A star-studded celebrity car and fashion show earlier this month garnered reams of media attention and landed General Motor's models in national publications such as US Weekly. The automaker has infiltrated YouTube and put pop star Gwen Stefani in an SUV. It let rapper Jay-Z create a paint color and got a bunch of college students to live for a week inside a compact car. It's all part of a campaign dreamed up by the marketing minds at GM to create an aura of cool around the vehicle lineup they're working to reinvent. "Everybody wants to be youthful and …

Mini USA will begin delivering custom messages to Mini Cooper owners today on digital signs the company calls "talking" billboards. The billboards identify approaching Mini Cooper drivers by using a signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fobs. The messages are based on questionnaires that owners filled out: "Mary, moving at the speed of justice," if Mary is a lawyer, or "Mike, the special of the day is speed," if Mike is a chef. Mini mailed invitations to 4,500 of the 150,000 Mini owners in the country. The enthusiastic guinea pigs for the Mini experiment will …

In an effort to bring Michelob closer to its original roots and target--28 to 54-year-old drinkers--Anheuser-Busch is introducing new bottles and secondary packing for Michelob Lager, Light and AmberBock. A new embossed teardrop bottle is intended to give Michelob a "worth more" look as it tries to stay in the super premium niche among imports and specialty brews. The relaunch next month--to be supported by TV, print, radio and outdoor--will also flag the reformulation of Michelob and Michelob Light to all-malt brews. The brew, long dubbed as "a beer for connoisseurs," has been made with imported hops, …

Groupe Danone is launching a new line of yogurt called Essensis that it claims will "nourish the skin from the inside." It will roll out in France and Spain next month, followed by Belgium and Italy in March. Danone says the yogurt will improve the health of the skin of people who eat it for at least a month, by using certain ingredients--including borage oil, vitamin E and antioxidants from green tea--to "feed the cells" of the surface layer of the skin. The move toward functional food and drink is now so widespread that even iconic brands seem …

Grappling with sluggish sales of their core brands and eager to expand, some Coca-Cola Co. distributors are making deals with new companies that market small, faster-growing beverages. Honest Tea, for example, has struck deals with Coke bottlers in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania to distribute its organic iced tea, which has been in Whole Foods Market outlets since 1998. But because Coke and PepsiCo Inc. maintain such a tight grip on distribution through their bottlers, it was hard for Honest Tea to get space on supermarket shelves and in convenience-store coolers. The moves present a conundrum for the Atlanta-based …

With consumer cleansing brands struggling to find significant sales growth inside households, Procter & Gamble is increasingly reaching out to janitors, fast-food workers, maids and launderers. Hoping to expand its market while gaining knowledge about its industrial customer's needs, P&G has offered a free analysis of the ways the cleaning staff works in hotels, such as the 872-room Millennium in Cincinnati. "They even helped clean the rooms," says Terri Muran, the hotel's director of housekeeping. They also made suggestions: cut down the number of chemicals used to launder towels and sheets from five to two: P&G's Tide detergent …

Hoping that its "all natural" message will stand out against the glitzy spots produced by Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola and Budweiser, Cadbury Schweppes' Snapple brand will promote its new Green Tea with a 30-second, fourth-quarter, Super Bowl commercial. The Super Bowl buy is a first for Snapple. The ad will follow the theme of its current spots, which show a young man traveling the world searching for information about the mysterious EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) ingredient, an anti-oxidant said to boost metabolism. "Celebrities just wouldn't fit with the Snapple brand," says Sean Gleason, head of Cadbury's brand action team. "We're all …

Anheuser-Busch is diversifying its suds portfolio with a line of malt liquor called Spykes. Flavors include Hot Chocolate, Hot Melons, Spicy Mango and Spicy Lime. The "spicy" refers to a slight, jalapeno-like burn on the finish. Packaged in 2-ounce bottles, Spykes has 12% alcohol content and is slightly caffeinated for an added kick. It can be mixed with just about anything, or taken as a shot. The brewer started test marketing Spykes in stores about a year ago, and in bars and restaurants within the last four months, according to Pat McGauley, Anheuser-Busch's vice president of product …

In announcing a record loss of $12.7 billion last year, Ford CEO Alan R. Mulally signaled yesterday that the bigger-is-better worldview that has defined Ford for decades is being replaced with a new approach: less is more. Ford's market share dropped to 17.5% in 2006, and forecasts show it may fall from second to fourth place this year in the American market, behind General Motors, Toyota and Chrysler. Mulally says that "dealing with reality" is at the top of his list of priorities. But Mulally is trying to be both optimistic and pragmatic, creating a sense of urgency, …

With four books about Starbucks either recently published or set to come out this spring--and four more already on bookshelve--there's plenty of insight as to why Starbucks has become such a successful brand. Starbucks didn't franchise its locations and therefore retained control over operations, points out Joseph Michelli, author of "The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary." "And unlike traditional marketing, where you'd use a lot of ad dollars, the brand has leveraged itself without advertising," he says. Starbucks' early leaders were also distinguished by their exceptionally high-flying entrepreneurial visions. "Aspirationally, it was always …