Prevention's Famous Faces... Desiring Dockers... Rucci in 'Kell'...

FAMOUS FACES ALL THE TIME: During the nearly 60 years Prevention has been published, the magazine has occasionally featured a celebrity on its cover, the most recent and high profile example being the November issue featuring First Lady Michelle Obama (single-copy sales of which were up 20 percent). Now the Rodale title plans to make celebrities its permanent cover choice. The March issue has Marg Helgenberger and upcoming covers will have Vanessa Williams and Andie MacDowell.

The March issue also ushers in a double-digit rebound in advertising paging and revenue, up 31 percent and 27 percent, respectively. One of the drivers was beauty, up 26 percent, perhaps a result of the fact that prevention.com ranks number one for those who search “anti-aging skin care” and “defy your age.” And in an attempt to further boost those beauty ad pages, senior vice president and publisher Mary Murcko commissioned a “defy your age” proprietary beauty research report. The study helpfully found that 73 percent of women use antiaging products and 52 percent of women in their 30s have used something to turn back the clock. — Amy Wicks

CAUGHT WITH THEIR PANTS DOWN: Dockers was a victim of its own success during Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast, as viewers overloaded the brand’s Web site following its commercial plugging the chance to win free khakis. “The number of entries we actually received exceeded our wildest expectations and as a result our site faced some challenges for a short time,” admitted Jennifer Sey, vice president of global marketing at the Levi Strauss & Co.-owned brand. “While we are disappointed and sorry that consumers experienced momentary frustration, we are pleased by the overwhelming response to our product.”

In today’s social media world, though, frustrated consumers can be quick to air their grievances online — perhaps undoing the positive buzz Dockers hoped to create. Twitter lit up with complaints about the nonfunctioning Dockers Web site, and some took to YouTube to rant. “It kind of sucks that the Web site crashed. It looks like a lot of money was spent on advertising and not enough budget on server space,” said YouTube user Gaberedribbon. “It’s too bad they didn’t have the foresight to increase the server space and bandwidth to meet the expectations of people looking for free Dockers.”

Indeed, from Sunday evening to Monday afternoon, “Dockers free pants” was the number-one search term on Google in the U.S. Dockers declined to provide figures for the total number of entries the promotion generated. The vast majority of those hopefuls won’t be receiving free Dockers: The company is only giving away 5,000 pairs of pants through Feb. 15.

Twitter user Jflittle sounded resigned to that fact Monday, tweeting: “Didn’t win free pants from Dockers. Sad, now I have to go into work tonight with no pants on. :(” —David Lipke

ROLLING WITH IT: Letting the cameras in — whether they be for TV or a documentary — can be unnerving at best, but Ralph Rucci welcomed three different film crews into his atelier. Monday night’s episode of Bravo’s “Kell on Earth” detailed how a computer glitch unraveled the seating plan for his September show at New York’s Bryant Park. Rucci’s sister Rosina said even she did not realize how bad the pre-show front-of-house crush got until she recently previewed the show. Even though the designer label will not be working with People’s Revolution this season, she holds no ill will. “I never approach anything with ‘Whose fault is this?’ It’s more like, ‘OK, we have an issue. How do we make it right?’” On Wednesday night The Sundance Channel will air David Boatman’s documentary “Ralph Rucci: A Designer and His House,” and Videofashion has filmed the designer at work and at home for another documentary that is slated for Feb. 19. — Rosemary Feitelberg