From man candles to makeup, what kinds of products are selling for Father's Day?

Father’s Day still is a few weeks away; it falls on Sunday, June 16 this year. Already I’ve run across a couple of amusing promotions and products if you’re taking a retail approach to the observance, so figured I’d pass them along a bit early.

Here’s a history of Father’s Day from the Old Farmer’s Almanac, if you need any factoids. This Yahoo! Finance article advises sellers to update their search-engine optimization early, to get a jump on the many consumer who say they’ll use the web to research and purchase dads-day gifts.   Note the demographic breakdown on spending and the categories of gifts — tech isn’t terribly hot, but tools and other hobby/sporting items are.  It might be interesting to contrast the type of establishments that cash in on Mother’s Day (restaurant brunches, jewelry stores, florists) with those that target Father’s Day, like golf shops, hardware stores and garden centers.

The National Retail Federation isn’t out with its F-Day forecast this year, but here’s it’s web portal on the subject. You can read previous years’ press releases for an idea of hot spending categories. Note that dad’s tend to be on the receiving end of less filial largesse than do mothers, but spending on gifts for father appears to be growing at a double-digit clip in recent years.

Maybe that’s why retailers and others are out with some unexpected promotions this year.  I had to laugh when I received an advertisement for Yankee Candles’ new Man Candles line.  The company that sells pricey candles bearing names like Lilac Blossom and Home Sweet Home now is touting “manly scents” that include “Mm, Bacon,”  “Movie Night,” and “Riding Mower.”  The company also sells football-bedecked accessories for guys enjoying these buttered-popcorn and freshly-cut-grass scents,  to go with “First Down,” a “combination of orange, patchouli, vetiver and leather is as exciting as game day.”

If you want to do a marketing piece for Father’s Day, why not use the candles as a springboard to a story about “crossover marketing” in which goods-makes are finding a new niche in selling to men products and services traditionally marketed to women, such as spa treatments and accessories.  Here’s a Crain’s New York Business article from earlier in May about the rise in make-up sales to men – it would be interesting to localize.

Yankee Candle's "Man Candles"

More broadly, you could look at crossover marketing as a rather controversial ploy in which goods-makers and retailers target genders and ages with different iterations of similar products.  (Methinks Yankee probably has other grass-scented candles with less macho names but similar scents, for example.)   Here’s a Forbes article from last year that’s down on the idea.  On the flip side, you have sites like TomboyTools.com marketing pink power tools to women, and we’ve all heard about the “youth rifles” including pink ones marketed for little girls.

Other business angles related to Father’s Day could include:

Small business. This isn’t a bad time to highlight multi-generation family businesses in which fathers are passing along their knowledge and expertise to a new generation of sons or daughters. There’s also the plight of family businesses in which the next generation has no interest in a long-time company.  Both are the premise for interesting features about well-known area companies.

Science.  Not a very sentimental angle, but you could take a look at the market for paternity testing services — here’s a BostonMagazine.com article about a mobile “Who’s your Daddy?” testing truck that rolled into that city recently.

Money. There’s also an industry surrounding child-support payments; check out this site that touts a for-profit collection service specializing in that niche.  You can locate firms like that as well as attorneys that specialize in child-support modification and other angles in your region by doing a Google search and adding a geographic term.

And I’m just including this because it’s weird, even though it’s not directly related to Father’s Day — AdWeek reports that Beardvertising is the newest mancessory, in which men are paid to clip tiny advertising boards to their facial hair.

Use these tips to find local stories in the temporary and contract markets.

If you’re casting about for a fresh take on jobs and the employment scene, pull up a seat for my annual suggestions for mining the temporary and contract markets.

As well as being fertile ground for  a variety of stories, from career and personal finance how-tos, to colorful features on quirky and unique job niches, to a leading economic gauge of hiring in your market, the temp and contract categories also appear to be a harbinger of how employment will work in the future for many Americans. 

