• by October 13, 2003

THE RIFF LIVES FOR THIS - Major League Baseball's advertising campaign within the championship and World Series shows superstar ballplayers discussing why they love the game, adding, "I live for this." Something tells the Riff we're not going to see a spot from Pedro Martinez, Don Zimmer, Karim Garcia or Manny Ramirez.

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND - You've got to hand it to Fox. They stuck with baseball through the lean times and look how they've been rewarded: A championship series that has featured three of the most popular teams - Boston, New York and Chicago - and the prospects looming of a Yankees-Cubs match up that will draw many more fans than, say, the Angels-Giants did last year. And, to top it off, they've been able to hype not just the rivalry between the Red Sox and the Yankees but they've gotten to show blood drawn.

AN INVITATION YOU WON'T WANT TO ZAP - Consumer-empowering media technologies normally give ad agencies - especially media shops - the willies, but at least one is considering them reason enough to throw a cocktail party and host a panel discussion on how they're impacting advertising. In invitations being mailed this week, The Media Kitchen is inviting some of its closest friends, a few clients and members of the media trade press to "celebrate" 50- plus years of "consumer control." In case you didn't get it, the invites include a TV/VCR remote control device. The Oct. 27 event at New York's trendy SOHO House will feature Yahoo!'s Wenda Millard, Wired magazine's Frank Rose, Booz Allen Hamilton's Randy Rothenberg, TiVo's Marty Yudkovitz and The Media Kitchen's chief chef Paul Woolmington who will discuss "what gives consumers more control today than ever" and "what advertisers can do to get it back."

PUBLISHERS ZAP PLANNERS - The magazine industry has zapped planners at Mediaedge:cia, MPG, OMD and GM Planworks and is zipping another from MediaCom out of the market altogether. Five planners - Mediaedge:cia's Steven Bloom; Jasen Kelly and Heather Knotts of MPG; OMD's Bob Porcaro; and GM Planworks' Whitney Reiss-Chamberlin - each won a TiVo (including lifetime service) as part of the Magazine Publishers of America's "Magazines Make A Difference" sweepstakes. A sixth "grand prize" winner, MediaCom's Lori Ruderman, won a trip to the "remote" (yup, another TV reference) Laluna Resort on the island of Grenada.