Register Tries New Tricks; Don’s Tree Bigger Than Henry’s

The OC Register’s front-page “ad wraps” for Howard’s superstores that ran on several days recently,and upset many in the Reg newsroom,are just one of the ideas being tested at Freedom Communications’ flagship paper. “We’re going to see more creativity in the future,” said sales veep Debbie Holzkamp. They’re considering ads that “zigzag” through a page; Holzkamp compared it to product placement in movies. (The Register already runs a lower-corner ad on its front page, not unlike the OCBJ, which runs a bottom-front strip.) However, the future of the page-one wrap is under review, Holzkamp said. Reporters and editors complained about the way it resembled the front page while covering up half of it. Some readers gave similar feedback, she said. Holzkamp wouldn’t divulge what Howard’s paid, but the Insider hears it was about $10,000 per issue, comparable to a normal full-page ad and five times the price of the page-one corner OCers Hector Cuellar, prez of RSM Equico’s broker-dealer unit, and Mario Rodriguez, regional chairman for Bush-Cheney, make Hispanic Business’ 100 Influentials list. Oddly, Arte Moreno and Loretta Sanchez don’t “I’m downscaling the business, and my academic activities are dramatically increasing,” says entrepreneur-socialite-scholar Mark Johnson. He’s moving his Chapin Medical Co. from its spacious facility in Corona to a smaller office he owns in Anaheim; he has said he eventually plans to move the company, which has been hit hard by a price war in the plasma business, out of high-cost California altogether. Johnson also has his palatial home in Cowan Heights on the block. Meanwhile, he’s joined the board of the think-tank Hoover Institution at Stanford. And at Chapman U, he’s chairman of the Institute for the Study of Media and the Public Interest, which he’s launching with Larry Dodge Donald vs. Henry: What does The Irvine Company, which promotes “the beautiful outside atmosphere” and ocean locale of Fashion Island, think of rival South Coast Plaza getting trademarked as The Ultimate Shopping Resort? “We think the strategy is certainly creative,” says a TIC spokeswoman. “I imagine different people have different ideas about what constitutes a resort. We’ll be interested to see how it works.” And for those keeping score, Fashion Island’s Christmas tree will beat SCP’s, 115 feet to 90; both are white firs from Mt. Shasta. “Theirs is always the biggest but ours is the most beautiful,” says SCP’s Beverly Morgan Campus activism: UCI student Drew Marshall-Lund worked for the Bush-Cheney campaign in Washington, D.C. Student Steffanie Young is secretary of the California Young Democrats. MTV’s “Rock the Vote” is scheduled to visit the campus this week Maybe Anaheim has no sex. The city, recently chosen by Men’s Health magazine as the top place for safe sex, now has finished second (behind Minneapolis) in a “Best City for Sleep” study by “Best Places” author Bert Sperling.