As this January piece from the New York Times, “The Rise of the Permanent Temp Economy,” points out, the temporary jobs market has been growing faster than the permanent jobs market for several years – and as this NPR piece points out, it’s not just about clerical work any more: High-skilled jobs in fields like engineering, IT and accounting are being filled through staffing agencies these days, as well.   This Today.com story is several years old but worth a read for leads to sources and story angles. 

Most business and economy stories portray the rise of temporary and contract jobs as a negative– and in many ways it is, as workers are forced to cobble together short-term assignments, and to make do at lower wages and skimpy or non-existent benefits.  Note this story about a recent Teamsters contract allowing for the subcontracting of some truck-driving jobs and this NewsObserver.com story about the use of “nomadic” temporary workers in North Carolina’s emerging energy sector. 

Still, temporary work can also be a boon to people with portable skills, from nurses to construction workers, who wish to incorporate travel or flexibility to help with family members into their work-life balance.  I wouldn’t overlook these upsides in reporting on the temporary trend.   Call centers, food service, marketing and day labor all are represented in temporary work and you can find plenty of colorful occupation-related tales to tell. 

I think an overlooked angle is temp-to-hire; some people stumble into long-term jobs or careers by clicking with employers during a temporary or contract stint.  A personal finance/careers piece on “How to turn a temp gig into a full-time job,” with anecdotes from hirees and advice from employers and managers might be a useful reader service.  Here’s an example from Forbes; it’s good but I’d beef it up by including advice and examples from non-office-oriented occupations from construction to health care.  And as I reported recently in another blog post, some pundits think the upcoming full implementation of the Affordable Care Act (health care reform) is going to prompt an even greater demand for temp workers by employers who want to evade offering health care.  Note the staffing association has just released a statement of principles intended to guide employment agencies in ACA compliance. 

Also, keep in mind you can report this story from the business-owners side, too.   While the juggernaut agencies like Kelly Services and Manpower are publicly traded and global, there still are plenty of regional and local staffing firms.  What’s it like to run what, how have the economic changes of the past five years affected these firms’ business model, profits and competition.  Here’s a Milwaukee Business Journal story about trends facing that region’s Top 25 staffing firms.  The American Staffing Association, the industry trade group, is a source of statistics and monthly reports.  And here’s an interesting angle; Bloomberg reports that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is increasing scrutiny of workplaces where temps are employed. The story says that workplace deaths prompted the move — you might talk with state OSHA reps and other worker advocates about any incidents or perceived problems in your area.

Also, I have to wonder about the investment potential of the public staffing firms.  Here’s the Yahoo! Finance portal to it’s Industry Center: Staffing and Outsourcing Services — in addition to industry trends and news, it’s a shortcut to find firms that might have a presence near you.  And here’s an Investors Business Daily piece about a recent rebound in staffing company shares. 

Foundation directors Susan Patterson, programs, and Bahia Ramos, community foundations, put together a 5-point Q&A to help potential applicants during these final days. The deadline is June 1.

Five things you need to know about the Knight Community Information Challenge

This year, the challenge is encouraging community foundations to explore open government concepts.

The challenge is an open call for all types of ideas for offering news locally. Successful applicants do not have to implement the projects or create new tech platforms to be successful.

In 2013, the challenge will provide up to $50,000 in seed funding to community and place-based foundations (though open government projects may be considered for larger grants).  In this slidecast, Ramos explains more.

 
 
 
MORE DETAILS:

• 2013 Knight Community Information Challenge.
• Opportunity for funding Open Gov, information tools in Knight Community Info Challenge
• Knight Challenge FAQ

Day laborers found work and were a big help during Hurricane Sandy cleanup. Photo: Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

Even if you’re far from the storm, you have readers and viewers who are trying to put themselves in the place of Oklahomans and others who have suffered natural disasters lately, or who may be worried about what volatile weather may bring their way as spring and summer 2013 play out.  Which leads to many viable tornado-related stories regardless of your location, including:

Work.  In an era already sensitive about jobs and jobs loss, a storm like Monday’s tornado cuts both ways: It will probably disrupt the livelihood of people in the ravaged area, but it also will create jobs for cleanup workers and others far and wide.  No matter where you are, you probably can find someone who’s getting an opportunity due to the storm damage.  Here’s last December’s New York Times look at how day laborers were getting Hurricane Sandy cleanup work, for example; watch for ads by staffing firms like Labor Ready.

