Nearly 20% of Americans have abandoned landline telephone service according to a Nielsen Mobile report; Douglas Wolk says that, thanks to voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP), we soon may be snipping the metaphorical cord to cell phones as well. VoIP is currently hobbled by spotty Internet access and mobile carriers protecting their interests, but has one huge factor in its favor: It is very cheap. According to a recent Yankee Group report, 5.2 % of Americans already use VoIP as their primary home phone. Recently VoIP became available for the iPod Touch, making it functionally as much a phone as the …

PepsiCo launched a $6 billion takeover bid for its two largest independent bottlers late Sunday, signaling its intention to overhaul how it makes and distributes its products to consumers, Betsy McKay, Dennis K. Berman and Valerie Bauerlein report. Combining Pepsi with Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas would give it control of about 80% of its North America beverage distribution volume. A decade ago, Pepsi sought to separate itself from its bottlers; now it wants more control over production and distribution in order to squeeze out costs. "When you have a flat-to-shrinking profit pool, slicing it 20 ways to Sunday is …

Suzanne Watson was once a guard on the NCAA Division I women's basketball team at Syracuse University. Now she manages the Tide business at Procter & Gamble. The two roles require similar qualities, according to recruiter Howard Gross, including being "comfortable being in the limelight, and being held accountable, and, most importantly, being able to tolerate pressure." Watson is more than up to the challenge, Elaine Wong reports in looking at a day at work for the 34-year-old mother of two that includes a screening of a new "Tide Loads of Hope" commercial. "I'm so energized by seeing change …

It looks like green marketing is recession-proof, Jack Neff reports, with launches of sustainable, environmentally friendly or "eco-friendly" products tripling so far in 2009, according to Datamonitor. In addition, Nielsen Co. data show sales growth of organic food at 5.6% year over year in December from a year ago. Though growth slowed in the fourth quarter, it was still more than 7% in December, far healthier than the rates at even top-performing grocery retailers such as Walmart or Costco. "It looks like this green trend is going to survive the recession," says Tom Vierhile, gm at Datamonitor's Product Launch …

Hollywood studios are having a hard time getting a grip on the movie industry's equivalent of the pork barrel earmark: marketing budgets, reports Claudia Eller. They are hosting fewer lavish premiere parties, curtailing newspaper advertisements and restricting the number of agencies that produce trailers. But that's just trimming the edges. In the end, the studios are about to embark upon the costliest summer for movie marketing campaigns they have ever pursued. From May through August, they will together spend about $1 billion to market globally such high-profile titles as "Angels & Demons"; "Transformers 2"; the sixth "Harry Potter" film; …

Marketers such as Ford, ExxonMobil, Nationwide Insurance, Verizon and Alabama Power are putting employees in ads in an effort to make their brands seem more transparent and trustworthy, Helen Coster reports. And American Honda Motor Co. is featuring at least 30 employees, as well as CEO Takeo Fukui and a few celebrities, in three seven-and-a-half minute online films dubbed "Dream the Impossible" that each explores a different theme in documentary style. In "Kick out the Ladder," for example, senior manager Jim Keller talks about Honda's culture. "If people ... see the final result of their work, they're much more …