver Fox’ marries (again), and a strike threatens a big Louisville employer” →

Media and Marketing

Report: CJ parent Gannett raised hostile bid 20% during meeting with L.A. Times owner; deal appears closer than ever

The latest Gannett offer for rival newspaper publisher Tronc is in the mid-$18-a-share range vs. the last known offer of $15, and came during a face-to-face meeting in Los Angeles with Gannett CEO Bob Dickey; Gannett chairman John Jeffry Louis; Tronc chairman Michael Ferro, and Tronc CEO Justin Dearborn.

CJ August 27 2016
Today’s front page.

That’s according to a report yesterday by industry watcher Ken Doctor of Politico, who’s been bird-dogging the unfolding drama. He says Ferro might agree to a deal at $20 or slightly less.

Wall Street took Doctor’s report seriously enough to bid up Tronc’s TRNC as much as 8% yesterday, before it slid back to a closing price of $16.84, up 3% for the day. Gannett’s GCI closed at $11.93, down less than 1%.

A deal for the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, nine other large newspapers, plus dozens of smaller titles, could have far-reaching implications for The Courier-Journal and its 108 sister titles, depending on how Gannett reallocates personnel and financial resources to absorb the Tronc titles. Louisville is a regional headquarters for a customer service center and a page-production hub handling design work for other dailies in the chain.

Tronc logoDoctor’s latest story is revealing because it’s the first to report the $18 figure — until yesterday, reports only said Gannett was preparing an unspecified higher bid — and it shows Ferro and the board are now engaged in talks. Previously, Tronc had refused to even negotiate, despite pressure from a major hedge fund investor.

Underscoring that last point, Ferro and the board met a week ago to discuss a counter-offer, although it’s unclear whether one was formally made to Gannett, Doctor says. Still, his conclusion yesterday: “It’s apparently no longer a question of whether to sell or not, but for how much.”

Latest Headlines

With its Extra Crispy sunscreen going for $202 on eBay, KFC gave away 3,000 more rare bottles; plus, starting today: a Snapchat lens for fans to ‘Colonel-ize’ themselves

A news summary, focused on 10 big employers; updated 10:22 a.m.

eBay KFC sunscreen 500
An Alabama eBay seller is accepting bids through Monday.

KFC might want to get into the sunscreen business permanently. The chain offered another 3,000 free bottles of its fried chicken-scented Colonel Sanders Extra Crispy Sunscreen yesterday — and emptied its inventory immediately — after the marketing stunt succeeded far more than the fast-food chain expected when it launched Monday. The second round began yesterday for U.S. residents-only, but the order form is already gone, replaced with a notice saying “incredible free offer all gone.”

KFC suncreen offer already goneInitially, the Yum unit promised 3,000 bottles on a first-come, first-served basis. “But the Colonel forgot to hit the ‘off switch,'” the company said in a press release, “which resulted in more than 9,000 bottles requested in about two hours, with 5,000 of those requests in the final 10 minutes.”

The bottles were so popular, at least four are now being auctioned on eBay, with one seller in Birmingham, Ala., showing a current high bid of $202.50 — the highest of 55 so far; offers are being accepted through Monday. Bids on the other three bottles by different sellers now stand at $51 to $97.

Meanwhile today, KFC introduced a Snapchat lens that let’s  fans “Colonel-ize” themselves — “glasses, bowtie, goatee, age spots and all” — in a campaign to duplicate the success sister chain Taco Bell had with a Cinco de Mayo promotion last spring.

KFC Snapchat lens
You can look like  this.

The Snapchat lens capitalizes on the popularity of the chain’s series of TV commercials portraying resurrected versions of very long-dead KFC founder Harland Sanders — including the current version, famously suntanned actor George Hamilton, who plays the “Extra Crispy” one.

“Starring as the Colonel in our advertising may be an exclusive gig, but on Saturday, anyone can be the Colonel on Snapchat,” the company says.

For Boulevard readers over the age of, say, 14, here’s a more technical explanation, no doubt supplied by the mobile app company itself: “Sponsored lenses offer Snapchatters the ability to apply real-time visual effects and sounds to their selfies, allowing brands to take part in communication on the platform in the most interactive, fun, and personal way.”

KFC is aiming for the same result Taco Bell scored last spring, when its Cinco de Mayo lens smashed Snapchat records. That campaign turned consumers’ heads into a giant taco shell, resulting in 224 million views in one day, according to AdWeek.

GE Hair logoGE: A former GE Appliances employee has sued General Electric, saying he was singled out, harassed and ultimately fired for being transgender. Mykel Mickens worked at Appliance Park from October 2014 to June of this year. He says co-workers turned on him when they discovered he once was a woman named Michelle. It appears his suit is against GE Appliances, rather than the parent company that owned the division until late June, when China-based Haier bought it for $5.6 billion. Last night, GE Appliances told WDRB that it doesn’t comment on matters in litigation, but said the company “embraces diversity and supports organizations like our LGBT group” (WDRB).

Former parent company GE’s gambit to morph into something akin to a Silicon Valley start-up began five years ago, when it quietly opened a software center in San Ramon, Calif., 24 miles east of San Francisco. The complex, home to GE Digital, now employs 1,400 people (New York Times).