Also, I caught this little item on the U.S. Department of Labor site; it was posted last fall in response to Hurricane Sandy and would be worth checking to see if it will apply for tornado victims or others as well:  National Emergency Grants that pay for temporary jobs to restore local infrastructure.

Here’s the fuller description of the National Emergency Grants from Benefits.gov — it looks like they are administered through local workforce investment boards.  Here’s a list of 2012 grants by state; you might want to follow up on the awards in your state to see where the money was directed, what type of work was performed, whether it led to full-time employment or other long-term benefit, and how these awards might benefit your area in future disasters.

Audiences might be wondering what would happen to their income if their home or workplace were destroyed by a storm; here’s some info from the Society for Human Resource Management about employers’ obligations should employees be prevented from working due to a disaster.  You could check with large area employers to see if their policies include any worker protection in addition to that mandated by law.

Insurance.   Personal finance expert Ilyce Glink of CBS Moneywatch is out with a column about preparedness; she notes that most standard homeowners policies do cover tornado damage, which may be perplexing to consumers aware that flooding and other weather issues are not covered in ordinary policies.   This might be a good time for a primer on what is and is not covered under renters’ and homeowners’ policies, focusing on damage from weather events like lightening, hail, drought, rain,wind, falling trees or other objects, and so on.  A large clip-and-save graphic might be more useful for readers than prose.  Tap insurance brokers, your state’s insurance commissioner, the American Insurance Association and even lawyers who specialize in real estate, casualty and property matters for a list of caveats, dos and don’ts for homeowners who want to review their property protection.

Obviously if your area is home to insurance companies, you’ll want to take a look at how natural disasters affect their bottom lines.  Here’s a blog post from the Hartford Courant noting that in 2012, natural events cost U.S. insurers some $58 billion, the second most-expensive year for that category.  This Washington Post story details five years of tornado impact on insurers, and here’s a Zacks industry analysis that indicates the recent economic and real estate recovery has allowed premium price hikes; you might talk with analysts about what consumer can expert regarding premiums in the coming couple of years.

Also, last fall a reinsurer — the companies that insure insurance companies against large losses — called Munich Reinsurance was out with a report that blamed $47 billion in U.S. insurance losses on thunderstorms and, by extension, climate change.  The report was controversial and I’m not suggesting you rely on it – nor on this rebuttal from the German publication Spiegel – but reading both will give you a glimpse into industry concerns about weather events that may prompt interview questions for local executives.

Mortgages.  Again, readers and viewers may be wondering “Do I have to repay my mortgage if my house disappears?” and other worst-case scenario questions.   The consulting firm HSH published a Q&A on this topic a couple of years ago, you can use it as a template and follow up with major mortgage services, credit unions and area banks to localize.  Note their may be relief for those who suffer job loss due to a disaster even if their house is OK.

Miscellaneous.  Numerous government agencies, like the EPA, offer primers on preparedness, and of course for-profit companies are responding to the market as well.  FoodInsurance.com offers a $519 Tornado Preparedness Kit (or “bug-out bag”) containing items like walkie-talkies, a headlamp and food for two weeks.  (As a personal finance piece, you might run something on how to create a bug-out bag on a budget.)  And here’s a document-storage company, ARAG, that leapt onto the bandwagon Tuesday with a release touting its storage solutions and a free downloadable disaster preparedness guide for consumers.    Can you find any other examples of firms touting products or remedies for people fearful of the disruption of a storm?

