Burger King has signed on to sponsor five NASCAR races in the Nextel Cup Series, its first relationship with NASCAR since 1997. The franchise will sponsor a car driven by Bill Elliott. Burger King is planning in-store activities and driver appearances to support the partnership. NASCAR's fan base continues to grow, with an estimated 75 million people counted as fans. That's a lot of Whoppers.

Founder of Chicago-based RiverWest Brands, Paul Erle is in the business of creating brand Lazaruses--breathing life into old names like Nuprin, a moniker once signifying a pain reliever and now being slapped on products ranging from a sore throat spray to a nasal decongestant inhaler to an arthritis cream. Next Erle will resurrect the coffee brand Brim and the women's apparel retailer Bonwit Teller. There's an art to such brand magic, according to Brandweek, quoting Jeffrey Himmel, chairman and CEO of the Himmel Group, a New York firm that brought back Ovaltine Chocolate Drink Mix, Doans Pills and Breck Shampoo: …

Marketing Consultant Just Ask a Woman estimates that women account for $5 trillion in purchasing power. That's a lot of power. Couple that with the fact that women make up 52 percent of Internet users and they spend an average of 58 hours a month online (according to Nielsen/NetRatings) and what you end up with is marketers allocating more ad dollars online. USA Today reviews a series of female-centric online campaigns that consist of more than a few blinking ads and a microsite. Dove hired Penny Marshall to direct actress Felicity Huffman in a series of vignettes where Huffman was …

Impulse buys are difficult to track. Media buying agency Mediaedge:cia is opening MEC Retail to track the effectiveness of in-store marketing. MEC Retail will determine what stores are best for promotions and compile demographic data on consumers. According to Point of Purchase Advertising International, advertisers are poised to spend $19 billion on in-store media, point of purchase advertising and digital signage. Now advertisers can determine which ad dollars were the best spent.

While Nike's U.S. business is doing well--domestic sales were up 15 percent from a year earlier in the quarter ended Nov. 30--the shoe company is facing more competition in Europe and Asia, the source of nearly half of its profits. In those markets, consumers have been favoring shoes that run counter to Nike's basic athletic model--what the Wall Street Journal defines as a "low-profile, Puma-style,look... better-suited for hanging out than running sprints." While Nike has developed some similar models, the market for such shoes is already fairly flooded.

Members of the poultry industry--including those who sell chicken in restaurants--doubt that an outbreak of avian flu in the U.S. will affect their fowl directly, but they are preparing for the possibility, working to protect their product as well as sales. Companies such as Tyson, KFC, and Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits have formed internal avian flu task forces that meet with government health officials, discussing the information they should pass on to consumers, and making sales loss projections. Going by what's happened in Europe and Asia, the potential downside is enormous. Italy, France, and India have all had significant decreases …

French cosmetics giant L'Oreal has bought The Body Shop, the environmentally friendly beauty retail chain with more than 2,000 stores in 53 countries. The deal was valued at over $1 billion, according to news reports. L'Oreal said it will operate the company as a stand-alone business from its head office in Littlehampton, England, with company founder Anita Roddick remaining in her current role as consultant.

In the animal kingdom, Impalas are known for being fleet of foot and leaping great spans. In the automotive world, they'll soon be known for taking a few steps backward. In an effort to improve the margins of an eroding brand, auto giant General Motors Corp. is adopting a "less is more" strategy for Chevrolet's Impala sedan line. The automaker will cap production at just 250,000 units this year, sacrificing an estimated 60,000 sales of its best- selling car, reports Automotive News. Most of those cuts will come from so-called "fleet sales," one of the least profitable areas of automotive …

Writing on his ANA blog, Dan Jaffe opines about the near $4 million doled out by the Federal Communications Commission to indecency offenders. Most notable was the $550,00 fine given to CBS for Janet Jackson's infamous wardrobe malfunction during last year's Super Bowl. More importantly, the FCC also found a promotional ad for a DVD that ran on a San Juan, Puerto Rico TV station violated broadcast television's "community standards" and fined the station $220,000. Jaffe believes this is the first time an ad has been deemed indecent by the FCC. If that's the case, an increase in future crackdowns …

Australia launched a $133 million ad campaign to boost tourism to the country using the saucy tag line, "Where the Bloody Hell Are You?" For starters, not running in England. After initially banning the country's TV commercials for their use of the word bloody, the British regulatory body Broadcasting Advertising Clearance Center has lifted the ban and allowed the ads to run uncensored. The ads are also running in New Zealand and the U.S., and will branch out to Germany, China, India and Japan. Volkswagen found itself in a similar pickle over language used in an outdoor campaign promoting the …