Volkswagen's U.S. CEO, Stefan Jacoby, is steering the company more toward the expectations of middle-class buyers and away from the tastes of young, trendy buyers partial to the iconic Beetle, V. Dion Haynes reports. In repositioning the brand for mass appeal, Max -- the wisecracking Beetle that has been the star of its recent ad campaign -- may be driving off to the sunset. "There are a lot of great stories and memories" about the Beetle, Jacoby tells Haynes, but "to play a bigger role here, we need to modify and adapt to American consumers' needs." Jacoby is pinning …

McDonald's has slipped from No. 2 to No. 7 in an annual ranking of overall drive-through performance conducted by QSR Magazine, Mike Hughlet reports. Customers, in fact, are waiting an average of 15 seconds longer to get their goodies. Service speed rose to 174.22 seconds per vehicle this year from 158.77 seconds last year, says QSR editor Blair Chancey, which puts McDonalds at No. 9 in that category. It also contends with more traffic than most other chains, Chancey points out. The survey also measures order accuracy, menu board appearance and speaker clarity. McDonald's responds that its internal …

Five popular bloggers known as Kitchenistas are spreading the word about Kraft' Velveeta by offering recipes, menu planning and other mealtime tips that revolve around the processed loafs, Patricia Odell reports. In addition, visitors to VelveetaKitchenistas.com can leave a comment for a chance to win a $75 prize package that includes a Velveeta cookbook. "Consumers may have one or two recipes that incorporate Velveeta, but they are not aware that there are many other things you can do with Velveeta, like make cornbread," says Velveeta brand manager Sherina Smith. Kraft is paying the bloggers for developing one Velveeta-based …

Jean Halliday takes a look at some of the ads that General Motors is running in October issues of Newsweek and BusinessWeek and concludes that the new GM is doing exactly what it said it wouldn't do by running nearly identical spreads for different brands -- the Buick LaCrosse, Chevrolet Malibu and/or new Cadillac CTS Sport Wagon. The advertisements "homogenize all the brands again," observes industry consultant Maryann Keller, "GM is as dysfunctional as ever." Responds GM vice chairman and ad czar Bob Lutz (who says he hasn't actually seen the spreads) in an email: "[The ads] would …

Thanks, probably, to the headline on the AP story covering Toyota president Akio Toyoda's press conference in Tokyo this morning -- "Toyota President Expresses Regret Over Fatal Crash" -- most of the coverage of the event around the net and on news radio this morning focuses on his apology over the death of an American family that's apparently due to a faulty floor mat in a Lexus. Toyoda actually offered a "profusion of excuses," a New York Times headline declares, about everything from how unprepared his company was for the global economic crisis to his …

Verizon FiOS has been running a series of commercials reminiscent of the Mac/PC guy spots that always wind up with The Cable Guy looking dumb or pathetic. In the latest I've seen, the FiOS Guy and the Cable Guy are getting feedback from a focus group on why the FiOS-feed picture makes the TV screen look like it's "new." The Cable's Guy's reaction to all the customers' plaudits for FiOS is: "I was curious why we're listening to customers ... seems dumb." "Oh boy," the FiOS Guys responds in a voice that suggests that this time the …

But there are plenty of buts.