Business Notes MARKETING

After billboards, bus shelters and blimps, advertisements are now spreading to home-video rental boxes. Two companies, Calgary-based ADcorp and the Video Ad Network of Grand Rapids, have begun selling space on the plastic covers that encase videocassettes to dozens of advertisers, including McDonald's, Pizza Hut and the Bank of America. Nearly 35,000 U.S. video stores have signed up to carry the ad-bedecked cases. With good reason. Video Ad Network President Scott Johnson claims that a retailer who sells space on 2,000 tape cases could garner $16,000 or more a year in ad revenues.