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and Journalismnext.com have announced that they are working together to offer convention-goers this summer a resume database that should help both job-seekers and organizations looking to fill jobs.

Journalismnext.com is a job and community website for minority journalists and media professionals. NABJ’s 2013 convention will be in Orlando from July 31 to Aug. 4.

If participants submit resumes to the database before the event, employers can access it before, during and after the convention. If you are planning to attend NABJ 2013, here’s a page on NABJ’s site that will walk you through how to submit your resume to Journalismnext.com: Attention, Job Seekers!

Eric Wee, president of Journalismnext.com, said that resumes, open jobs, internships, fellowships and programs posted in the next two months will be highlighted at the convention and sent out in email blasts to the 18,000 minority journalists registered with the jobs site.

I can’t provide as many links as usual to stories you may want to emulate, because they haven’t been written yet — but the economic impact of these disasters (and more to come in the spring weather season, from tornados to floods hurricanes) is huge and will be an ongoing source of important stories you’ll want to cover for some time to come.

Here’s a look at categories you can plan to follow:

Businesses and individuals responding to the present tornado situations.

Obviously many commercial enterprises will have been damaged or destroyed by the Oklahoma tornadoes, you can look for companies or employers from your area with ties to the Oklahoma tornado-hit regions.   Check with retailers, airlines, restaurant chains and other decentralized companies — will any people with local expertise be heading to Oklahoma to help with remediation?  Trucking companies may be a fertile source of information; how have the storms disrupted supply routes?  Are additional loads — of emergency supplies, building materials, etc. being called for?

Cleanup.   Every disaster provides opportunities for businesses, including tornadoes.  Waste management companies, demolition experts, remediation and storm-damage firms, construction companies — all will benefit, as will sellers of building materials.  I would hop on the phone to any related companies in your area in case any are gearing up to offer services in Oklahoma.  How have they responded to prior disasters?   (It’s touchy because no firm wants to be seen profiting from tragedy, but in reality this will provide jobs and work for a number of people.)  Here’s an NBCNews.com story about how cleanup after Hurricane Sandy, for example, will inject tens of billions of dollars into the economy via insurance payouts and the resulting spending on big-ticket items like construction.

Day labor.  I’ve seen ads after past big weather events on Craigslist and the like soliciting workers nationwide to head to storm-hit areas as day laborers for cleanup and construction.  Check with temp agencies — here’s on, LGS Staffing, that says it specializes in providing workers for disaster recovery.  Are they or others recruiting in your area?

Corporate giving.  Are any companies in your area sending money, supplies or other assistance to the region?   Remember the Tide laundry detergent “Loads of Hope” traveling laundry facility that has helped out elsewhere?  What creative ideas might consumer goods firms in your region be cooking up?

General economic impact of natural disasters.

Crops.  Agriculture.com reported Monday that volatile weather throughout the U.S. may be delaying planting of crops like corn and soybeans; even if your region isn’t hard hit by tornados, it’s a news peg for a look at how weather is affecting growers this year, from large industrial farms to local specialty nurseries.  Here’s the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s weather portal; note the weekly weather and crop bulletin you can bookmark and follow.

Gas prices.  According to a 2011 Los Angeles Times article,  tornados that year closed numerous refineries and caused gas prices to spike.  But the Houston Business Journal already is downplaying the effect of the tornados on oil supply.  You might contact your states’ oil industry association, or some refineries, to ask about the expected local impact, if any.  Heavy users of fuel like fleet operators and trucking companies — companies that keep close tabs on fuel costs — might also be of interest.

Here’s an older USA Today article with a number of factoids about tornado damage and economic impact that may come in handy or point you to sources.

Charity scams.

This is always a problem and the Better Business Bureau already is warning of tornado-related scams after storms recently in Texas.  In print or on your website, it’s not to soon for a giving primer and reminders of how to check out solicitors via sites like CharityWatch.org and CharityNavigator.org.

