• Restaurants Feast On Tax Day
    "Partisan emotions are running high this election year, but one thing unites us: We all hate paying taxes," Bloomberg's Suzanne Woolley and Ben Steverman remind us as the yearly ritual of gathering receipts and crying over lost deductions hits fever pitch. So, as just one more diversion from the unpleasant task of crunching numbers, they offer a slide show of Hollywood's Top 10 depictions of the "bloodless bureaucrats who range from the socially awkward to the positively demonic."
  • The Unsinkable H.M.S. Marketing
    Walter Lord's slim, gripping A Night To Remember was a staple on many high school reading lists a generation (or so) ago and it provided about all I ever thought I'd ever want to know about the mishap at sea that carried the larger moral lesson that pride goeth before an iceberg. Well, we may have all learned early that "The Titanic wasn't unsinkable, but there's no keeping down the marketing on the eve of its big day," as Ben Casselman and Ann Zimmerman put it in the Wall Street Journal this morning.
  • Subscription Model Turns Blades Into Market Share
    It's a subject not openly spoken about in friendly poker games, slow-pitch softball dugouts or at your friendly, neighborhood gazillion-beers-on-tap joint but I can tell you it's seething in the minds of men across the republic: "Heavens to Murgatroyd, how the heck did it get so expensive to shave?"
  • Quickly Removed From The Top Shelf: Best Buy's CEO
    We're inclined to go along with Phil Rosenthal's take on the resignation of Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn yesterday. The Chicago Tribune columnist says it "occasioned an existential quandary of sorts, what with the consumer electronics chain already in adapt-or-die mode because of, well, consumer electronics."
  • Avon Calls On J&J's McCoy To Rebuild Brand
    Sherilyn (Sheri) S. McCoy, a trained scientist who has held a variety of positions at Johnson & Johnson including running marketing for skin-care brands such as Neutrogena, Aveeno and Lubriderm, has accepted the CEO position at Avon after months of wooing because, according to one source quoted in the Wall Street Journal, it "is an iconic brand."
  • Lumia Takes Center Stage (On Easter Sunday?)
    The Lumia is upon us. Microsoft, Nokia and AT&T -- three fading stalwarts looking to regain some ground on iOS and its devices -- have formally unleashed the Windows-based Nokia Lumia 900 with fanfare that includes "international superstar Nicki Minaj [bringing] a building in Times Square alive and [creating] one of the biggest LED displays ever seen," as the press release puts it.
  • The Spotlights Glare As Ingredients Take Center Stage
    Back in the day, you could sell tons of food by convincing consumers in a mindless but compelling way that it was, as Armour did with its hot dogs, fun to eat. Not very many of us were questioning what went into those products. Today, not only is that information readily available, once people start talking about it, it seems to spread like pink slime (which, until a few weeks ago, most of us probably thought of as the arch-villain in a '50s sci-fi flick.)
  • 'CR' Readers Weigh Walmart, Whole Foods, Wegmans ...
    Consumers may be thinking Whole Foods but they are holding their noses, tightening their purse strings and cruising the aisles at Walmarts around the country, MSNBC's Alison Linn tells us in a story following up on a Consumer Reports survey released this week that ranks consumers' favorite supermarket chains.
  • Burger King, Going Public, Has It McDonald's Way
    The clever lede on Candice Choi's AP story was oft repeated in headlines across the country this morning -- from Newsday to ABC News to the San Francisco Chronicle: "Burger King is dusting off its crown and going public again." The news late yesterday was that 3G Capital, which is backed by Brazilian billionaires, will offer 29% of the burger chain to the public through special purpose acquisition company owned by billionaire William Ackman, according to Ad Age. 3G will retain the Whopper's share of ownership.
  • Ding-Dong, Coty Calling
    Sensing an opportunity to expand its offerings as well as its presence in developing markets, Coty has made an unsolicited $10 billion offer to acquire Avon. The larger company quickly rejected the offer as "opportunistic and not in the best interest of Avon's shareholders," claiming that it "substantially undervalues" the company.
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