Beverage marketer Snapple has some new products and a new marketing attitude. The company is on the verge of introducing a new line of white teas, which are made from a collection of baby white tea leaves blended with light fruit essences. They will be supported with a campaign that takes a new direction for the company, in which the goal is to educate consumers about the health benefits of drinking tea. Snapple termed the new line and the new ads the most ambitious in its history. The campaign includes a national TV effort, its first since Whipper Snapple in …

E-marketers who ignore the Hispanic market do so at their own peril, according to new research. A report from Web researcher eMarketer revealed that by the end of this decade, the number of Hispanics going online will exceed 20 million users. The report said marketers targeting younger consumers should pay particular attention because 58 percent of Hispanic Web users are under 35 and that they possess significant buying power and language diversity. "In many respects, the Hispanic youth online market feels like the greater youth market," said eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson, who authored the report. "But there's an added …

Branded and sponsored entertainment is not a new concept, but now major consumer product marketers are beginning to embrace it like never before, investing serious money commissioning shows to appear on multiple media outlets. The list is long and growing. It includes Coca-Cola, Ford Motor, General Motors, JetBlue Airways, Meow Mix, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. The goals and benefits are easy to understand: the marketer wants to capture the attention of consumers who are easily distracted and, more often than not, tune out traditional advertising. Sponsored programs allow them to break through the clutter of multiple choices and …

This summer the hot world of super-premium, imported vodka is about to get hotter. In August, Ukrainian vodka giant Soyuz-Victan will launch a $10 million marketing effort to support the introduction of SV Supreme to seven U.S. markets. The list includes New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Miami and Dallas. The brand will compete with other super-premium brands like Grey Goose and Chopin. The campaign will include multiple elements. The marketer has hired McCaffery Gottlieb Lane, New York, for creative duties; Euro RSCG Magnet, New York, for public relations; Brand Action Team, Avon, Conn., for marketing and promotions; …

A famous old beer brand that has fallen on hard times is trying to pick itself up and start over again. The 157-year-old Schlitz--known for decades as "the beer that made Milwaukee famous"--will introduce a retro makeover that includes an updated version of the gilded bottle that was used in the 1950s when Schlitz was the best-selling beer in the world. Beer industry watchers says the brand and its parent, San Antonio-based Pabst Brewing Co., need to do something to revive the low-priced brand because Anheuser-Busch has instituted price cuts for competing brands like Natural Light and Busch that have …

At long last, leading consumer product marketers have discovered the benefits of Internet advertising. Initially, in the early days of the Web, companies like General Mills and Kraft experimented cautiously with running ads for their many brands on Web sites. But those days are gone, as each of those powerhouse marketers, along with others of comparable weight an influence, are cranking up Internet ad spending, sometimes doubling the amount they allocated just last year. The shift underlines the Internet's threat to traditional media such as television and print magazines, and the packaged-goods marketers say their customers are spending more time …

Marketers may have a high-profile advertising vehicle at their disposal that was never before available: the entire front page of a major metropolitan daily newspaper. Last week in New York, the Daily News twice ran full-page ads that were, in effect, the front page in thousands of copies. On Wednesday, it ran front and back full-page ads for Mazda and on Friday for Toyota. There was no second, or "real," front page inside, as is usually the case when newspapers occasionally run so-called "wraparound" ads that cover the real front page, which is a common advertising practice. The newspaper declined …

In the world of product placement and branded entertainment, most marketers negotiate long and hard and then pay hefty prices to have their brands woven into the story lines of scripted programming or appear in a scene of a movie or TV show. But not all of them. Some companies get it for free just because they make really cool stuff that resonates with Hollywood hotshots. Take Apple, for example. During the past four months, the company's iPods, Macs and other products have been featured 250 times on 38 different network prime-time shows, including such hits as "CSI: NY" and …

In a surprising admission, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. CEO Bill Wrigley Jr. told investors that two of his brands, Altoids and Life Savers, are not being marketed properly. The brands, which Wrigley bought from Kraft last year for $1.5 billion, weren't being handled properly by their previous owners, either, Wrigley said, adding that the products had received "limited marketing and innovation support" and will require more significant investment than previously thought--at the expense of earnings--in order to grow. "When [Wrigley] bought the business, they saw a certain level of distribution and thought they could maintain it without extra marketing spending, …

DHL is upping the ante in the second year of its three-year sponsorship deal with Major League Baseball. The deal designates the express delivery service marketer as the "official express delivery and logistics provider" of MLB, and the company now provides those services to the Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and Boston Red Sox. Beginning this season, DHL has extended the service to the Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants and 2005 World Series Champion Chicago White Sox. This season the company has also signed former St. Louis Cardinal Bruce Sutter, who will be inducted into the Baseball …