With tens of thousands of Hispanic consumers here generating buying power of up to $300 million a year, Greater Cincinnati businesses are looking for a way in on the action.

LaVerdad Hispanic Marketing Solutions is happy to help them.

The Montgomery company has sent out coupon books to more than 4,000 Hispanic households, each featuring more than a dozen companies with marketing messages in Spanish.

Entries include Newport Aquarium, The Beach Waterpark and Jake Sweeney Chevrolet. LaVerdad recently launched a second wave of books, this time adding Columbus as a target, company president Mike Robinson said.

While most coupon redemptions struggle to reach 2 percent, some companies are getting 10 percent rates on these, Robinson said.

"It's an advertising space for them," he said. "These businesses have to be forward-looking. They know you have to build that bond and loyalty over time."

Spam scam

Leaders at the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce get the same spam e-mails as the rest of us, with an appeal for funds from far-off lands.

But they were surprised this weekend when one from Liberia landed in their in-boxes slugged, "Subject: Another Referral Brought to you by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce."

The chamber whipped out a response urging members to delete the e-mail immediately. But it didn't quite know what to do next.

"Who do you complain to?" chamber president Gary Toebben said. "I'll bet I get two of these a week. But I never got one that said this before."

Leslie Kish, director of operations at the Cincinnati Better Business Bureau, said spam e-mails from outside the U.S. often are unregulated.

Recipients can forward e-mails to the Federal Trade Commission at uce@ftc.gov, or to the Better Business Bureau at information@cinbbb.org, she said.

"Spam e-mail is just one of those things where you have to educate yourself on how to spot them," Kish said.

'I can't wait'

Despite being paid more than $86 million over the past two decades by Procter & Gamble Co., Vidal Sassoon seems determined to see his lawsuit against P&G to trial.

He's convinced that P&G ruined the business he spent a career building by pulling it off store shelves in North America and Europe. This week, a federal court in Los Angeles cleared the way for an October trial.

"I can't wait to have my day in court against P&G," Sassoon said in a telephone interview. "I want them in court. They have to answer these charges. They cannot do this to people."

"I gave them a $100 million business 20 years ago, and I finished up in the 99-cent basket," he said.

P&G responded to the court's action by saying it was continuing to invest in the brand, particularly in Asia. Sassoon called that "outrageous hubris with a slight touch of mendacity."

The court's order dismissed two fraud claims while keeping claims for breach of covenant and breach of fiduciary duty. He has received royalties of $1 million to $7.5 million a year since P&G bought the brand in 1985, plus payments on a personal-services contract that started at $600,000 a year.

P&G said in the court papers that it's "working on plans to reintroduce Vidal Sassoon through salon sales." And the company said it tried to keep retail sales healthy by spending $1 billion on marketing support between 1991 and 2004 but couldn't stop the slide.

Sassoon said he doesn't believe it, and he feels "degraded" by P&G.

"We built P&G's fashion and beauty name," he said. "They didn't have one. They were candlestick makers, for God's sake."

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com