U2′s Bono to urge U.S. politicians not to cut aid programs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Irish rocker and anti-poverty campaigner Bono will appeal to Democrats and Republicans during a visit to Washington this week to spare U.S. development assistance programs from cuts as Congress tries to avert the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax hikes and spending reductions early next year.

The U2 lead singer’s visit comes as the Obama administration and congressional leaders try to forge a deal in coming weeks to avoid the economy hitting the “fiscal cliff” – tax increases and spending cuts worth $ 600 billion starting in January if Congress does not act.

Analysts say the absence of a deal could shock the United States, the world’s biggest economy, back into recession.

Kathy McKiernan, spokeswoman for the ONE Campaign, said Bono will hold talks with congressional lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials during the November 12-14 visit.

During meetings he will stress the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance programs and the need to preserve them to avoid putting at risk progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, she said.

Bono, a long-time advocate for the poor, will argue that U.S. government-funded schemes that support life-saving treatments for HIV/AIDS sufferers, nutrition programs for malnourished children, and emergency food aid make up just 1 percent of the U.S. government budget but are helping to save tens of millions of lives in impoverished nations.

The One Campaign would not elaborate which lawmakers and senior Obama administration officials Bono will meet.

On Monday, Bono will discuss the power of social movements with students at Georgetown University. He will also meet new World Bank President Jim Yong Kim for a web cast discussion on Wednesday on the challenges of eradicating poverty.

(Editing by W Simon)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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‘Dream Team’ of Behavioral Scientists Advised Obama Campaign

Late last year Matthew Barzun, an official with the Obama campaign, called Craig Fox, a psychologist in Los Angeles, and invited him to a political planning meeting in Chicago, according to two people who attended the session.

“He said, ‘Bring the whole group; let’s hear what you have to say,’ ” recalled Dr. Fox, a behavioral economist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

So began an effort by a team of social scientists to help their favored candidate in the 2012 presidential election. Some members of the team had consulted with the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle, but the meeting in January signaled a different direction.

“The culture of the campaign had changed,” Dr. Fox said. “Before then I felt like we had to sell ourselves; this time there was a real hunger for our ideas.”

This election season the Obama campaign won a reputation for drawing on the tools of social science. The book “Victory Lab,” by Sasha Issenberg, and news reports have portrayed an operation that ran its own experiment and, among other efforts, consulted with the Analyst Institute, a Washington voter research group established in 2007 by union officials and their allies to help Democratic candidates.

Less well known is that the Obama campaign also had a panel of unpaid academic advisers. The group — which calls itself the “consortium of behavioral scientists,” or COBS — provided ideas on how to counter false rumors, like one that President Obama is a Muslim. It suggested how to characterize the Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, in advertisements. It also delivered research-based advice on how to mobilize voters.

“In the way it used research, this was a campaign like no other,” said Todd Rogers, a psychologist at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former director of the Analyst Institute. “It’s a big change for a culture that historically has relied on consultants, experts and gurulike intuition.”

When asked about the outside psychologists, the Obama campaign would neither confirm nor deny a relationship with them. “This campaign was built on the energy, enthusiasm and ingenuity of thousands of grass-roots supporters and our staff in the states and in Chicago,” said Adam Fetcher, a campaign spokesman. “Throughout the campaign we saw an outpouring of individuals across the country who lent a wide variety of ideas and input to our efforts to get the president re-elected.”

For their part, consortium members said they did nothing more than pass on research-based ideas, in e-mails and conference calls. They said they could talk only in general terms about the research, because they had signed nondisclosure agreements with the campaign.

In addition to Dr. Fox, the consortium included Susan T. Fiske of Princeton University; Samuel L. Popkin of the University of California, San Diego; Robert Cialdini, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University; Richard H. Thaler, a professor of behavioral science and economics at the University of Chicago’s business school; and Michael Morris, a psychologist at Columbia.

“A kind of dream team, in my opinion,” Dr. Fox said.

