Starting Monday, Sprint Nextel will begin offering a new "share" plan that offers 3,000 voice minutes and a bounty of add-ons for $169.99 a month for two lines. And Verizon plans to start offering discounts of $8 to $21 a month to consumers who buy wireless services plus any other service, such as the high-speed broadband service, FiOS. Previously, consumers had to buy a traditional landline service to qualify for a discount. Sprint has been struggling with a string of operational problems related to the Nextel merger. Most consumers don't care about that, says Walter Piecyk, a telecom analyst at …

The American Red Cross, which has been beating back various public relations problems, has the petal to the metal its first corporate-style marketing effort. Red Cross Racing aims to turn the more than 75 million fans of the NASCAR racing circuit into regular blood donors. As part of a self-examination, the Red Cross began to reassess its blood drives, which have been highly decentralized. On any day, there were about 500 drives across the country. "What we needed was not to have one look in Southern California and a completely different look in Boston," says Elizabeth K. Reitman, the brand …

Politicians and activists are already lining up against Belgian brewer InBev's unsolicited all-cash bid of $46 billion, or $65 a share, for Anheuser-Busch. They say a takeover could cost jobs in the U.S. and send ownership of an iconic American company overseas. Missouri's Republican Gov. Matt Blunt says he opposes the deal, and has directed the state's Department of Economic Development to see if there is a way to stop it. Web sites have sprung up opposing the deal on patriotic grounds. One, called SaveAB.com, was launched by Blunt's former chief of staff. "Like baseball, apple pie and ice-cold beer …

CEO Michael Rapino is seeking to slow the pace of deal making at concert-promoter-turned-merchandiser Live Nation so he can ascertain that deals already struck are working while chairman Michael Cohl wants to quickly strike deals with as many as 15 more artists. The company has laid out an estimated $120 million for Madonna and $150 million for Jay-Z alone in return for exclusive rights to release their recordings, promote their concert tours and sell T-shirts and other merchandise bearing their images. According to people familiar with the matter, Cohl threatened to leave the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Live Nation in …

Kraft hopes the reformulation of its Oscar Mayer brand all-beef hot dog -- its first in 20 years -- and a massive promotional campaign to attract new customers with a zestier, meatier recipe will make it the undisputed leader of the stagnating frank market. Right now, Sara Lee's Ball Park Franks also claims the No. 1 position based on separate readings of market research and sales data. Experts say the frank fight may become more difficult as the economy sours and hot dog consumption -- at least among adults -- hits its lowest level since the mid-1980s. "You can …

Some Wal-Mart suppliers have had to accept lower prices in order to keep its business as the retailer tries to keep retail prices low, according to Citigroup analyst Deborah Weinswig. Manufacturers are willing to absorb price increases and take a lower margin in hopes that the large order size will help offset the squeeze. Patricia Edwards, a fund manager with Wentworth, Hauser & Violich, agrees that there is "huge pressure" on suppliers to absorb price increases, but feels that trend may be changing as the burden becomes too large. That will mean that despite Wal-Mart's squeeze on suppliers and …

As packaged-goods makers' costs rise, they eventually have two choices: raise prices or put less stuff in the package. While most are trying a price boost first, a growing number are shrinking the contents of their packages -- from Frito Lay's chips to Dial soap to Dreyer's ice cream. Few understand the science of downsizing products as well as John Gourville, a marketing professor at Harvard Business School, who studied purchasing patterns for 157 cereals and concluded that consumers are far more sensitive to higher prices than to less product. "People are generally unaware they're getting less," he says …

American Greetings Properties has worked for a year on what it calls a "fruit-forward" makeover on Strawberry Shortcake, the doll and cartoon star of the 1980s who has not been connecting with modern girls. She now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, appears to wear just a dab of lipstick (but no rouge), and spends her time chatting on a cell phone instead of brushing her calico cat, Custard. Strawberry Shortcake's new look was unveiled Tuesday, along with plans for a new line of toys from Hasbro. She is not the only aging fictional star to get a facelift. American Greetings …