In creating 9/11-themed material, marketers are grappling with the fine line between commemoration and exploitation. Executives at the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and its agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day thought very hard about what images to use for its fund-raising campaign that asks Americans to "Think back, move forward." The advertising has to be emotionally engaging but respectful, says Joseph C. Daniels, acting president of the foundation. "It would not be appropriate or effective to show burning buildings or the planes crashing." Instead, the campaign uses photographs from everyday life--a classroom, an office, a locker room--superimposed with the phrase "Where were you …

Bill Lamar, the popular 22-year McDonald's veteran and Advertising Age's 2004 Marketer of the Year, may retire as early as next year, according to sources close to the situation. That set off speculation about who will take over command of the fast-food giant's 728-million marketing communications budget. Neil Golden, vp-marketing for McDonald's USA, is a leading contender for the job. Other candidates include U.S. marketing vice presidents Peter Sterling and Wendy Cook. Lamar's departure could prove to be a psychological blow to the company, which is still adjusting to former Quaker Foods executive Mary Dillon, who took over evp-global chief …

A Massachusetts U.S. District Court judge has dismissed the lawsuit brought by Peter Rost claiming that Pharmacia, which Pfizer acquired in April 2003, illegally sold Genotropin, a human-growth-hormone brand, for "off label" (legally unproved) purposes. Rost claimed that Pharmacia marketed Genotropin to anti-aging specialists who falsely promised wealthy clients the fountain of youth. Judge Joseph Tauro wrote that for Rost's suit to succeed, he needed to produce evidence that Pharmacia and Pfizer had orchestrated the submission of bills to the government for reimbursement for "off-label" Genotropin treatments. Rost noted that the suit had been dismissed only because he had failed …

JP Morgan Chase, Burger King, Apple and Wendy's are among the major marketers that are creating marketing campaigns for social-network sites, like MySpace and Facebook. The goal is to reach young people with messages relevant to their lives. The efforts involve interaction with users, in a memorable way, over time. For example, a MySpace page for the King, the character that appears in Burger King commercials, has amassed more than 120,000 "friends," or fellow MySpace users who opt to associate themselves with his profile. When JP Morgan Chase wanted to attract students to its credit cards, it hired student "ambassadors" …

Nearly a dozen ad agencies reached an agreement with New York City's Human Rights Commission to set numerical goals for increasing black representation on their creative and managerial staffs and to report on their progress each year. The commission has the authority to fine companies up to $250,000 or to sue them, but officials said they believed the threat of pressure from agency clients, like Pepsi and Citigroup, was a more effective stick in bringing corporate leaders to the negotiating table. An inquiry by the commission found that the hiring of black workers at agencies had improved little in 40 …

After at least a year of development, Amazon launched its Amazon Unbox service yesterday. Unbox offers downloads of movies and TV shows, like the original "Star Trek," as well as digital movie rentals from most of the major studios. But due to the studio's demand for several viewing restrictions, at least one analyst says the service may not attract a wide audience. Unbox offers DVD-quality downloads, triple the video quality of the leading rivals, and a free downsized version for some Microsoft Windows-compatible portable devices. The videos can be viewed in as little as five minutes, while the rest of …

With advertisers clamoring for short bits that can be placed on popular video-sharing sites, like YouTube.com and MySpace.com, Big Media outfits like NBC Universal, Viacom and Time Warner are gearing up to create short shows for the tiny screens, from iPods to cell phones. The people at Sci Fi, which is owned by NBC Universal, just completed 10 episodes of a miniature "reimagined" version of the 1970s series "Battlestar Galactica." At the offices of Viacom's MTV Networks in Times Square, two entire floors have been handed over to a burgeoning digital-media business. Employees craft various types of fast-blitz bits for …

Holiday decorations, lighting, gift-wrap packs and 45 toys pegged to the holiday season are already on sale at Costco stores, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls--which started selling everything from Christmas stockings to holiday figurines in the third week of August. Last week, J.C. Penney began distributing 8 million copies of its Christmas 2006 Big Gift Book. More than 21 percent of shoppers do some Christmas shopping before the end of September, says a National Retail Federation survey. And though the NRF has not released its official holiday spending projection yet, it says last year's 6.1 percent spending growth--which amounted to about …

Arthur Schiff, who said the name Ginsu came to him in his sleep in a flash of inspiration, died late last month of lung cancer at his home in Coral Springs, Fla. He was 66. During his career, Schiff reportedly wrote an astounding 1,800 DRTV short-form commercials, pitching everything from the amazing Steakhouse Onion Machine to Tripledge Windshield Wipers. Among the other well-known products Schiff developed scripts for were the Betty Crocker Bake N Fill, the Audubon Singing Bird Clock, GS 27 Scratch Remover, Auri Car Polish, D-Snore and Duzzit Handy Hangars. Schiff took credit for writing the phrase: "But …

General Motors, in a bold effort to reverse a downward trend in both mind share and market share, announced that it will expand its powertrain warranty on all 2007 vehicles to a fully transferable five years or 100,000 miles. GM sales and marketing chief Mark LaNeve says the longer warranty is meant to play a role in enlightening customers about GM's quality ratings and close the perception gap between the automaker's image and how good the vehicles are. Although GM's brands still lag behind Toyota and Honda in the J.D. Powers Vehicle Dependability Study, the gap is less than it …