Street Legal Races. In San Diego, illegal drag racing was such a problem that the only solution was to transform it into a fully sanctioned sporting event at Qualcomm Center, complete with parents and kids in strollers as spectators, as reported by George P. Blumberg in The New York Times. Prior to 1994, when San Diego launched the event, called RaceLegal, about 1,000 cars and 4,000 spectators would gather at about a half dozen sites around the city for illegal drag racing on any given Friday or Saturday night. It was "an epidemic," says Dr. Stephen Bender, a retired public health professor who founded RaceLegal.

The idea to hold legal races wasn't an instant hit, though: "At first, racers were reluctant to go to Qualcomm and pay to race when they could race for free." A "tough love" marketing strategy fixed that: San Diego set up a Drag-Net unit that started "videotaping street races" and then showed up "at racers' houses accompanied by tow trucks and the media." Says Sgt. Greg Sloan: "We handcuff them, put them in jail, impound the car for 30 days for $1,000, suspend their licenses of one year, fine them $1,500 and put two points on their license." Spectators were arrested too. In other words, spending $20 to race legally started to look like a pretty good deal to these drag racers ... as well as those who like to watch them (admission is just $5).

The number of cases prosecuted in San Diego dropped to just 60 in 2003 -- down from 290 in 2001. Even more important, by 2003, the number of "street racing deaths dropped countywide to four and injuries to six. So far in 2004, there have been no deaths in the city, with three across the county and 15 injuries." Meanwhile, over at the Qualcomm center, on "a recent Friday afternoon," some 1,500 people watched as some 300 drag racers sped along a 1/8th-mile drag strip at up to 112 m.p.h. (some race as many as 40 times a night). The appeal is articulated by racer Monica Mendiola (yes, women drag race too): "Been street racing since back in the '80s ... and ran from the cops a lot," she says, "But it's dangerous and I'm here for fun." Sponsors, start your engines: www.racelegal.com

Broadway's Innovators. "Think of what we sell," says Nancy Coyne of Serio Coyne, "the pre-eminent Broadway advertising agency, and curator of "an exhibition dedicated to the history of Broadway advertising," reports Bruce Weber in The New York Times. "It costs $100. It's available in one theater only, at one time only. The parking lot next door is going to cost you a bundle. There's nothing about it we make simple. And we have an infinitesimal budget to promote this event."

Nothing quite like the constraints of having no money to focus the minds of marketers! It was precisely such desperation that, in 1987, led to "advertising on the sides of buses." The show was "Anything Goes" (appropriately enough) and the ad space was as cheap as could be (hard to remember, but buses rarely carried ads back then). It worked (too well, in fact, because it gave Calvin Klein the idea and then the show couldn't afford buses anymore). However, the real turning point for Broadway advertising actually occurred in 1972, when Stuart Ostrow, producer of Pippin, cut out newspaper ads and ran television commercials instead.

"Everyone said people who watch TV wouldn't spend the $9.90 to go to a musical," Stuart recalls. But it worked, and Pippin ran for nearly five years. Harvey Fierstein, in 1982, was the first to use theatergoer testimonials for Torch Song Trilogy, and then Cats, in 1983 ushered in "the era of the logo" ... those "feline eyes against a black background," that "became the indelible symbol of the longest-running Broadway show of all time." The exhibition celebrating these -- and other -- great Broadway ad campaigns, opens Monday in Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Station. It's part of New York's first Advertising Week, www.advertisingweeknyc.com


Tim Manners, editor