Word: mobilizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Companies involved in natural resources also performed well. In the past two weeks, as one big oil company after another posted hefty fourth-quarter profits, their stock prices leaped daily. During January, Exxon was up 5¾, to 60⅞, Mobil rose 3⅜, to 58⅜, and others racked up equally impressive rises. Coal, timber and copper producers, which like the oil companies deal in irreplaceable or depletable assets, also showed strong gains...
...parable that expressed such useful truths as "Necessity is the mother of invention," "Look before you leap," and "Slow and steady wins the race." But today one man's parable may look like the most obvious kind of self-promotion to his neighbor. So, at least, did the Mobil Corp. discover when it tried to introduce six imaginative new TV commercials. The ads, which Mobil politely calls "fables for now," feature dancers and mimes masquerading as animals to make Mobil's points. Three stations have banned the ads altogether, and at least one-consumer group-Washington-based Energy...
...commercials, which defend the high profits of oil companies, among other things, are attached to Edward and Mrs. Simpson, a six-part British-made and Mobil-syndicated series about the romance that led to the abdication of King Edward VIII. No one objects to the series, but officials at three stations owned by the Washington Post-Newsweek broadcast group-in Jacksonville, Detroit and Hartford-told Mobil that the ads violated their ban against advocacy commercials. "We believe that controversial issues should be dealt with in our news and public affairs programs," says Amy McComb, manager of Jacksonville's WJXT...
...Mobil had no trouble in persuading other stations in the three cities to pick up the series, but Herbert Schmertz, the firm's vice president for public affairs, was nonetheless outraged by the stations' actions. Adding to his anger was the earlier refusal of the three major networks to run a more straightforward, nonfabulous commercial. That spot maintained that Mobil's profits are actually lower, in terms of return on invested capital, than those of the networks. The networks' response was much the same as that of the Post-Newsweek stations, but a spokesman...
Schmertz, who had them adapted from a series of Mobil newspaper ads, has enlisted such talents as the American Ballet Theater and Mimes Robert Shields and Lorene Yarnell to act out his messages. One of the most elaborate of the spots, the tale of a misunderstood elephant, combines cartoon animation, costumed frolicking by the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company and a clever voice-over (see box). In another, the A.B.T. dances out the story of a squirrel who was good at finding nuts...