Diageo, whose brands include Johnnie Walker scotch and Guinness beer, is developing in-store displays to encourage shoppers to buy more of its products at retail, including a plan to roll out big refrigeration units so stores can sell their beer chilled, Aaron O. Patrick reports. The Diageo "pod" creates a partially enclosed, refrigerated beer zone within a supermarket aisle that is intended to hold all brands of beer, not just Diageo's. They will cost retailers about $13,000 each, and I'm guessing they're not going to go over big in older supermarkets with already cramped aisles like my local A&P. Indeed, …

For the past month, there has been a Smart car tooling around my neighborhood. I can't quite account for the grin that appears on my face every time I see it. Tell me if this picture of a two-passenger concept vehicle from General Motors and Segway doesn't evoke a similar response in you. The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility (PUMA) vehicle balances itself fore and aft and can travel at up to 35 mph for up to 35 miles between recharges, Tom Incantalupo reports. "It's a step up from a bicycle or electric bike, and a step …

Health advocates have long steered Americans away from processed foods that contain dozens of unnatural and unpronounceable ingredients, Jan Black writes. The message may be getting through, as the growth of organic and "natural" products would indicate. The message hasn't escaped marketers' attention, of course. In fact, they're turning "simplicity sells" into a strategy. For example, every ingredient of the vanilla version of Five, Haagen-Dazs's new line of ice cream, is prominently displayed in bright-orange capital letters. The fact that the brand's regular vanilla bean ice cream also has just five ingredients is beside the point. Snapple has launched …

The FDA has issued letters to 14 major pharmaceutical companies instructing them to stop what it calls "misleading" and "misbranded" advertising on search engines such as Google and Yahoo, Marissa Miley reports. The changes required include disassociating a branded drug from the condition it seeks to treat in the search ad's headline, description lines and even URL name. The letters from the FDA's Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications are so-called preemptive untitled letters, requesting an immediate end to the ads and a written response from the companies by Thursday. Mark Senak, senior …

Billy Mays, the most successful direct-response salesman in TV history, is co-starring in a new Discovery Channel reality show, "Pitchmen," which debuts April 15. You may recall Mays' efforts for such products as OxiClean, Kaboom, Mighty Putty, the Awesome Auger and the Samurai Shark sharpener. You may even have a few of them occupying shelf space. Mays believes in the hard sell, in buttonholing, in arm-twisting. "I cut through the noise, through the clutter," he says. "People want to hear the pitch." He says he's dialed down his approach at times but people wonder what's wrong with …

While we're covering great moments in kitschy TV advertising, here's a list of the top 25 fake ads from science fiction movies (with a tip of the cap to Very Short List).

Jack Neff's lead article in Ad Age's multi-story package on marketing in the down economy convincingly fortifies a concept you've been hearing since the days when all it took to be a sales and marketing genius was to ace your end-term exam: Consumers like bargains but don't spoil them for too long. For example, "brands that suffered little share loss to private label were in categories where price promotion decreased less sharply," according to research by University of North Carolina marketing professor Jan Benedict E.M. Steenkamp. But how do you get your value message heard above the din …

If you're counting on a period of The New Wastrality after the current economic downturn ends, think again. "There's good reason to believe Americans will be saving more in the next decade than they did in the last one," writes Kelly Evans with studies, a few experts and some anecdotes in tow. While continued frugality could restore some balance to a world economy, it could also spell trouble for retailers, restaurants and luxury-goods makers that rely on consumers to spend freely. A U.S. Spending Monitor survey by Discover that will be released Wednesday finds that about 35% of consumers …