In looking at some of our past stories in BarterNews I came up with some enterprising examples of how barter is used. These creative ways are just a sampling of what’s done in the competitive marketplace over the last decade…

• Coca-Cola is offering franchisees of McDonald’s a lucrative exchange, called “exclusivity rewards.” Here’s the deal—”If you drop Dr. Pepper, we’ll provide you with up to 600 gallons of Coke syrup!”

(Such incentives are very typical in that business, and companies like Dr. Pepper historically will match Coke’s offer—so few accounts are lost.)

• We’ve heard of creative ways to boost TV ratings, but ABC has come up with another…Couch potatoes will now be rewarded frequent-flyer miles for watching television!

(To earn the “miles“ a questionnaire on a particular program must be answered.)

• Two major drug companies, Johnson & Johnson and Pharmacia & Upjohn have bartered certain health-care brands.

(Product swaps are fairly unusual within the pharmaceutical industry, but these moves allow the companies to leverage their marketing and distribution strengths.)

• Time Warner and Adelphia Communications traded cable systems in seven states serving a total of 250,000 customers, continuing a trading trend in the cable industry.

• Dresses and sportswear apparel-manufacturer Leslie Fay has emerged from bankruptcy protection by bartering 6.8 million shares of stock to various creditors.

• New York City has traded $27.6 million in sales-tax-exemptions to Merrill Lynch & Co., the nations’ biggest securities broker, for expanding its operations in NYC. The tax agreement is for a 15-year period of time.

• Value Vision International is the third-largest TV home shopping network. Recently, they acquired a 15% interest in NetRadio Network by bartering $2 million in ad time on cable TV.

(NetRadio technology allows users to listen to audio, news or music while accessing the internet or working on a PC.)

• Walt Disney has acquired the film library of Cinergi Pictures Entertainment in exchange for cancellation of $38.4 million in outstanding loans. The eleven films Disney will take over include Evita, Nixon and Judd Dredd.

• Napa Valley wine-guru Helen Turley is now called a “vinous goddess” by The Wine Advocate newsletter. Critics praise her wines, and the wine elite crave her bottles at almost any cost. Yet in her early days, “I was begging farmers for grapes,” she divulged. “I had no barrels and no place to make wine.”

She was able to make it by scraping together just three tons of grapes, enough for less than 200 cases of wine by bartering her consulting skills. When her first batch reached the market the raves started pouring in.

• The TV show Seinfeld is so important to General Electric’s NBC TV network that GE’s chief executive, Jack Welch, personally met twice with Jerry Seinfeld.

Knowledgeable sources told Fortune magazine that Welch suggested GE stock options (bartering a part of the company in exchange for a commitment) might be a way to sweeten NBC’s already lucrative offer of $5 million per episode to Seinfeld.

• Amoco traded oil fields in western Texas to Mobil Oil for natural gas interests in Oklahoma.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 15th, 2008 at 5:14 am and is filed under From The Street. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.