For every couple caught kissing on the Scope "Kiss Cam" this New Year's Eve, Procter & Gamble will make a donation to Operation Smile, a charity that raises money to treat childhood deformities such as cleft lip, Elaine Wong reports. P&G is partnering with American Idol host Ryan Seacrest's nationally syndicated radio show, with ads running through Wednesday and online ads on RyanSeacrest.com through Sunday. P&G also is launching an in-store program, called "See a Difference, Make a Difference," to support children with cleft lip. P&G is donating money to Operation Smile through consumer purchases of its Scope, Crest …

Andrea James spent some time examining the power of online customer reviews, concluding "consumers are increasingly relying on the opinions of people they've never met." James also finds that businesses are using customer reviews in their marketing campaigns, providing links to top-ranked products and, in some cases, flirting with the idea of making the reviews accessible via cell phone in brick-and-mortar stores. "It is as if all online shoppers have an instant community of friends, recommending the good and warning about the bad," says Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a marketing professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. But …

Here's a look at the seven most popular "Around the Net in Brand Marketing" stories of 2008 as measured by your eyeballs and extricated by MediaPost IT impresario Mark Kecko from our server records.

Thursday, December 18, 2008 Apple's announcement that Phil Schiller, its SVP of worldwide marketing, will take Steve Jobs' place on the stage at next month's Macworld conference has wags wagging about who might succeed him somewhere down the road should he need to be succeeded which, of course, is nothing but speculation. But let's play the game with the Merc's Troy Wolverton. Schiller, 48, has 17 years of marketing and management experience at Apple and is very tuned in to its culture, says Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry. But he's weak on operations and product design and, as …

Monday, January 28, 2008 Old Navy is scrapping its family image to target 20somethings. The new strategy is centered on faster deliveries and wardrobe-building collections that change monthly, not to mention a new logo and, eventually, store renovations. There's also a new marketing campaign that focuses on creating a more fashionable image. Old Navy's new monthly spring 2008 collections will be previewed to the press Wednesday in Manhattan. The new logo and marketing campaign--described as an integrated package of television, print and online ads, direct mail and in-store visuals--also will be shown. The product development cycle time …

Thursday, September 4, 2008 It has been awhile since the optical business has been as charged by celebrity specs as it has by the rimless pair that Republican vice presidential nominee Gov. Sarah Palin wears most of the time. If she wins, it could rock the vision-care market, which totals $26.6 billion a year, says tracker Jobson Optical Research. "We keep getting calls from dealers who want to stock the exact shape and style that she's wearing," says Amy Hahn, vp at Italee, the U.S. distributor of the frames designed by Kazuo Kawasaki, a Japanese industrial designer. The …

Monday, March 24, 2008 Previous recessions have spawned the brand-management system, soap operas, modern cable networks, airline loyalty programs, the IBM personal computer, the iPod, Crest Whitestrips, Axe body spray and--for better or worse--fast-food value menus. Recessions also have been fertile ground for some retail chains. Home Depot opened its first two stores near Atlanta just before a recession in 1979. But today's marketers don't know much about marketing through recessions--or how good they have it when things feel so bad. Marketers should draw lessons from such examples of charging ahead despite recession, says Ed Rensi, former …