Gain laundry detergent became one of Procter & Gamble's billion-dollar brands--there are 22 of them--this past fiscal year by taking the unusual tactic of going after a narrow audience. Just 16% of users account for 88% of sales volume, P&G says. The low-priced laundry detergent--launched in 1969--had grown a small following among cost-conscious consumers in the South, but failed to build nationwide appeal. P&G's research showed that scent was a particularly important factor in Hispanic households, so in 1981, it decided to give Gain one more chance by repositioning it as a heavily fragrant detergent. The narrowly …

Rickitt Benckiser of Britain--which owns brands like Lysol and Woolite--is trying to make the environmental appeal of its automatic dishwasher detergent brands drive purchase intent in Europe. New advertising for brands like Calgonit carry a message of environmental responsibility to the consumer, claiming the product is "not only good for your dishes but for our future, too." The ad may be used in other European markets, like Britain, where Reckitt sells the Finish brand, and the U.S., where it markets Electrasol, says Rob de Groot, a Reckitt executive. Different ads with a similar message have appeared in markets …

Forty-five years after Amar G. Bose founded Bose Corp., he is still the company's chairman (and worth about $1.5 billion, according to Forbes), while his brand of high-tech audio equipment remains synonymous with superb sound. Bose has maintained its successful branding by refusing to compromise its long-held dedication to quality sounds and aesthetics, while also actively identifying, defining and inventing the acoustic future. The company reportedly spends $100 million annually on research. But Bose seems to put as much thought into the design of its products as the technology. Its systems are elegant and streamlined--as sleek and functional …

Procter & Gamble is restating 11 years of ad-spending data in its annual report filed Aug. 28 to include expenditures such as in-store advertisements. At the same time, it will omit the salaries of advertising executives. The restatement gives in-store advertising--everything from promotional display boxes to SmartSource instant-coupon machines and Wal-Mart TV--a place alongside other media spending in the nearly $8 billion budget of the world's biggest advertiser. The result largely erases the decline of P&G's ad-spending-as-a-percent-of-sales ratio that in recent years worried some investors. Under the old accounting, P&G's ad-to-sales-ratio slipped from 10.7% in 2004 to …

AT&T is launching a service today that gives parents the ability to limit phone calls, curb text messages and restrict downloads on almost all of its 63.7 million wireless subscriber lines. Many parents want their children to have access to cell phones for safety reasons, but they don't want them making or receiving nonemergency calls during the school day, chatting away all the shared family-plan minutes or bloating the bill with text messaging charges, says Carlton Hill, vice president of voice products for AT&T's wireless unit and the mother of two teens. "We want to find a way …