Sparkling jellied Fanta? Pureed fruit in a pouch? Cold, sweet jellied coffee in a can? Just 15% of Coca-Cola's business in Japan, where fickle drinkers expect new beverages by the season, is Coke itself, Chana R. Schoenberger reports. And that means that it uses its nearly 1 million vending machines to test all sorts of concoctions that may, or may not, see the light of day elsewhere. "We've become a lab for other markets to learn from," says Japan head Daniel Sayre, who sold $16 billion worth of drinks last year for a one-third market share in the country. …

Throw out any preconceptions you have about Julie Roehm and read Danielle Sacks' profile of the former svp of marketing communications for Wal-Mart, who is now 38 and more than two years out from the "litigious spiral of soap-operatic proportions" that followed her dust-up on marketing's Main Street. The restless Roehm, who still resides in Bentonville, Ark., with her husband and two sons, actually cuts a sympathetic figure as she doles out cookies to her kids, lays her head on the steering wheel of her hubby's minivan and yawns, "This is why I could never do this. I'd go nuts." …

Robert Louis-Dreyfus, who brought Saatchi & Saatchi back from the brink of financial ruin during his run as London-based CEO of the holding company from 1990 to 1993, died of leukemia on July 4, Laurel Wentz reports. Louis-Dreyfus, 63, was the charismatic scion of a wealthy French family and a first cousin of actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus. He built U.S. pharmaceutical market research company IMS International, selling it to Dun & Bradstreet in 1988 for $1.7 billion. Maurice Saatchi recruited him to take the new CEO post at Saatchi & Saatchi Co. holding company, where he negotiated with creditors to …

Coca-Cola re-established a dedicated African-American marketing group in 2006 that is headed by Yolanda White, assistant vp of African-American marketing. Among other things, Natalie Zmuda asks her if general-market shops can adequately speak to the African-American demographic, and White takes it a step further. "If you look at society today, there really is no general market," she responds. "The market is really multicultural. It's really important for all agencies to have a pulse on the total population as it exists and on what's happening. If they don't, it really prohibits the agency's ability to be at the forefront of …

Columnist Dan Neil says that Michael Phelps's new TV spot for Subway -- comparing his life and eating habits to that of former fatty Jared Fogle -- is nothing special. But he points out that culture deconstructionists will pick it apart for oblique references to the scandal that ensued after a photograph of him hitting a bong surfaced earlier this year, and then he goes on a bit of a deconstruction mission of his own. To wit: "The consequences to Phelps -- actually, the lack of consequences -- suggest that something bigger than mere endorsement dollars is in play. …

Alan Mitchell launches a new column today with an eye-catching acronym, Mad Sheep Rage, that is meant to assist marketers with their marketing and, as The New Yorker might point out, is further evidence of why there will always be an England. First, though, Mitchell begins with a different metaphor, suggesting that there is something to be learned from the evolving treatment of leukemia. Bottom line: leukemia is actually 51 different types of cancer so the first step is to properly diagnose which one you're dealing with. Now back to Mad Sheep Rage, which lists the many …

The U.S. Department of Justice, which essentially lay dormant on antitrust matters during the Bush administration, is looking into whether large telecoms are abusing their market power at the expense of smaller carriers, Amol Sharma reports. Antitrust chief Christine Varney wants to reassert the government's role in policing monopolistic and anti-competitive practices by powerful companies but, as an attorney who once worked on the department's telecom antitrust task force points out, "investigations don't necessarily lead to court cases." Questions have been raised about such deals as AT&T's exclusive right to provide service for Apple's iPhone in the U.S., and …