Beverage marketer Snapple has extended its promotional efforts to include a new visitor center at the crossroads of the world: New York City's Times Square. The project is part of Snapple's $166 million, five-year marketing deal with New York, which calls for the company to sell its beverages in city-owned buildings and to sponsor a series of concerts and other events. Those who visit the center can learn about the "best things" and the "best places," including people, places and things, around the city's five boroughs--a theme that plays on Snapple's tagline: "The best stuff." A special promotion running through …

Tour companies, hotels and other companies involved in travel marketing are increasingly offering vacation packages designed exclusively for women. The industry has no specific statistics on the trend, but Marybeth Bond, author of seven books on women and travel, estimates the number of companies that run women-only tours at 30--up from 21 five years ago. For example, Le Merigot, a Marriott beach hotel and spa in Santa Monica, Calif., offers a women-and-wine package that includes a bottle of wine, a dinner with wine pairing, massages, and guides to nearby wineries. Hotel spokeswoman Debra Rosenberg Matsumoto said she hopes the package …

Beer marketer Heineken is stepping up its sponsorship and promotional activity in a big way this fall. The company has inked a new five-year agreement as the official beer sponsor of the U.S. Open tennis tournament through 2010. To herald the deal, the beer marketer is planning a variety of new promotions and events, including a major bid to showcase its new Heineken Premium Light. In a separate development, Heineken has kicked off an interactive promotion for AmsterJam, a day-long music festival on Randall's Island in New York that Heineken created and continues to headline. The program, Picture the Music …

Unless a recent court ruling is overturned, cigarette makers will be forced to change the name of some of their best-selling brands, a challenging marketing task that could damage any brand. Last week a federal court ruled that companies like Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. can no longer use adjectives like "light" and "low-tar" in advertising and brand names. As a result, PM must rename its Marlboro Lights and Ultra Lights brands, while Reynolds will have to rename its Camel Lights. PM may decide to call its Marlboro brands Marlboro Gold (for Lights) and Marlboro Silver (For …

Athletic marketer Nike has indirectly called on the talents of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim to help it market a new apparel line endorsed by tennis superstar and Nike endorser Maria Sharapova. A new multimedia ad campaign for the line is themed "I Feel Pretty" after the song made famous by Bernstein (music) and Sondheim (lyrics) in the stage and screen classic "West Side Story." A TV spot features Maria in one of her new Nike tennis outfits in her hotel room, then follows her as she is driven to the tennis stadium and walks onto center court. En route, …

A new report says pharmaceutical companies, more in tune with the power of the Internet than marketers in other categories, will increase online spending by about 25 percent this year, to $780 million. The report, from eMarketer, also says that online spending will rise to $1.3 billion by 2008. The gain is being attributed to marketers' shift from consumer mass marketing to more targeted opportunities online and by federal regulatory crackdowns on drug advertising. Plus, 31.6 million Americans now turn to the Web first for health-care information. "The result is a shift in focus from direct-to-consumer to direct-to-patient, from mass …

Going where its target buyers are, Chevrolet will spend nearly half its ad budget on the Web to launch its retooled Aveo subcompact sedan. The car's main target of 18- to-34-year-olds spends an average two hours daily online, says Ed Peper, general manager of Chevrolet. TV will account for roughly 35 percent of Aveo's relaunch budget, which includes print buys and guerrilla-marketing street teams. General Motors spent $25.7 million in measured media for Aveo's launch in 2004; $7.4 million last year; and less than $14,000 in this year's first quarter, according to TNS Media Intelligence. For the car's launch two-and-a-half …

Tobacco companies face strict new limitations on marketing and must stop labeling cigarettes as "low tar," "light" or "natural," a federal judge ordered in a long-awaited ruling on a 1999 suit filed by the Clinton Administration. In a decision that sent tobacco stocks soaring, Judge Gladys Kessler found tobacco companies guilty of racketeering, but imposed no financial penalties. In her 1,742-page decision, Judge Kessler lambasted tobacco companies for deceiving the public by marketing and selling "their lethal product with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs …

Critics predict it may be "the best worst movie of the year," but "Snakes On a Plane," which opens today, has already won marketing kudos. With New Line Cinema spending only 7 percent of its $30 million budget for pre-release promotion, SoaP is a word-of-mouth Internet phenomenon that has spawned more than 1,000 logo-emblazoned products, a ranking in the top 200 of most popular Web searches and a blog attracting up to 50,000 visitors a week. New Line invited fans to participate in making the film and ran a contest through a social-networking site for bands to write a movie …

Caffeine-laced pantyhose that promises to banish cellulite by boosting metabolism and burning fat is selling briskly on a U.K.-based Web site: $50 for three pairs. "The response has been phenomenal," says Charles Duncombe, site director of Tightsplease.com, which has sold 20,000 pairs of the Slim Fit 20 pantyhose since it launched 18 months ago. "I can count on one hand how many customers have called to say the pantyhose doesn't work." Not counting gym memberships, $96.9 million was spent in the U.S. alone on products that claim to remove cellulite. The product is just one of the intriguing 30 Best …