Automotive advertising spending dropped 14.2% to $1.99 billion in the U.S. during the first 3 months of the year, according to data from TNS Media Intelligence. Ad spending is "sinking as fast as new car sales," says Jon Swallen svp of research for TNS. , Although Ford and Chrysler are expected to boost support for the Ford F-150 and the Dodge Ram when they debut later this year, advertising for light trucks dropped even more. For every dollar spent on truck advertising last year, automakers spent 80 cents on passenger autos. This year, Swallen says the ratio of truck advertising …

Sony launched a video downloading service Tuesday that allows users to rent and purchase movies and TV shows. It hopes to gain an edge in the market by letting users view programming on their hand-held PlayStation Portable devices as well as on TV sets. Sony previously said it plans to make the service available through other key products -- such as its Vaio computers, Walkman music players and Sony Ericsson mobile phones - by March 2011. Sony faces stiff competition from rivals such as Microsoft and Apple, which are already a step ahead in such services. Microsoft on Monday …

Although 49% of respondents to a national study called Eco Pulse say a company's environmental record is important in their purchasing decisions, the numbers drops to 21% when consumers are asked if this had actually driven them to choose one product over another. And only 7% could name the product they purchased. And when asked to name which features a home would need to have before they would consider it green, 42% say they didn't know, while 28% say solar, 12% say compact fluorescent light bulbs and 10% name Energy Star appliances. Nothing else really registered. "If you were …

Six in 10 financial executives believe their companies' marketing departments have an inadequate understanding of financial controls, and seven in 10 say their companies don't use marketing inputs and forecasts in financial guidance to Wall Street or in public disclosures, according to research was carried out for the Association of National Advertisers by Aegis Group's Marketing Management Analytics (MMA); Financial Executive magazine, and Ed See, former president of MMA and principal of Ed See Associates. "They don't believe the numbers," says Jeffrey Marshall, the retired editor in chief of Financial Executive, who worked on the study. On the …

A new crop of American bean-to-bar chocolate makers are building their own factories -- and sometimes their own machinery -- and tracking down cocoa beans to transform them into bars of chocolate for eating and for making confections. There's no mistaking these chocolate makers for traditional chocolatiers, who create confections such as bonbons and truffles. Instead of enthusing about ganache, they're wont to talk about cacao genetics, or the advantages of a roller mill versus a ball mill during chocolate refining, or the stability of certain types of crystalline structures in chocolate. The result is an envelope-pushing variety …