Darlings come and go (although Jack Welch still shows up now and again). They can be people or companies, or, in the case of Apple and Steve Jobs, both.

Editors should keep careful watch for early signs of adulation, and try to control it.

Apple, of course, remains a favorite even though it has “stumbled” since Jobs died. You can bet that when the iPhone 6 is released, we’ll see news coverage of customers waiting in line at Apple stores.

Rob Pegoraro, a personal-tech writer and a fellow, cough, alumnus of the Washington Post, explains:

A lot of Apple coverage involves the weird and unhealthy intersection of a few factors: the remarkable, even obsessive interest many readers have in the company and its products; the minimal information the company provides to the press, especially when future products are involved; the vast array of third-party sources eager to fill that unsatisfied demand for Apple info with forecasts or analyses of dubious value.

 And the thing is, it’s easy to do that kind of Apple coverage.  Pick up the phone, call an analyst or two and get some quotes, send a courtesy request for comment to Apple without having to worry about getting a terribly substantive reply, write the story, (hopefully) watch the page views come in.

I don’t see this changing anytime soon: Apple has made a business decision that keeping its upcoming products a secret for as long as possible works as a marketing tactic, and can you blame them for that?

No, you can’t blame Apple, but you can blame the news media for playing along.

Local heroes abound, too. The Washington, D.C., developer Douglas Jemal was a longtime darling at the Post. When he was indicted in September 2005, you might think he would have fallen out of favor, but no. Columnists, including a future Pulitzer Prize winner, rushed to his defense.  A jury convicted him of fraud, but the lede was his acquittal on other charges. After the trial, the Post celebrated Jemal’s reunion with his pet parrot.

In the absence of Jobs, the business press seemingly has been casting about for a new darling. But Jobs is hard to match.

Leading the pack in this beauty contest lately is Elon Musk and his Tesla Motors. But there are signs of trouble for the company on Wall Street. Musk may not get out unscathed. It would be nice to think that’s because journalists are less inclined to lionize a business leader since Jobs ultimately disappointed them by dying. The smart money, though, says it’s because Musk, for all his wealth and entrepreneurial spirit, can’t meet an impossible standard.

—-

 (Curiously, once the figures are adjusted for inflation, none of the Top 10 grossing films of all time were part of a franchise, though all were big-budget event films at the time. The top grossing movie, adjusted for inflation, is “Gone with the Wind.”) (New York Times)

“[Star Trek] Into Darkness” is already the fourth highest-grossing Trek film ever, domestically (not adjusted for inflation). (Washington Post)

There’s nothing curious about it. Dollar figures must always be adjusted for inflation. And those Top 10 movies are unambiguously the Top 10, period. There’s something about inflation that stumps reporters and writers, and there is no sign that the bafflement is nearing an end. One 1939 dollar is worth more than $16 today. You can do the arithmetic yourself, or use an inflation calculator to get a close estimate. Do it, and then stop writing about “record” prices that aren’t “records” at all.

Yes, I’ve said it before, and I’m likely to say it again.

Katrina Sutton of McDonough, Ga., she took out an installment loan from World Finance in August 2009. Erik S. Lesser/EPA for ProPublica

Until ProPublica and Marketplace co-produced a series this month, installment lenders had remained in the shadows of payday and title-loan lenders, which have received a lot of scrutiny.

That was the case even though installment lenders have a comparable market size and often charge annual rates of more than 200 percent, ProPublica reporter Paul Kiel says.

Paul points out in part one of the series that the installment lending industry has “survived” laws that try to limit these types of loans. For instance, he writes:

Borrower Katrina “Sutton’s loan contract said her annual percentage rate, or APR, was 90 percent. It wasn’t. Her effective rate was more than double that: 182 percent.

World [Finance] can legally understate the true cost of credit because of loopholes in federal law that allow lenders to package nearly useless insurance products with their loans and omit their cost when calculating the annual rate.”