He said that the ideas the team proposed were “little things that can make a difference” in people’s behavior.

For example, Dr. Fiske’s research has shown that when deciding on a candidate, people generally focus on two elements: competence and warmth. “A candidate wants to make sure to score high on both dimensions,” Dr. Fiske said in an interview. “You can’t just run on the idea that everyone wants to have a beer with you; some people care a whole lot about competence.”

Mr. Romney was recognized as a competent businessman, polling found. But he was often portrayed in opposition ads as distant, unable to relate to the problems of ordinary people.

When it comes to countering rumors, psychologists have found that the best strategy is not to deny the charge (“I am not a flip-flopper”) but to affirm a competing notion. “The denial works in the short term; but in the long term people remember only the association, like ‘Obama and Muslim,’ ” said Dr. Fox, of the persistent false rumor.

The president’s team affirmed that he is a Christian.

At least some of the consortium’s proposals seemed to have found their way into daily operations. Campaign volunteers who knocked on doors last week in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Nevada did not merely remind people to vote and arrange for rides to the polls. Rather, they worked from a script, using subtle motivational techniques that research has shown can prompt people to take action.

“We used the scripts more as a guide,” said Sarah Weinstein, 18, a Columbia freshman who traveled with a group to Cleveland the weekend before the election. “The actual language we used was invested in the individual person.”

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Chicago's top employers named

The Chicago Tribune released its annual Top Workplaces survey Monday, with a broad cross section of companies -- and dozens of new names -- earning recognition as the best places to work in Chicago. 

Abt Electronics and Coyote Logistics repeated as the top large and midsize employers, respectively, with iD Commerce + Logistics making the list for the first time as the top-ranked small company.  

This is the third year the Tribune has partnered with Workplace Dynamics to rank the top 100 companies as judged by their own employees, using criteria ranging from clued-in managers to flexible work schedules. More than 1,600 companies were invited to participate, with a record 254 completing the survey.

Pennsylvania-based Workplace Dynamics partnered with 32 newspapers and surveyed 1.5 million employees nationwide last year as part of its research efforts into what environments are best for employees. 

"We all spend an awful lot of time at work," said Doug Claffey, CEO of Workplace Dynamics. "Creating a really great workplace for employees is something that I think businesses have an obligation to do.  In addition to making money, you need create an environment where your people want to be."

Beyond Glenview electronics retailer Abt,  the top five large companies were Hyatt Hotels, Baird & Warner, ATI Physical Therapy and FedEx -- all new to this category this year.

Chicago-based Coyote Logistics was followed by kCura, Slalom Consulting, Edward Jones and Mercy Home for Boys & Girls among companies with 250 to 999 employees.  

Wood Dale-based id Commerce topped Webster Dental, 2011 winner Red Frog Events, Assurance Agency and LeasePlan USA among small companies.

Full survey results and a variety of top workplace profiles will be published in a magazine insert included in Tuesday's Chicago Tribune.

rchannick@tribune.com | Twitter @RobertChannick

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Bears trail Texans 10-6; Cutler out

On a rainy, turnover-filled night at Soldier Field, the Chicago Bears suffered an injury setback when quarterback Jay Cutler was ruled out for the second half of their showdown against the Houston Texans because of a concussion.

Jason Campbell replaced Cutler, who took a big hit from Texans linebacker Tim Dobbins late in the second quarter, to start the second half with the Bears trailing 10-3. Robbie Gould's 24-yard field goal pulled the Bears to within 10-6 with 1:55 left in the third quarter.

Gould tried to bring the Bears to within a point early in the final quarter, but missed a 48-yard field goal attempt that caromed off the left upright with 11:40 left after the Bears had driven to the Houston 30.

The Texans (7-1) entered with the best record in the AFC, matching the Bears’ NFC North-leading record. The hitting was fierce from the outset, with six turnovers being forced in the first half and Bears rookie defensive end Shea McClellin also being ruled out for the game early in the first quarter with a concussion.

