Zoo drops Creation Museum promo
A Christmas season partnership between the Cincinnati Zoo and the Creation Museum aimed at boosting tourism has ended days after it was launched, with the zoo pulling out after receiving a significant number of complaints. As planned, the partnership would have allowed visitors to see both attractions for $25.95, a savings of $9 compared to the normal combined price. It had been in the works for months and was designed as a way to promote the zoo’s Festival of Lights and the museum’s Bethlehem’s Blessings, which features a free live outdoor nativity. The zoo, though, withdrew from the partnership Dec. 1 before any combo tickets were sold. Some of the complaints asserted that the zoo was partnering with an attraction that promotes pseudo-science. Others said the zoo shouldn’t be partnering with a museum that promotes a religious viewpoint of creation.
Bad economy saves some marriages
Some say there is a silver lining in every cloud, and during the nation’s economic downturn, one positive effect is that some couples are deciding to work through their marital difficulties rather than opting for an expensive divorce. “Marriage counselors and divorce lawyers nationwide say more distressed couples are putting off divorce because the cost of splitting up is prohibitive in a time of stagnant salaries, plummeting home values and rising unemployment,” MSNBC reporter Alex Johnson wrote. Johnson noted that a contested divorce can cost a couple with at least one child from $53,000 to $188,000 in attorneys’ fees, financial advice, counseling and real estate costs. Ten sessions of marriage counseling, meanwhile, cost about $1,000, and that’s the route many people are taking these days, he said. The evidence for a decline in divorces is primarily anecdotal, he said, because national divorce statistics for 2008 aren’t yet available.
Coca-Cola is best pro-family advertiser
Coca-Cola, Whirlpool and Hewlett-Packard were ranked among the 10 best television advertisers based on the content in prime-time broadcast programs they chose to support, according to the Parents Television Council, a pro-family watchdog group. “The role that television advertisers play in determining what type of content comes into every home in America cannot be overstated,” Tim Winter, the group’s president, said in a news release. “We commend the advertisers on our best list that have chosen to associate their hard-earned corporate brands with positive programming that the entire family can watch together.” The 10 best: Coca-Cola, The Clorox Company, Century 21 Real Estate, H&R Block, Ferrero SpA (USA), CVS Caremark Corporation, Whirlpool Corporation, The Hershey Company, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance and Hewlett-Packard. The 10 worst: General Motors Corporation, Nissan North America, L’Oreal USA, Pepsi-Cola North America, GlaxoSmithKline Holdings, Reckitt Benckiser, Target Corporation, Kohl’s Corporation, Verizon Communications and Toyota Motor North America.
WMU cutback includes unpaid furloughs
With the United States’ economy projected to worsen in 2009, Woman’s Missionary Union SBC has announced a series of measures to ensure the organization can retain its staff and stay focused on its mission of involving children, youth and adults in the Great Commission. During a Dec. 10 meeting at the 120-year-old organization’s Birmingham, Ala., headquarters, WMU executive director Wanda Lee told employees about the measures, which include budget reductions, streamlining expenses, a hiring freeze on vacant positions, a reduction on employer contributions to employee retirement plans, a freeze on merit pay increases, elimination of incentive bonuses in 2009, and the implementation of four weeks unpaid furlough for each staff member between January and August 2009. The hiring freeze and reduced retirement contributions will continue until Sept. 30, 2009. WMU leadership focused on avoiding layoffs and keeping health insurance affordable for their approximately 100 employees, Lee said.