Paul Kiel

Paul’s story uses borrowers and employees to tell the story.  He follows Ms. Sutton’s loan chronologically. Using another borrower’s story, he illustrates how companies earn profits on the loans. He writes that borrower Emma Johnson received her first loan from lender World Finance in 1993 and has taken out 48 loans, which includes new loans and refinanced loans.

“When Johnson finally declared bankruptcy early this year, her two outstanding loans had face values of $3,510 and $2,970. She had renewed each loan at least 20 times, according to her credit reports,” he writes.

Paul says reporters can localize the story by finding installment lenders in their areas, particularly near military bases, which is the focus of his second story.

He says to find garnishment lawyers to explain details because state and federal laws differ. To find sources, contact legal service lawyers and bankruptcy attorneys. He says reporters should always ask borrowers if they have multiple loans, which was the case for Ms. Johnson.

Like most reporters know, finding people may not be that easy. He estimates he approached about 50 people and found six to talk with him.

In a Reuters' special report, Carr explained the difference between shell and shelf companies.

The free investigative webinar, “Shell Companies and Fraud: An Investigative Primer,” was first offered on May 21, 2013.

Unraveling financial schemes often involves tracing a myriad of corporations incorporated across the country and sometimes around the world.

Corporate entities called shells – companies with no significant assets or operations – and the people involved with them are often at the center of plots ranging from bogus investment firms to money-laundering endeavors to pump-and-dump stock scams.

The self-guided training from this webinar will help you understand the characteristics of shell companies, their legitimate and illegitimate purposes in the business sector, and methods for backgrounding and connecting intricate webs of firms and individuals scattered around the globe.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• The basics: what shell companies are, why they exist and the legitimate and illegitimate uses for these entities.
• How shell companies play a role in global corruption and how to begin track those schemes locally.
• Tactics for backgrounding shell companies through state incorporation documents, other public records and various online tools.

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Kelly Carr joined the Reynolds Center in 2007 after working as a journalist for multiple publications, including The Arizona Republic. She is the center’s senior online producer. As a freelance investigative reporter for Reuters, she won the a 2012 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for a series detailing the use of U.S. shell and shelf companies.

The series also won the National Press Club Award for Consumer Journalism (Periodicals), the New York Press Club Business Reporting Award and the 2011 Foreign Press Association Media Award for Financial/Economic Reporting.

Carr was an adjunct journalism professor at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School, a fellow at The Poynter Institute and a contributing writer for Cancer Stories: Lessons in Love, Loss & Hope.

SELF-GUIDED LESSON

Review the session materials below to discover new local business angles and investigative techniques.

For instance, Jason and Jack write:

“In 2002, E&J Gallo, the world’s biggest winemaker, purchased Louis M. Martini, which owned more than 1,000 acres of prime Napa and Sonoma County vineyards. None of the property was reassessed because Martini was divided among 12 Gallo family members, none of whom acquired more than 50%.

Some of that property today is worth more than $150,000 an acre but continues to be taxed based on its 1975 value of a few thousand dollars an acre, according to Napa County assessor John Tuteur.”

Jason Felch

“It’s one of the reasons why the property tax burden shifted from corporations to homeowners,” Jason says. “We were looking to explain how the shift happened.”

Your state may not have the same law, but you can dig into this story by looking at property reassessment laws. If you understand the tax law, you can find loopholes and what companies do to qualify for them, Jack says. Contact lawyers who’ve used the loopholes for their clients to help you, he says.

Jack Dolan

Property tax records from county assessors’ offices will show how parcels of land are taxed. Submit public records request because the website data is limited, Jason says. Look for disparities in tax rates and work backwards to find commercial property owners.

For Jason and Jack, determining if companies used the majority-ownership loophole wasn’t easy, Jason says. In California, corporate entities have to report changes in majority ownership to the state; however, the information is exempt from public records laws, he says.

“That’s when it helps to have really good human sources,” Jack says.