An employee for the Fred Meyer retail chain inadvertently entered the "LP" code for "Accelerate," R.E.M.'s latest release, this spring. Boxes of the big, vinyl discs showed up at several stores. Some were put on the shelves, and 20 LPs sold the first day. Fred Meyer, owned by Kroger, is now testing vinyl sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, California, Washington and Alaska. Other mainstream retailers are giving vinyl a spin too. Best Buy is testing sales at some stores. And online music giant Amazon.com --which has sold vinyl for most of the 13 years it has …

Last Tuesday, Wal-Mart started selling on an exclusive basis a three-disc collection by the popular 1980s band Journey called "Revelation" that it bought directly from the band without the help of a record label. Journey kept most of the money a record company would normally take as profit. Last year Wal-Mart made a similar, lucrative deal with the Eagles. The deals highlight the changing dynamics of the music industry as consumers migrate to digital downloads. To fill the gap, musicians are scrambling to connect with fans, and Wal-Mart is using exclusive deals to assume a new role: hit maker. This …

Chrysler chairman and CEO Robert Nardelli wants no whining about Chrysler products not getting a fair shake from Consumer Reports magazine or the latest J.D. Power and Associates report on vehicle quality. Last Wednesday, he fired off an email urging employees to seek to understand the harshest critics of the company, and then to get to work on solving the shortcomings cited by those critics. Nardelli's email was sent about five hours before the 2008 J.D. Power Initial Quality Study results were released at a lunchtime briefing in Detroit. His message was preemptive in a way, preparing the troops …

McDonald's is testing the sale of bottled and canned drinks in about 150 locations. So far, a variety of colas, teas, energy drinks and waters -- including Red Bull and Coca-Cola's Vitaminwater -- are being tested, along with some beverages from PepsiCo. McDonald's declines to provide a full list of brands involved in the test and says a final lineup has not been determined. The idea is to offer more options to consumers who are going elsewhere for their beverage fixes. Options vary by location, and it might take years for the plan to finally be realized. The …

Product tie-in hype is growing in Hollywood even as a new school of advertisers is trying to redefine this industry within an industry. "Indiana Jones," "Kung Fu Panda," "Iron Man," "Speed Racer," "The Dark Knight" and even "Sex and the City" have piled onto the cross-promotion bandwagon this summer. Spending can match or exceed the estimated $3.5 billion that all studios budget to market movies. A division is growing between the easy-to-spot tie-in and an emerging school of brands that don't want you to know, they just want you to want. The traditional tools of old-school advertisers like McDonald's, …

Beer prices at bars and restaurants have risen over the past few months as the cost of hops and barley has skyrocketed and retail business has slowed alongside the economy. To compensate, some restaurants have replaced 16-ounce pint glasses with 14 ouncers -- a type of glassware one bartender calls a "falsie." And customers are complaining that bartenders are increasingly filling up extra space with foam instead of liquid. Restaurateurs "want more of a perceived value," says Mike Schuster, Libbey's marketing manager for glassware in the U.S. Glasses with a thicker bottom or a thicker shaft help create the …

Target is rolling out three masstige versions of up-and-coming makeup artist lines this August. Makeup artists Jemma Kidd, Napoleon Perdis and Petra Strand have signed on to collaborate with Target to bring out more affordable and slightly different versions of their existing lines. New 11-foot, in-store presentations will also have lit features and classic, bold beauty graphics, and the designers will have bios by their respective product lines explaining their philosophies and brands. A marketing and advertising plan will include TV, print, online and in-store initiatives. Sources say the chain is planning to spend $15 million in the first six …