By Elizabeth Dinan
Source: Portsmouth Herald
Friday, March 27, 2009

State Liquor Enforcement officials have charged a University of New Hampshire graduate student with operating a sophisticated false identification operation out of his off-campus residence.

Matthew Kramer, 22, of Durham, was arrested on a warrant for a class B felony charge of manufacturing/sale/possession of false identification, according to the state Liquor Enforcement office. The charge is punishable by prison time, said Major Todd Feyrer, who said Kramer will be arraigned April 16 in Durham District Court, after which the case will be forwarded to the county attorney's office.

Feyrer said Kramer's arrest followed a month-long investigation by the State Liquor Commission's Bureau of Enforcement, "after a recent spike in the number of false IDs confiscated in the Durham area." The Bureau was assisted by Durham Police and University of New Hampshire Police.

The warrant for Kramer's arrest was issued after the police agencies searched Kramer's residence on March 20 and seized eleven false N.H. driver's licenses, a desktop computer, a flash drive, a scanner/printer, laminating machine, bar code encoders and scanners, ID card stock, lamination stock and other items related to manufacturing the false IDs.

Kramer's identification operation was "absolutely" sophisticated, said Feyrer.

Following his arrest, Kramer was released on $1,000 personal recognizance bail.

Beverage News Daily
April 3, 2009
 
 
As you consider your advertising media choices, consider these findings from a just-released study by McPheters & Co.:
 
 
 
When study results were used in combination with other information on probability of exposure, a full-page 4-color magazine ad was determined to have 83% of the value of a 30-second television commercial, while a typical Internet banner ad has 16% of the value.
 
McPheters is a well-respected media research firm.  The study was funded by Conde Nast and CBS Vision.
 
 "Because different media deliver ad impressions at vastly different rates, this study provides clear evidence that time spent with a medium does not translate into value for advertisers. It also indicates that magazine advertising is undervalued relative to its effectiveness," said Scott McDonald, senior vp-research for Condé Nast. 
 
Dave Poltrack, chief research officer for CBS and President of CBS Vision, said "As more and more advertisers try to figure out how to communicate their story across media platforms, this form of experimental research will become an increasingly critical element in pre-campaign planning."
 
"Our findings indicate that we need to learn more about how to engage Internet users with advertising content," said Rebecca McPheters, CEO of McPheters & Company. "We look forward to expanding this work to look more closely at other forms of Internet advertising, as well as other media - such as cable, newspapers and radio, and specific types of programming or content. While the sample sizes were not significantly robust to release results for individual ad categories, the study suggests that there are real differences in performance that are worthy of further exploration," she added.
 
To conduct the study, matched groups of respondents were recruited to spend 30 minutes with a single medium in a laboratory setting. They either watched a choice of sit-coms, read a magazine they selected, or surfed the Internet at will.
 
At the end of the period, they filled out similar online surveys that asked whether they recalled seeing 4 ads which appeared in the medium they consumed; in order to establish the level of over-claiming, which is known to vary by medium, they were also asked whether they recalled seeing 4 ads that had not appeared. These results were then used to calculate net recall or ad absorption for each medium.
 
Newsletter Editor's Note: Bemidji Liquor has produced some excellent cable television ads:

There are better things in life than alcohol, but alcohol makes up for not having them.
Terry Pratchett