Arian Foster made a diving catch of a 2-yard pass from Matt Schaub to give the Texans a 10-3 lead with 4:14 remaining in the first half.

The Bears trailed at the break after accumulating a mere 99 total yards of offense. Cutler completed 7 of 14 first-half passes for 36 yards. He was intercepted twice and had a passer rating of 16.7.

Cutler did manage to run for 37 yards in the first half to lead the Bears’ rushing game. Matt Forte ran for 11 yards on seven carries and Michael Bush had one run for 11 yards, although he lost a fumble at the end of that run.

Gould's 51-yard field goal pulled the Bears into a 3-3 tie with 12:52 to play in the second quarter. The score was set up when Tim Jennings intercepted his second pass of the night and returned it 10 yards to the Houston 38. The interception was Jennings' league-high eighth of the season. A deep third-down pass intended for Brandon Marshall into the end zone failed.

The Bears turned the ball over on their first play from scrimmage when Cutler passed six yards to tight end Kellen Davis. A fumble was forced by former Bears safety Danieal Manning at the Bears' 43 and recovered by Dobbins. When the Texans' drive stalled at the 2, Shayne Graham kicked a 20-yard field goal for a 3-0 lead.

The Bears also turned the ball over on their next possession when Bush fumbled after an 11-yard run and Houston recovered at the Texans' 27. The fumble was forced by Glover Quin and recovered by Bradie James with 4:40 left in the first period.

The Bears got the ball back when Schaub's pass intended for Keshawn Martin was intercepted by Jennings at the Houston 45 with 2:24 left in the first quarter.

On second down, however, Cutler's deep pass intended for Davis was intercepted by Manning at the Houston 5.

The Bears entered with a six-game winning streak, their longest such stretch since they won seven in a row in 2006 en route to a Super Bowl appearance.

Similarities and matching strengths between the Bears and Texans went well beyond their identical records.

While the Bears had seven interceptions for touchdowns in their first eight games, the Texans had turned the ball over only six times (best in the NFL) behind Schaub, who came in with a 96.8 passer rating.

The Bears entered the game with the NFL lead in takeaways (28) and turnover differential (plus-16). Houston came in with the league’s third-ranked defense, limiting its opponents to 286.1 total yards per game. They had not allowed a rushing touchdown in 11 games, going back to 2011.

The last time the Texans faced the Bears in Soldier Field was Dec. 19, 2004. The Texans prevailed 24-5 in 12-degree temperatures, the second-coldest kickoff temperature in team history.

fmitchell@tribune.com

Twitter @kicker34

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HTC shares jump after settles patent issues with Apple

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Shares of HTC Corp jumped by their permitted daily limit on Monday after the Taiwanese smartphone maker announced a global patent settlement and 10-year licensing agreement with Apple Inc, allowing the struggling company to focus on product development.

The settlement would give HTC a short-term boost, analysts suggested, but long-term performance would still depend on the company’s ability to deliver competitive products to grab back some of the market share it has lost to Apple and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co.

HTC’s shares opened up by the maximum allowed 6.86 percent at T$ 241.50, and remained at that level in morning trade in a broader market that slipped 0.15 percent.

The shares have bounced 24.5 percent from a closing low of T$ 194 two weeks ago, which was the lowest since 2005 before the company transformed into a top brand from an obscure contract maker. But the shares remain some 80 percent below their record high last April.

HTC and Apple’s settlement and licensing agreement on Saturday ended one of the first major conflagrations of the smartphone patent wars. The California giant sued HTC in 2010, its first major legal salvo against a manufacturer that used Google’s Android operating system.

“The licensing agreement is beneficial to HTC’s future product development, especially in the U.S. market,” said Gartner analyst C.K. Lu.

“The settlement is positive to the consumer image of both camps (Apple and Google) as they are now unlocked from a constant patent war.”

The two companies did not disclose details of the settlement or the licensing agreement, but HTC said the agreement will not impact its financials and it will not change its fourth-quarter guidance.

