MASHED MARKETS; SEMA makes strange bedfellows.(Specialty Equipment Market Association)(Criss Angel contracts with RealWheels Accessories)

Byline: RICHARD S. CHANG

Criss Angel, the illusionist with a heavy-metal style who has suddenly displaced David Blaine as the magician du jour, made an appearance for RealWheels Accessories at the 2006 Specialty Equipment Market Association show. The line of autograph seekers extended the entire width of the massive South Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

But the magician wasn't just making a celebrity appearance. He didn't perform any magic. Standing next to an overhauled Hummer H2 SUT, which had equal parts chrome and audio-visual paraphernalia, Angel spoke at length about the process of building the truck with RealWheels and its strategic partners.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to cross-marketing run amuck.

SEMA has always featured adventurous examples of cross-marketing, where project cars are spun off as die-cast models or wind up in films or as virtual rides in video games, or all of the above. But these days the marketing links are becoming, well, nearly irrelevant. Hip-hop artists own wheel companies and shill for car manufacturers. Graffiti artists build Scion project cars. At this year's SEMA show, Sherwin-Williams released a line of Dale Earnhardt Jr. car paint. The Mattel brand Hot Wheels also has its own line of branded paint-for life-size cars.

Perhaps the best example of the modern unabashed cross-marketing craze is Funkmaster Flex. He's a disc jockey on a New York hip-hop radio station that has parlayed his enthusiasm for cars into a cottage industry. As a result, the Funkmaster has a partnership with Ford and has built custom Ford cars and ...