
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 4, 1991                   TAG: 9104040202
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RANDALL ROTHENBERG THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MARKETERS TAKE AIM AT RETURNING TROOPS

Returning American troops are heroes to many. To some consumer-products and media companies, they are also a market.

Pepsi-Cola Co. and Boeing Co. are underwriting an in-flight video program that will be shown to American military personnel flying from the Persian Gulf to the United States.

The two-hour program, which will consist of segments produced by Cable News Network, Home Box Office, the Nashville Network and Walt Disney Co., is scheduled to be shown through August on the 13 commercial airlines that are carrying troops back from the gulf.

Some 400,000 of the 500,000 American personnel in the gulf are returning on commercial airliners, the program's sponsors said. The carriers are American, American Trans Air, Delta, Pan Am, Tower Air, United, TWA, World Airways, Sun Country, Northwest, America West, Continental and Hawaiian.

The program, "Welcome Home To America," was created by Flight Level Video, a New York producer of in-flight videos, and will consist of repackaged entertainment news, comedy segments, music videos and other material that appeared on television during the six months that American military personnel were serving in the gulf.

The show, which was developed at the suggestion of Pan Am, will also carry two advertisements: a tribute to patriotism that Boeing ran on commercial television during the conflict, and an all-text scroll at the program's end that reads, in part, "The people of Pepsi-Cola are proud, too, that we were there to provide a little taste of home for you while you served our country, and proud to help bring you this different taste of home."

Pepsi and several other companies provided food and beverages without charge to military personnel in the gulf.

The program's creators say they are not looking at the troops as advertising targets.

"This is not in any way an advertising thing, a marketing thing," said Lucian Chalfen, president of Flight Level Video. "It's just people with the power and wherewithal to make it happen, whether a media company, a soft drink company, whatever."

But marketing opportunities are not being missed. Andrew Giangola, a Pepsi spokesman, said Pepsi was considering giving all returning troops a welcome-home gift pack with coupons for Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut restaurants and and Frito-Lay snacks. All are Pepsico subsidiaries.

by CNB