HTC said last month it expected its fourth-quarter revenue to be about T$ 60 billion ($ 2.05 billion), down from T$ 70.2 billion in the third quarter and below expectations of T$ 74.0 billion in a poll of 23 analysts by Reuters.

It expected a gross margin and an operating margin of around 23 percent and 1 percent, respectively, falling from 25 percent and 7 percent in the previous quarter.

The company said the operating margin would be hit by higher spending on marketing.

Analysts’ forecasts on how much HTC needs to pay Apple range from “not a very high price” to as much as over $ 10 per phone, though they remain best guesses, based partly on the assumed $ 10 royalty that phone makers pay Microsoft per Windows 7 phone, and on the $ 5-6 dollar that Android phone makers are believed to pay Microsoft after a separate lawsuit last year.

However, some analysts warn that HTC’s other challenges outweigh the settlement.

Its phones have lost a lot of their appeal among consumers as Apple’s iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy series dominate shopping lists, drawing parallels with the decline of Finland’s Nokia, once one of the dominant mobile phone players.

“Nokia settled with Apple in 2011 by winning royalties from Apple, but it did not change the landscape at all for smartphone competition. Samsung continued to win market share despite the losses to Apple,” wrote Barclays analyst Dale Gai in a research note.

“We believe the lawsuits remain non-events in terms of HTC’s fundamentals. HTC’s challenges remain and could get worse into 2013 from more competition.”

(Editing by Jonathan Standing)

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BBC head says broadcaster must reform or die

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain‘s BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust said, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

BBC Trust chairman Chris Patten said on Sunday confidence had to be restored if the publicly funded corporation was to withstand pressure from rivals, especially Rupert Murdoch‘s media empire, which would try to take advantage of the turmoil.

“If you’re saying, ‘Does the BBC need a thorough structural radical overhaul?’, then absolutely it does, and that is what we will have to do,” Patten, a one-time senior figure in Prime Minister David Cameron‘s Conservative Party and the last British governor of Hong Kong, told BBC television.

“The basis for the BBC’s position in this country is the trust that people have in it,” Patten said. “If the BBC loses that, it’s over.”

George Entwistle resigned as director general on Saturday, just two months into the job, to take responsibility for the child sex allegation on the flagship news programme Newsnight.

The witness in the Newsight report, who says he suffered sexual abuse at a care home in the late 1970s, said on Friday he had misidentified the politician, Alistair McAlpine. Newsnight admitted it had not shown the witness a picture of McAlpine, or approached McAlpine for comment before going to air.

Already under pressure after revelations that a long-time star presenter, the late Jimmy Savile, was a paedophile, Entwistle conceded on the BBC morning news that he had not known – or asked – who the alleged abuser was until the name appeared in social media.

The BBC, celebrating its 90th anniversary, is affectionately known in Britain as “Auntie”, and respected around much of the world.

But with 22,000 staff working at eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive Internet operation, critics say it is hampered by a complex and overly bureaucratic and hierarchical management structure.

THOMPSON’S LEGACY

Journalists said this had become worse under Entwistle’s predecessor Mark Thompson, who took over in the wake of the last major crisis to hit the corporation and is set to become chief executive of the New York Times Co on Monday.

In that instance, both director general and chairman were forced out after the BBC was castigated by a public inquiry over a report alleging government impropriety in the fevered build up to war in Iraq, leading to major organizational changes.

One of the BBC’s most prominent figures, Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, said since the Iraq report furore, management had become bloated while cash had been cut from programme budgets.

“He (Entwistle) has been brought low by cowards and incompetents,” Paxman said in a statement, echoing a widely-held view that Entwistle was a good man who had been let down by his senior staff.

Prime Minister Cameron appeared ready to give the BBC the benefit of the doubt, believing that “one of the great institutions of this country” could reform and deal with its failings, according to sources in his office.

