Food companies are cramming store shelves with 100-calorie packs of crackers, chips, cookies and candy, and new ones are on the way. A Morgan Stanley analyst estimates that snack packs are about 20% more profitable than larger packages. Frito-Lay has started selling 100-calorie servings of beef jerky. Pepperidge Farm says it is developing several more 100-calorie variations of Goldfish and cookies, after rolling out three new ones a couple of weeks ago. Hershey says it will offer 100-calorie bags of Twizzlers, and Nabisco will sell two new cookies: Alpha-Bits and Animals Choco Crackers, in 100-calorie packs. Michael Simon, …

Sony plans to announce today that it will knock $100 off the $599 price of the PlayStation 3 in an effort to jump-start sluggish sales. After dominating with its first two PlayStation systems, the PS3 is lagging behind Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo C's Wii as the next-generation console of choice. From November--when Sony introduced the console--to May, 1.4 million PS3 consoles were sold in the U.S., according to NPD Group. Nintendo sold 2.8 million Wii consoles in the same period. Microsoft began selling its next-generation console a year earlier than its rivals, and consumers have bought 5.6 …

CMOs on top management teams don't have any effect on a company's financial performance, according to a study to be published in the January 2008 Journal of Marketing that covers 167 companies including, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft and Apple over a five-year period. The finding in "Chief Marketing Officers: A Study of their Presence in Firms' Top Management Team" is sure to reignite a longstanding debate: Should a CMO be judged on solid stats, such as sales, or on more amorphous concepts, such as brand equity or awareness? The authors themselves--Pravin Nath, a professor of marketing at the LeBow …

Sprint Nextel has terminated the contracts of about 1,000 subscribers because they called customer service too many times. "The number of inquiries you have made to us ... has led us to determine that we are unable to meet your current wireless needs," says a letter dated June 29. The terminated subscribers called an average of 25 times a month--a rate 40 times higher than average customers, according to company spokeswoman Roni Singleton. It has given its terminated customers until the end of July to find new carriers. They also won't have to pay early-termination fees. Sprint, which …

A stepped-up sales blitz of Harry Potter-themed merchandise is under way in book stores thanks to the perfect storm of the July 21 release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"--the seventh and final book in the series--and the fifth movie, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which comes out 10 days earlier. Sticker books and action figures populate two tables at a Borders devoted solely to Potter merchandise in the Detroit suburb of Novi. Sweet-toothed Potter-philes can leave the store with their own version of the candy cart from the Hogwarts Express train. Two stands offer …

Netflix is turning to star-studded promotions and teaming with A-list actors on movie projects to distinguish itself from rivals, such as Blockbuster Online and Amazon's Unbox. Netflix execs say they are taking a page from HBO and Starbucks, which trumped competitors with original products and a better consumer experience. In 2006, Netflix formed a content acquisition firm called Red Envelope Entertainment that expects to own rights to nearly 200 movies by year-end. Netflix's success promoting obscure films to a wide Internet audience using its movie recommendation system is drawing attention from Hollywood stars. Tim Robbins, Clint …

Robert Engel, a Chicago entrepreneur, is using the Internet to battle rampant piracy of his company's BraBaby--a plastic cage that looks like a Wiffle ball and prevents bras from getting tangled in washing machines. He compares his fight to a game of Whac-A-Mole: shut down one pirate, another springs up. Many of the imposters brazenly use the name BraBaby, sometimes with a slightly different styling from the rendering Engel uses. They often appropriate Engel's logo and his promotional photos--including shots of his wife, Laura, BraBaby's creator, cradling the product. Engel has seen his BraBaby priced as low as …

Sheik Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum, chairman of Emirates airline and member of the ruling family of Dubai, intends to make his country the busiest airline hub in the world, overtaking London, New York and Singapore. Sheik Ahmed has already built Emirates airline from a two-plane operation in 1985 into the world's eighth-largest international carrier, with 105 planes, all wide-bodies. Sheik Ahmed must compete with well-established carriers plying many of the same routes as Emirates, attract enough passengers to fill his vast fleet profitably and hope that the economies of the Middle East and the emerging markets in Asia and …

Microsoft is extending the warranties on more than 11.6 million Xbox 360 videogame consoles that have a technical flaw. Under the new warranty, Microsoft says it will pay repair and shipping costs for any machine that suffers a "three flashing red lights" problem for up to three years after purchase. Refusing to reveal how many customers have experienced the technical problem, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, characterizes the new warranty program as a pre-emptive attempt to deal with the issue and prevent any wider damage to the box's reputation. The company will take a …

More than 35,000 people flocked to the birthplace of Nathan's Famous hot dog chain in Coney Island to watch "professional hot-dog eaters" duke it out for the contest's coveted mustard-yellow championship belt on July 4. The boisterous spectators sported hot-dog hats and clapped yellow blow-up sticks Nathan's gave away. Originally starting as a stand that sold nickel franks in 1916, Nathan's has expanded to 49 states and 13 countries in the past 10 years. The first Nathan's Coney Island contest was on July 4, 1916; it has been held annually ever since. With its growing popularity, 370 …