Sara Lee Branded Apparel--which includes brands like Hanes, Champion, Playtex, Bali, L'eggs, Just My Size, Barely There, and Wonderbra--has a new marketing chief. He is Kevin Hall, who this week was named executive vice president and chief marketing officer, a new position. Hall joins the company from Fidelity Investments Retirement Services in Boston, where he was senior vice president of marketing. Prior to Fidelity, he worked at Procter & Gamble for 16 years, and was responsible for Pantene, Old Spice, Pert Plus, and Vidal Sassoon. Sara Lee said earlier this year that it plans spin off its branded apparel business …

Two marketers have decided that the best way to capture consumers' attention is to give them what they really want and need--gasoline. Not surprisingly, the pair of advertisers are gasoline marketers--Shell and Sunoco. Shell is launching a "Million Gallon Giveaway" in which six top winners will get Shell gasoline for life, and 200,000-plus will get $10 gift cards for gas in an instant scratch-and-win promotion. Sunoco's "Free Fuel 5000" has a single grand prize of 10,000 gallons of its gasoline. The giveaway, which runs through August, also offers 5,000 instantly redeemable $10 gas cards. The two promotions were compared to …

Marketers have used celebrity endorsers to help them market their products and services for many years, but that trend has been taking a decidedly international turn of late for at least one major marketer--Motorola. In the 1940s, the company used actress Betty Grable to help them sell radios--and later, star baseball pitcher Bob Feller promoted the company's television sets. Now Motorola's hot item is cell phones, and the advertiser has called on the likes of international rock star Bono, British soccer player David Beckham, and Indian actor Abhishek Bachchan to serve as endorsers. The move is not surprising, given the …

Marketers are always demanding a strong return on investment for their advertising dollars, and search engine Google says it has found a way to satisfy them. It's called "cost per action," and it only charges an advertiser for ads that generate sales or qualified sales leads. The new system is seen as a potential alternative to the traditional "cost per click" model that can result in click-fraud, which occurs when ads are clicked on repeatedly to paint a false picture of their value. Analysts and search marketers don't expect the "cost per action" program to completely replace cost-per-click, but say …

Kellogg Co.'s Special K brand is getting bigger and healthier. Long positioned as one of the cereal marketer's most prominent diet and health-oriented products, Special K will soon include a new line of protein-fortified products such as Special K20 Protein Waters, Special K Protein Snack Bars, and Special K Protein Meal Bars. The new products join cereal, cereal bars, snack bites, and waffles in the Special K portfolio, and will be supported with an aggressive advertising campaign. Kellogg plans to position the line as nutritious "shape management" tools, targeting consumers interested in weight loss--and is counting on retailers to help. …

An increasing number of mainstream marketers are beginning to come out of the closet and directly target gay and lesbian audiences with gay-themed ads. While many companies have long advertised in gay-oriented publications and on gay-themed TV shows, the majority of those ads have been the same ones the advertisers run in traditional media. But now, more and more ads have gay-related themes and characters. "Typically, companies would come in, run their regular ads to get their feet wet, the same ads (they run) in other consumer books," said Todd Evans, CEO of Rivendell Media, a New Jersey company that …

And the winner is....Guinness! There are so many award competitions out there that it's hard to keep track of them all. But one of them tends to stand out among its peers, garnering more attention and conveying more prestige than all the others, which is why marketers should take note of it. It's the International Advertising Festival in Cannes, France, and it's considered the Oscars of the worldwide advertising industry. Each year, thousands of ad executives from around the world converge on the French Riviera to hold seminars, watch thousands of ads, party hearty into the early morning hours, and …

A hotel chain is adding a new element to its marketing mix that it hopes will capture the hearts, minds and even the noses of its customers. The chain, Starwood Hotel & Resorts, has assigned signature scents for its hotels and is making sure the aromas waft through their lobbies and other public areas. It's part of what the company calls its sensory marketing strategy, and the scents vary from hotel to hotel. For example, at the Four Points by Sheraton, guests will be greeted by the scent of America's favorite pie--apple cinnamon. At the Westin, it's White Tea and …

Chrysler Group, faced with a pressing need to make room for new 2007 models, is bringing back its popular employee discount program in order to reduce inventory at dealerships. The tactic was used last July when the carmaker launched its "Employee Pricing Plus" program and supported it with TV ads featuring former Chairman Lee Iacocca in separate executions with actor Jason Alexander and rapper Snoop Dogg. The initiative was created a month after rival General Motors began the trend with its own successful employee discount program. The new effort is expected to be supported with TV spots starring Dieter Zetsche, …

An increasing number of marketers are discovering the benefits of philanthropy. According to a consultancy that specializes in project sponsorship, cause-marketing spending by major advertisers will increase 20.5% this year to $1.34 billion. The company, IEG Research, said the projected rise makes cause marketing the fastest-growing segment of sponsorship, outpacing the industry's overall growth rate of 10.6% to a projected $13.4 billion. "Companies are realizing the powerful marketing benefits that can be gleaned from nonprofit affiliations," said William Chipps, senior editor of IEG Sponsorship Report, in a statement. One example cited as a successful program was Federal Express and Home …