Patten, who must find a new director general to sort out the mess, agreed that management structures had proved inadequate.

“Apparently decisions about the programme went up through every damned layer of BBC management, bureaucracy, legal checks – and still emerged,” he said.

“One of the jokes I made, and actually it wasn’t all that funny, when I came to the BBC … was that there were more senior leaders in the BBC than there were in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Patten ruled out resigning himself but other senior jobs are expected to be on the line, while BBC supporters fear investigative journalism will be scaled back. He said he expected to name Entwistle’s successor in weeks, not months.

Among the immediate challenges are threats of litigation.

McAlpine, a close ally of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, has indicated he will sue for damages.

Claims for compensation are also likely from victims who say Savile, one of the most recognizable personalities on British television in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, sexually abused them as children, sometimes on BBC premises.

INQUIRIES

Two inquiries are already under way, looking at failures at Newsnight and allegations relating to Savile, both of which could make uncomfortable reading for senior figures.

Police have also launched a major inquiry into Savile’s crimes and victims’ allegations of a high-profile paedophile ring. Detectives said they had arrested their third suspect on Sunday, a man in his 70s from Cambridgeshire in central England.

Funded by an annual license fee levied on all TV viewers, the BBC has long been resented by its commercial rivals, who argue it has an unfair advantage and distorts the market.

Murdoch’s Sun tabloid gleefully reported Entwistle’s departure with the headline “Bye Bye Chump” and Patten said News Corp and others would put the boot in, happy to deflect attention after a phone-hacking scandal put the newspaper industry under intense and painful scrutiny.

He said that “one or two newspapers, Mr. Murdoch’s papers” would love to see the BBC lose its national status, “but I think the great British public doesn’t want to see that happen”.

Murdoch himself was watching from afar.

“BBC getting into deeper mess. After Savile scandal, now prominent news program falsely names senior pol as paedophile,” he wrote on his Twitter website on Saturday.

It is not just the BBC and the likes of Entwistle and Patten who are in the spotlight.

Thompson, whom Entwistle succeeded in mid-September, has also faced questions from staff at the New York Times over whether he is still the right person to take one of the biggest jobs in American newspaper publishing.

Britain’s Murdoch-owned Sunday Times queried how Thompson could have been unaware of claims about Savile during his tenure at the BBC as he had told British lawmakers, saying his lawyers had written to the paper addressing the allegations in early September, while he was still director general.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey and Sophie Hares)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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Phil Rosenthal: Forming a Bond with brands

On the big screen, a hero's mettle is established by showing how much punishment the star can withstand and how daunting the obstacles are while ultimately getting the job done.

Early in the latest James Bond movie, "Skyfall," an assassin seeks to escape on a train speeding through the Turkish countryside. His tireless pursuer is pelted with bullets, swats away bugs and, when the bad guy disconnects the trailing car, extends an arm to literally hold on to the rest of the train so the chase can continue.

And the pursuer is, in fact, tireless because it is a modified Caterpillar 320D L excavator that Daniel Craig's Bond has commandeered. The bullets are bullets, but the bugs are Volkswagen Beetles, some swept off the train, others crushed. The logo-covered excavator's arm not only holds onto the rest of the train but provides Bond a perch from which to leap into the carriage, fixing the cuffs in his Tom Ford suit as he goes after the villain.

"For (the filmmakers), it wasn't an excavator, it wasn't what they would in the U.K. call a digger — it was for them a 'hero machine' because it was something that actually saves Bond," said Robert Woodley, the marketing executive for Peoria-based Caterpillar Inc., from his office in Geneva.

Woodley arranged and oversaw Cat's "Skyfall" star turn. "It's not just having the brand out there. It's seeing what light it's going to be viewed in."

"Skyfall" is practically "Skymall," what with all the brands and products mentioned and showcased.

The practice is neither new nor isolated. Yet even by the license-to-shill standards of increasingly commercialized James Bond movies, this one has an awful lot of brand exposure. All that's missing are the NASCAR-style logo patches for Bond, no slouch behind the wheel.

