Those carefree California Raisins that entertained us with their tapping feet a generation ago are assuming a lotus position in a new campaign that breaks next week. "Wise Choices" promotes the California Raisin Marketing Board's product as a convenient wholesome snack that delivers quick energy for healthy lifestyles. One ad shows a woman in a sitting yoga pose in a grape vineyard. The headline reads: "Wheresoever you go, go with a tasty snack." CRMB, an industry trade group for raisin growers and marketers, says it is committing $4.6 million behind a marketing budget that includes print, a new Web site, …

Tummy Tuck jeans, produced by a company called Not Your Daughter's Jeans, and targeted to aging boomers with curves, are cutting a swath at Nordstrom, Dillard's, Macy's, Bloomingdales and 1,000 specialty stores, where they retail for $88 a pair. Made with panels that reinforce the tummy and stretch fabric that gives in the thighs, sales are expected to rise to $40 million this year after hitting $7 million in 2006. Garment industry veteran George Rudes and two of his daughters founded the company after one of them tried on an ill-fitting pair of fashionable jeans in the Barneys New York …

NBC's new drama "Friday Night Lights" has an unusual cast of co-stars--Applebee's, Gatorade, AT&T, Toyota and the fantasy film "Eragon," which is due in theaters in December. All of these brands are being worked into scripts for the show as part of the growing trend toward product integration in television. Sitcoms and dramas are becoming new product showcases as a shrinking ad market, climbing production costs and ad-skipping technology lead networks to become more blatant about dropping product names in shows. Marketers spent $941 million on TV product placements last year--up 70 percent from 2004, says PQ Media, a Connecticut …

As an indication of just how popular social networking is becoming--and how critical it appears to be to the future of giant technology companies--Yahoo is reportedly willing to pay close to $1 billion for Facebook. People familiar with the matter say Facebook has also held acquisition talks with Microsoft and Viacom over the past year. Two and a half years ago, the Web site was a college project run by an undergraduate. Today, it has nearly 9 million monthly U.S. visitors. Users spend an average of more than one hour a month on the site--a long time by Internet standards, …

Norwegian Cruise Lines is rolling out a new brand identity that supports its "Freestyle Cruising" positioning and its focus on the relative lack of structure on its cruises. In contrast to its competitors, Norwegian has no dress codes or fixed dining times on its cruises. It has about an 11 percent market share, compared to Carnival's 49 percent and Royal Caribbean's 35 percent. This will be Norwegian's first national ad campaign in over a decade. Media spending "will go up significantly," says Scott Rogers, svp, marketing and sales, who revealed that the combined 2007 ad and promotions budget will be …

Juicy Couture, Liz Claiborne's hottest label, has announced that it will open 24 retail stores and 23 shops within other retail stores over the next four years in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on the Greater China region. Sales at a Juicy store that opened in May in Japan have exceeded expectations, the company says. China's casual-wear sector is projected to increase an estimated 10 percent each year and reach $58 billion by 2010, according to Kurt Salmon Associates. But so far, KSA analysts say, none of the mid-tier clothing brands that have …

"Who's that behind those Foster Grants?" was one of the most memorable campaigns of the creative Sixties, but the venerable sunglass brand has done little advertising of note in recent decades. Yesterday, Duffy & Shanley, Providence, R.I., announced that it had been hired to revitalize Foster Grants in the national marketplace with work that debuts early next year. It will handle creative, media and public relations chores for the brand, which was introduced in 1937. Parent company FGX International, Smithfield, R.I., also produces lesser-known brands, like Anarchy and Gargoyles sunglasses and Magnavision nonprescription reading glasses. The client's star-studded campaigns (with …

Bank of America's 500 Honorary Grand Marshal promotion will give racing fans the opportunity to speak the four words--Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!--that signal the start of every NASCAR event. The promotion pits 25 fans against each other to audition their best "start your engines" command before a panel of judges at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, NC. The winner will perform the winning announcement at the same racetrack on Oct. 14 before 180,000 die-hard fans and a national TV audience. To enter, racing aficionados were prompted to call into two sports-radio stations in the Charlotte market from Sept. 6-12. Two …

Marketers are getting more mileage out of experiential marketing--the practice of touring events, exhibits and other promotional efforts that attempt to forge an emotional bond with consumers. Ocean Spray Cranberries, for example, has set up replicas of cranberry bogs at popular tourist sites in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. "If people have a positive moment with a brand, they'll tell seven people about it," says Beth Rice, evp and director for Arnold Brand Promotions, which worked with Ocean Spray on the "Bogs Across America" tour. Windstream Communications, a telecommunications company formed in July that serves primarily rural markets, is …

As part of a marketing push that will include a TV campaign, Estée Lauder is promoting its Advanced Night Repair Concentrate anti-aging treatment with a Web Site that allows women to post their own testimonials about the products. Word-of-mouth buzz always has been part of the marketing mix in cosmetics, but the industry hasn't been as aggressive as some in embracing the Web. Cosmetics makers and retailers have long believed that shoppers preferred to sample new products before buying them and needed a trained consultant at a sales counter to tell them what was best for their particular skin. That's …