Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought IBM's personal computer business in 2005, plans to use its Olympics campaign as a launching pad for its brand, which had once played understudy to the IBM name. It is the only Chinese company having a worldwide sponsorship for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Although Lenovo is not trying to hide its Chinese roots, it will not be making direct mention of its heritage in advertising running in the U.S., according to Glen Gilbert, Lenovo's vp for brand management. Rather, it wants to position Lenovo as a global brand and highlight the quality of …

Mass-market shampoo Herbal Essences was a stale brand in its mid-30s when Procter & Gamble acquired it from Clairol in 2001. By 2006, there were three apparent choices, says P&G chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley: "Abandon it, divest it, or frankly, reinvent it and resuscitate it." Susan Arnold, P&G's beauty business chief, decided to bet on the latter. A small interdisciplinary team of R&D, marketing, and design managers came up with a new target audience for the brand-Generation Y. The packaging was redesigned to "fit" this more tailored market: The shampoo and conditioner bottles are curved so that they literally …

Rivals Royal Caribbean International and Norwegian Cruise Line unveiled the latest details of their top new-ship projects this week in an attempt to drum up excitement about the feature-laden vessels before they begin selling tickets later this year. ''They're all trying to outdo each other and outdo themselves,'' says Stewart Chiron, a Miami cruise expert. Royal Caribbean will build a Coney Island-style boardwalk with a handmade carousel on the Oasis of the Seas, which will be the world's largest cruise ship when it debuts in December 2009. It will be one of seven ''neighborhoods'' on the 220,000-ton ship, which …

Advertisers are working hard to master mobile -- not least because its potential as a medium far outstrips the Web on PCs -- but creating a viable mobile strategy and message remains a challenge. The world's best efforts are on display currently at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival in France. Some of the campaigns that already have won awards have included mobile components. The Grand Prix won by AMF Pension's retirement campaign in the media-buying competition includes a feature for people to upload their photos via their mobile handsets and get them back doctored to show how they'll …

Trying to put a positive spin on the fees and surcharges they're adding to the cost of a ticket, airlines are introducing a new term to the flying experience: "à la carte pricing." The phrase came up several times Wednesday during a Merrill Lynch transportation conference in New York, where executives said the tough new cost environment means nothing can be free, or cheap, anymore. J. Scott Kirby, president of US Airways, says that historically all passengers paid for checking bags even when they did not bring luggage, because a charge for transporting them was built into the ticket …

Thanks to strong reviews and promotional support from Amazon.com, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle -- a literary coming-of-age tale by a 48-year-old first-time novelist -- has gone into its seventh printing a week after its publication. In a sign of Amazon's growing clout with readers, Ecco (an imprint of HarperCollins Publisher) has now ordered up a total of 90,000 copies of the book. The Web retailer chose the book as one of the best books of June and aggressively hyped it, including by posting a long and enthusiastic blurb from Stephen King. The same blurb was printed inside "early …