Especially now that the fictional covert operator is the focal point of an extremely overt ad campaign for beer, albeit Heineken.

Never mind the other products basking in the superspy's aura, such as Sony mobile phones and Vaio laptop computers, Macallan single-malt Scotch, Honda cycles, Bollinger Champagne, Globe-Trotter suitcases, Crockett & Jones footwear, Walther guns, Aston Martin cars, Swarovski jewelry, Omega watches, OPI nail polish, Land Rovers and Range Rovers and all the rest.

Some pay for the privilege, some make other arrangements. Some, like the new James Bond fragrance hawked by Procter & Gamble, aren't in the film. But all told, sponsorship and other ancillary deals for "Skyfall" are said to have brought in $45 million, about a third of what it cost to produce the film, one of the best in the Bond series.

"We have relationships with a number of companies so that we can make this movie," Craig told Moviefone on the "Skyfall" set this spring. "The simple fact is that, without them, we couldn't do it. It's unfortunate, but that's how it is."

The 007 tradition of brand integration, brand cameos, product placement or whatever you want to call it dates back to the original Ian Fleming stories. Some would say it's in the name of verisimilitude. But it's said Bond, originally a reader exclusively of The Times of London, also began reading the rival Daily Express when that paper began serializing Fleming's work.

Through a half-century of 007 films, the practice has grown as producers realized the potential economic windfall and marketers recognized the unique opportunity of association with the 007 franchise — as well as other entertainment.

"The challenge with product placement is it has to fit," said Timothy Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "When it works, there's a natural connection between the brand and the story and when it doesn't work, there's an inconsistency, and both parties are worse for the deal."

Today's sophisticated media consumer expects to see brands in TV shows, movies and even video games, according to Tom Weeks, senior vice president at LiquidThread (formerly known as Starcom Entertainment), the branded entertainment and content development operation within Chicago's Starcom MediaVest Group. But proper context — proper casting — is a must.

"Brands are stars, too," Weeks said. "They've got their own Twitter accounts. They've got their own Facebook pages. And they're invited into content as part of the experience. But it has to be done right, in a way that's not obtrusive and doesn't interrupt the digestion of that content."

Some Bond aficionados scoff at the Heineken tie-in, preferring to think of their man as a martini and Dom Perignon man. But there was Red Stripe beer in 1962's "Dr. No." And besides the familiar green-bottled Heineken (whose logo also is emblazoned on an unlikely wooden crate toppled in an early chase scene) and a lightly sipped martini, there is a memorable scene built around 50-year-aged Macallan.

"When I was at Kraft, there were times when a film would come out and our brands would be in the film and we'd be delighted … or not," he said. "I never saw a time when one of our brands was used in a way that made us cringe, but it could happen."

Case in point: the VW Beetles, out-of-stock models, crushed in "Skyfall." "While we always look for opportunities for exposure in the form of product placement, we were not involved with this placement," Corey Proffitt, who handles product communications for Volkswagen of America, told the Tribune by email.

Caterpillar, which first tied up with 007 in 1999's "The World is Not Enough," hopes the "Skyfall" connection boosts brand awareness, particularly in emerging markets like China, which seems a manageable goal.

A theme of "Skyfall" is that today's world is changing faster than ever, which is as true of advertising as it is of espionage. That's why you're only going to see more brand cameos, a la the Bond films.

"The traditional tools of advertising are fading and marketers are looking for new things to do," Calkins said. "Product placement becomes one of those things that can engage people where other methods have no effect."

Talk about daunting obstacles to overcome while ultimately getting the job done.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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Officials: Threats from Broadwell led to FBI probe

The scandal that brought down CIA Director David Petraeus started with harassing emails sent by his biographer and paramour, Paula Broadwell, to another woman, and eventually led the FBI to discover the affair, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Saturday.

Petraeus quit Friday after acknowledging an extramarital relationship.

