Starting in 2001, Disney has enchanted 3- to 6-year-old girls throughout America with everything from princess comforters to princess-emblazoned sneakers. Smartly packaged releases of classic princess movies have helped bring girls back for more each year. Now Disney hopes to hook even younger girls and their moms on the craze with a new range of princess products aimed at newborns. The princess clan will be featured on cribs, diaper-changing mats and other infant products next year. Also on tap: adding new princesses to the core lineup that includes Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Ariel, Belle and …

Companies across a variety of industries have combined promotions and brands for years, but some consumer products companies are increasingly teaming up their own brands, combining two familiar names into one new product. Procter & Gamble this month launched Puffs facial tissues with the scent of Vicks, hitting the cold-and-flu season with something meant to play on consumers' memories of moms treating colds by rubbing on Vicks ointment. Dial last year blended Renuzit air freshener into Purex detergent after consumer testing scores for the detergent jumped when the Renuzit name was added. And Unilever found its Lever 2000 soap …

Starbucks, which has previously expressed disdain for promoting its gourmet drinks on television, is launching its first-ever TV campaign today that is "so holiday that it will blow you away," says CEO Jim Donald. The Seattle-based coffee chain also says that the number of visits to its established U.S. stores fell for the first time--by 1%--although profits were up by 35% in the fourth-quarter compared with a year ago. Same-store sales rose 4%. The traffic dropoff came after a price increase in July. Starbucks says that it will slightly rein in the number of store openings in the current …

Bifidus animalis DN-173010--the key ingredient in Activia, a yogurt Danone's Dannon division is marketing as an aid to regularity--is responsible for one of the most successful product launches in recent food-industry history. Sales--$2 billion worldwide-- are expected to reach $300 million in the U.S. this year. Activia exemplifies what Danone may do better than any other company in the world: Turn bacteria into bucks. By using sophisticated science to identify microbes that can make people feel and maybe even look better, Danone has become a leader in the fast-growing business of functional foods. And it has far outpaced …

Google, which already is running a test version of an advanced wireless network at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, is gearing up to make a serious run at buying wireless spectrum in a Federal Communications Commission auction in January. If it succeeds in acquiring a chunk of the airwaves, it could provide its own mobile phone and Internet services. The behind-the-scenes moves illustrate just how serious the Internet giant is about trying to reshape the wireless world. Its push could potentially expand the availability and decrease the cost of high-speed mobile Internet access to consumers and broaden the …

Serial entrepreneur Alfred E. Mann has put nearly $1 billion of his own money into developing insulin that can be inhaled. Pfizer, the world's biggest drug company, last month said it would take a $2.8 billion charge and abandon a similar product after selling only $12 million worth of inhaled insulin in the first nine months of the year. Mann, the 82-year-old CEO and controlling shareholder of the MannKind Corp., is not deterred. He says his company's inhalable insulin is not just a way to avoid needles but medically superior to Pfizer's product and to injected insulin. Despite …