Hints from the hypemeisters: here's how big-time marketing execs plug their wares and stroke staff and clients - and what you can learn from them. (Selling)

Don't bother leaning over. The buzzword for marketing in the '90s isn't a whisper - it's a shout. As the greater retail world sings to ever more segmented markets with a craving for more "customized" information, builders must follow suit or get lost in the din. "You can't just say |Here's a four-bedroom, four bath house,'" warns California ad agent NormaLynn Cutler. "You must give it personality."

To give builders insight into how marketers in other industries grab the spotlight for their products, work with their sales staffs and suppliers, and handle customer service, Cutler assembled a panel of executives from a movie studio, a car rental business, a megamall, and a jewelry company at the recent Pacific Coast Builders Conference in San Francisco.

"Though their businesses are different from yours, it's important for builders to understand how they market their products," says Cutler. "Because they compete for your customers' time and attention."

MAKING MOVIE MAGIC

Although all seems seamless on the screen, making a movie means taming a titanic array of egos, from producers to stars, from directors to set and costume designers.

So much money and creative energy is riding on each film that tensions inevitably arise, says Kimberly Brent, vice president of The Koch Company, an independent producer for Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles. Teamwork is a fragile affair. Everyone obsesses about the competition. "At any point, moviegoers have more than 100 pictures to choose from," Brent says.

In other words, irs so expensive to cobble a movie together that if the script doesn't work or the stars don't connect, the …