The official said the FBI investigation began several months ago with a complaint against Broadwell, a 40-year-old graduate of the U.S. Military Academy and an Army Reserve officer. That probe led agents to her email account, which uncovered the relationship with the 60-year-old retired four-star general, who earned acclaim for his leadership of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The identity of the other woman and her connection with Broadwell were not immediately known.

Concerned that the emails he exchanged with Broadwell raised the possibility of a security breach, the FBI brought the matter up with Petraeus directly, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation. The FBI approached the CIA director because his emails in the matter were in most instances sent from a personal account, not his CIA one.

Petraeus decided to quit, abruptly ending a high-profile career that might have culminated with a run for the presidency, a notion he was believed to be considering.

Petraeus handed his resignation letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday, stunning many in the White House, the CIA and Congress. The news broke in the media before the House and Senate intelligence committees were briefed, officials say.

By Friday evening, multiple officials identified Broadwell, who spent the better part of a year reporting on Petraeus' time in Afghanistan.

Members of Congress said they want answers to questions about the affair that led to Petraeus's resignation.

House intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., and ranking member Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., will meet Wednesday with FBI deputy director Sean Joyce, and CIA acting director Michael Morell to ask questions, including how the investigation came about, according to a senior congressional staffer who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.

Petraeus has been married for 38 years to Holly Petraeus, the daughter of the West Point superintendent when he was a student at the New York school.

"He is truly remorseful about everything that's happened," said Steve Boylan, a retired army officer and former Petraeus spokesman who spoke with the former general on Saturday. In a phone call with Boylan Saturday, Petraeus lamented the damage he'd done to his "wonderful family" and the hurt he'd caused his wife.

"He screwed up, he knows he screwed up, now he's got to try to get past this with his family and heal," said Boylan.

Paula Broadwell interviewed the general and his close associates intensively for more than a year to produce the best-selling biography, "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus," which was written with Vernon Loeb, a Washington Post editor, and published in January. Since Petraeus's resignation on Friday, the book jumped from a ranking on Amazon of 76,792 on Friday to 111 by mid-Saturday.

The CIA was not commenting on the identity of the woman with whom Petraeus was involved.

Broadwell, who is married with two young sons, has not responded to multiple emails and phone messages. Broadwell planned to celebrate her 40th birthday party in Washington this weekend, with many reporters invited. But her husband emailed guests to cancel the event late Friday.

CIA officers long had expressed concern about Broadwell's unprecedented access to the director. She frequently visited the spy agency's headquarters in Langley, Va., to meet Petraeus in his office, accompanied him on his punishing morning runs around the CIA grounds and often attended public functions as his guest, according to two former intelligence officials.

As a military intelligence officer in the Army Reserve, Broadwell had a high security clearance, which she mentioned at public events as one of the reasons she was well-suited to write Petraeus's story.

But her access was unsettling to members of the secretive and compartmentalized intelligence agency, where husbands and wives often work in different divisions, but share nothing with each other when they come home because they don't "need to know."

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Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez have broken up, reports say

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop star Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, Selena Gomez, a Disney actress and singer, have broken up, ending a relationship that made them one of Hollywood’s most high-profile young couples, media reports said.

Bieber, 18, and Gomez, 20, disclosed their relationship in February 2011 when they appeared together at an Oscar night party after months of rumors of their dating.

E! Online late on Friday was the first to report the split, with other media outlets including US Weekly and People also saying the relationship was over. The reports cited unnamed sources close to the couple.

Representatives for Bieber and Gomez did not returns calls or emails on Saturday.

Bieber has released two No. 1 albums in just over a year – the holiday-themed “Under the Mistletoe” and his latest, “Believe.” In September, he topped Billboard’s “21 Under 21″ list of top young musical acts. It was his second year in a row with the title.

Gomez rose to fame as a teenager in the Walt Disney Co television series “Wizards of Waverly Place” and has enjoyed success as a pop singer.

(Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Greg McCune and Peter Cooney)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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