Blog Posts by Marc Weisblott

Finalists have been announced for the 60th Miss Universe Canada pageant, whose winner will be crowned June 25 at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts in Toronto, and go on to represent the country in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September.

While the current Canadian incarnation has only been around since 2003, it was responsible for a world champion within a couple years when Natalie Glebova was named Miss Universe 2005.

But with a growing number of avenues for people to express themselves online, a place where the popularity contest never ends, do we still need pageants to provide a launch pad for a young woman's career?

A survey of the 60 faces headed to Miss Universe Canada would suggest the event can still attract a more eclectic bunch than found on the typical reality show.

Below, some interesting factoids gleaned from five of the 60 contestant biographies:

Tina Grant (Calgary): The recent star of a television commercial for Tide Acti-Lift, she once placed second in a female skateboarding

The prospect of a strike at Canada Post comes at a precarious time for the mail business.

A few weeks without its ritual delivery might remind more people they could live without it.

The situation is more precarious south of the border where a 7.6 per cent drop in mail volume during the winter has drawn attention to the fact the United States Postal Service might run out of cash next summer.

"The End of Mail," the cover story of the new issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, described how a team of USPS analysts recently toured Europe to observe how its postal services were reinvented for the 21st century, and also paid a visit to Canada.

Whatever was gleaned from the latter trip wasn't mentioned in the article. Perhaps, with a long-overdue $1.9-billion Canada Post modernization program still in its earliest stages current conditions aren't worth trying to emulate.

When its top job was taken over by Deepak Chopra, a former president of communications firm Pitney Bowes, it was wondered how he

"What is Toronto?????" asked Watson in its first final round of "Jeopardy!" in which the category was "U.S. Cities."

The response proved an embarrassment for the IBM supercomputer, which nonetheless cruised to victory in a tournament on Alex Trebek's game show in February, although the know-it-all device will soon visit the city itself.

Watson will be on display at the 2011 eHealth Conference next week at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre where demonstrations of its answering system will be conducted.

Rather than being counted on to deliver a computerized keynote speech by itself, however, a Monday symposium with Dr. Martin Kohn of Watson Healthcare Analytics will help explain how the system can be used in medicine.

Kohn's view is the supercomputer could even trump the need for a second opinion once it reaches the marketplace within eight to 10 years because of its ability to store and process the most current information available.

Research is underway to explore how Watson's

Welcome to Morning Brew, our daily roundup of early-bird news:

• Research In Motion has issued a statement to refute the claims of a class action lawsuit filed against the company in the U.S., on the grounds that it misled investors over its true financial situation, while it struggled with technology issues and declining revenues. (Marketwire)

• Stephen Elop, the Ancaster, Ont. native handed the task of figuring out what to do with Finnish wireless company Nokia, has been profiled for a cover story in Report on Business magazine, under a headline designed to sum up his attitude: "Look out Apple." (The Globe and Mail)

• Tommy Hilfiger is the latest fashion brand to sign a deal with The Bay, with an agreement that will find its menswear boutiques in 90 department stores across Canada beginning in November, following a similar deal with Macy's stores in the U.S. (CNW)

Stores being forced to charge a nickel for a plastic bag have been a bane of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's existence.

A promise to scrap the requirement was reinforced this week.

The public perception, however, has generally been the bylaw implemented two years ago fed into the coffers at city hall. A council vote of 30 to 13 in December 2008, backed by former mayor David Miller, led Ford supporters to see the five-cent fee as just another tax.

But the requirement could also be manipulated into a case of capitalism at its craftiest.

Retailers were under no obligation to reveal what they did with the extra coin. And the markup on each bag could be as much as four out of every five cents.

Loblaw showed it didn't need the government to tell it what to do, and started to charge a nickel for each bag across the country several months before it was required in Toronto, and planned to continue even after a repeal.

A three-year commitment to give a total of $3 million to the World Wildlife Fund,

Asking people to suddenly start paying for something they have become accustomed to getting for free over the last decade or so doesn't sound like much of a bargain.

One of the most prominent newspaper publishers in Canada, Postmedia Network, is testing what its websites might be worth to habitual visitors.

The company, publisher of the National Post, implemented a 'metering' system on Wednesday for the Montreal Gazette and Victoria Times Colonist. The inspiration was a similar paywall introduced by The New York Times in March that allows for some complimentary access.

The emergent industry standard, evidently, is to offer browsers 20 free articles per month. Readers of the Postmedia sites will be asked to pay if they want to dive in deeper each day.

Victoria seems to have been chosen as a test market based on its older population, which is most accustomed to subscribing to a newspaper, and therefore less likely to balk at a $9.95 monthly charge.

The media environment in Montreal is

Welcome to Morning Brew, our daily roundup of early-bird news:

• Target has announced its list of the first 105 Zellers locations on deck for a U.S.-style makeover, in all 10 provinces: Ontario will get 45 of them, 19 will open in Quebec, 15 in B.C., 13 in Alberta, six in the Maritimes, five in Manitoba and two in Saskatchewan. (National Post)

• Rogers Media is expected to bring its CityNews television brand to radio, on AM stations in Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, Calgary and Vancouver, along with three FM stations in the Maritimes, based on some recently discovered Web domain registrations. (RadioInsight)

• A&W has opened its first 'Urban Concept' restaurant in Quebec, in downtown Montreal, which was designed to make the fast-food experience feel more fashionable, through self-order kiosks and environmentally conscious packaging like china plates and stainless steel cutlery. (CNW)

The disappearance of the Double Down from KFC locations across Canada last fall, after a one-month trial, was one of the great mysteries of modern marketing.

The controversial and popular sandwich is returning on a limited basis, but one unanswered question remains.

What prevented the chain from making the bunless sandwich a permanent fixture?

After all, the Double Down had been installed on the KFC menu in the U.S., even before a similar limited-time offer even expired last May.

And, more strangely, the Canadian headquarters sought attention for the fact the sandwich would no longer be available after it sold more than one million between Oct. 18 and Nov. 15.

"That's enough Double Downs to stretch across 2,083 hockey rinks or approximately 140 CN Towers from end to end!" exclaimed marketing officer Dan Howe.

So, there had to be a reason why Canada was starved of such a popular product for more than half a year.

Some corporate turmoil might have been to blame. Priszm Income Fund, the