• Ralph Lauren May Open Up To 15 China Stores Yearly
  • Campbell's Chunky Line Swaps Football Helmets for Hard Hats
    Starting next week, the brand will be advertised as a reward for a hard day's work rather than as fuel for gridiron greatness, writes Stuart Elliott. It also has more vegetables and leaner meat.
  • Veteran Ad Exec Says 'Mad Men' Really Were About Sex, Booze
    If you weren't there and want to know more, read Bruce Horovitz' interview with survivor Jerry Della Femina, still irrepressible but evidently recovered. Did he drink at lunch? You bet. "One time, while pitching the Geritol account, my brain was so fried that I asked for far more money than I should have," Della Femina recalls. "I realized my mistake and told them -- but they were still ready to give it to me." But "nobody drinks or screws around like that anymore," Della Femina sort of laments. He blames it on the numbers-crunchers who started taking over …
  • Men's Underwear Sales As A Leading Economic Indicator
    Can there be any clearer indication of the summer news doldrums than Ylan Q. Mui's piece this morning that posits that a man's underwear drawer may hold clues to such mysteries of the universe as "when will the recession end?" Here's the crux of the theory: When times are tough, men don't buy as much underwear as they do when times are flush. They'll try to get more mileage out of a pair of boxers, just like they will out of their jalopies. We are informed that "no less an oracle" than former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan gave the …
  • Kellogg Embraces New Media For Tried-And-True Brands
    Jose-Alberto Duenas, Kellogg's marketing vp of ready-to-eat cereals, talks with Elaine Wong about his company's forays into social media with brands such as Special K and Pop Tarts, which has more than 776,000 Facebook friends. (Right now, it's sponsoring a Pop Art contest in which the consumer who designs the best T-shirt gets a chance to meet artist Burton Morris.) Special K was the pioneer social-media brand for Kellogg, Duenas says. Its dialogue revolves around weight management, he says, and consumers are trading tips and pats on the back. "Support and encouragement from peers is very important," he says. …
  • Buzz-Building Pop-Ups Prove Popular In Down Real Estate Market
    You've been reading about buzz-generating pop-up stores for a few years now, and it may seem like an inviting time to try the idea now that there's a real estate glut. It seems like a perfect win-win situation for both marketers and landlords. The Jersey Shore Store, for example, which was open in lower Manhattan from just before Memorial Day through Aug. 9, garnered nearly $1 million in earned media, according to Brushfire Marketing, which worked with the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism on the project. It resulted in 46 broadcast segments and 21 print and online …
  • Price War Erupts In Bottled-Water Land
    A price war has broken out in the bottled water market as sales have declined due mostly to the environmental concerns, Valerie Bauerlein reports. Sales of bottled water have suffered as environmentalists urge boycotts of the product. Brands sold for an average of $1.35 a gallon in the first quarter, down more than 30% from $1.94 in 2001, according to Beverage Marketing Corp. The lowest price cited is Kroger's private-label brand, which was selling for $2.49 for a 24-pack of half-liter bottles (50 cents less than PepsiCo's Aquafina could be had at some stores). "That's the lowest I've seen," says …
  • FTC Banning Many Types Of Robo-Calls, But Not Pols
  • More Shoppers Veer Toward Convenience
    The monthly "The Checkout" report, research from marketing firms The Integer Group and M/A/R/C, finds that time was more of the essence in June than it was in May. To wit, 28% of the 1,200 respondents to the survey describe themselves "preferring to spend more [money] if it saves them time," up from 23% in May. Along the same lines, the number of folks who respond that "saving money by shopping around" is their top preference fell from 33% to 28%. What does all this have to do with the price of eggs in Dubuque? Randy Wahl, evp …
  • Dell Does Better Than Analysts Predicted
    Dell inadvertently released its earnings report 10 minutes before the closing bell on Wall Street yesterday and, despite a 22% drop in revenue for the same quarter last year, its stock price shot up by 6.7% and gained another 3% in after-hours trading, Kirk Ladendorf reports. Which should tell you something -- and it does, according to Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar. "The fundamental recovery is going to be more U-shaped, and Dell can't sidestep the macro headwinds," he says. "Wall Street will view these results positively, without qualification." Huh? Well, let's put it this way: Dell did better …
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