Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said people are cooking more at home, eating more leftovers and are buying more frozen food. The retailer has also noticed an uptick in "self treatment" in its pharmacy group. "The number one issue today is [consumers'] concern about their job," Scott said. Small businesses have been hit by the recession, too. Cash-strapped restaurant owners are visiting Walmarts more frequently to buy supplies as one day's cash flow allows them to buy supplies for the following day, Scott said. Scott also said that the company has "reached …

San Diego teacher Tom Farber is selling advertising on the bottom of math tests, John Blackstone reports. The ads appear as lines of text, such as "Braces by Stephen P. Henry D.M.D." At $10 for a quiz, $20 for a test, and $30 for a final exam, Farber's ads pay for the cost of printing the tests. "I would have never have done this five years ago or ten years ago," Farber says. But San Diego area schools are facing a $51 million budget shortfall next year. Statewide, California schools are expecting at least $2.8 billion in cuts. …

Christopher Joyce reports on the use of social marketing to get people to make the right choices -- such as Energy Star appliances --for society. "People buy on emotion, and they justify with the facts," says Maria Vargas, a director of the Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star Program. "Social marketers say there are some things to avoid when you're trying to make people change their energy appetites," Joyce tells us. The idea of sacrifice is one of them, as President Jimmy Carter proved. There's also a funny spot featuring the "first static-electricity fueled" home …

Specifically feel good and buy at Best Buy. That's the message of a holiday campaign BBDO has created for the consumer electronics retailer that features true stories about ways that webcams and the like have touched people's lives. Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris filmed actual Best Buy employees telling heartwarming tales. For example, one is shown teaching a blind man how to use his home theater system. Other marketers are accentuating the positive, too, Stephanie Kang reports. Carnival Cruise Lines, for example, brought together thousands of people to play with the world's largest beach ball and break the world's largest piñata. …

Procter & Gamble chairman and CEO A.G. Lafley is generally a "sunny and upbeat" kind of guy himself, as WWD's Molly Prior describes him. And what is he so sunny and upbeat about? Well, for one thing, the fact that because things are so bad in the world of media and advertising, P&G "can just walk in and tear up the contract." Though I wouldn't classify Lafley as a meme agent for joy in Adland, there are, as always, lessons for other brand marketers here besides "carry the biggest stick." He told analysts in New York yesterday …

The proposed $14 billion rescue plan for the auto industry agreed upon by the House and Bush Administration fell apart in the Senate late last night. A proposal by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the lead GOP negotiator, to reduce the wages and benefits of union workers, failed to gain traction. "It sounds like UAW blew up the deal," Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said. In making the announcement that "there's too much difference between the two sides" shortly after 10 p.m., Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) also said that he dreaded in the impact on financial markets …