Safeway, Supervalu, and others are deploying more private-label goods, among other things, to outwit the likes of Kellogg and General Mills. Jeffrey Noddle, CEO of Minneapolis-based Supervalu, is telling analysts to expect a "battleground" over the next six months as he pressures manufacturers to adjust their prices, Matt Boyle writes. And if they refuse? "In almost every category, you have other vendors to look to," according to Noddle.

See what your fellow marketers are paying $100,000 a second to promulgate this Sunday. ABC has videos of spots from Heineken, Pedigree, Go Daddy and more. Stuart Elliott leads the Business Day section of the Times this morning with a round-up of the financial and societal zeitgeist surrounding Super Bowl XLIII advertising. Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, makes his second appearance in "Around the Net" this week, which I believe is a modern-day record for an academic. Calkins tells Elliott: "Advertisers have to strike a delicate balance …

Hertz Global Holdings has launched a car sharing service in New York, London and Paris called "Connect by Hertz." It hopes to capitalize on both consumer demand for alternatives to car ownership and the current weakness of its rivals, according to Mark Frissora, the company's chairman and CEO. "People can't buy cars today," Frissora tells AP, referring to the current lack of consumer credit. Like existing car-sharing companies, rentals are charged hourly; the annual membership fee includes insurance, gas, roadside assistance, maintenance and use of a universal key card. Another trend, according to a …

I've never liked the taste of Diet Coke. But when I read Brandweek's headline this morning: -- "Diet Coke Brings Back 'Just for the Taste of It'"-- I can honestly say that I felt some warm and fuzzy synapses firing in my brain right around the medial prefrontal cortex, just like a story I was re-reading yesterday suggested I might. The 2003 piece by Clive Thompson in the New York Times Magazine looks at a study that purportedly proved that perceived brand image shapes influence. In short, people preferred the taste of Pepsi in a taste …

Dell is preparing a move into cell phones as early as next month, sources tell Justin Scheck and Yukari Iwatani Kane. A group of engineers have been toiling away in a secret lab in the Chicago area focusing on smart phones that use Google's Android operating system and Microsoft's Windows Mobile software. Dell may still abandon the effort, however, and a spokesperson says, "We haven't committed to anything." The move would put Dell into direct competition with Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry. A former Motorola employee, John Thode, heads up the phone effort, as well as …

Now science has confirmed what car dealers ("why don't you take it for a spin?") and pet-store clerks ("let me open the cage so you can play with Fluffy") have always known: You can't touch a product on Amazon.com and savor its essence. In fact, an experiment by researchers from Ohio State University and Illinois State University recently revealed that in many cases, simply touching a coffee mug for a few seconds creates an attachment that led people to pay more for the item. The results were published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making. Researchers …

And while you're at it, WWD has exclusive footage of Calvin Klein's new commercial "so provocative it initially was banned from even late-night cable TV." Shoo away the little shavers first.

Go ahead. Treat yourself again. Everything from Joe Namath shaving in a rust-colored velour shirt as Farrah croons to him to, well, Go Daddy.