Ford today will detail plans to convert its Michigan truck plant into a facility that will produce the same Ford Focus small-car line that it builds in Europe and Asia, giving the company global economies of scale. It hopes to revive the car's reputation in the U.S., where it has not been successful, by producing a battery-powered model, its first all-electric passenger car, Matthew Dolan reports. Ford initially aimed the Focus at young urban hipsters in the U.S. but the marketing alienated much of Ford's core customers. When the Focus arrived from Europe, early models were stripped of features to …

The recession and a back-to-basics focus by consumers are reviving the center of the supermarket -- think cans of kidney beans and bags of marshmallows -- Elaine Wong reports. Food's marketing focus in recent years has been on the outer aisles, such as frozen and fresh produce, which have more "pizzazz and sex appeal," says Tom Vierhile, who tracks new products at Datamonitor. But Del Monte recently began advertising its canned fruits and vegetables line for the first time in 10 years. Its $15-million "Stretch Your Dollar" campaign aims to persuade shoppers to buy canned over fresh or frozen …

Intel is about to launch a massive advertising campaign in more than two dozen countries that seeks to make consumers more familiar with the brand. "Sponsors of Tomorrow," which will appear on TV, billboards, the Web and in print beginning Monday, will be the first advertising from the chip maker to focus on its overall brand rather than specific processors or products, Alana Semuels reports. "We want people, when they decide they need a new laptop, to make sure they're going to look at Intel inside," says Nancy Bhagat, director of integrated marketing at Intel. And it wants consumers …

Mother's Day is the biggest holiday of the year for the big floral brands and they doing their utmost to reverse disappointing Valentine's Day sales (down 22.7% on average) this year. FTD -- the 100-year-old network of 20,000 independent florists -- has a new Web site, a new look for its Mercury Man logo and a new luxury line that starts at $179. That may seem counterintuitive but FTD president Robert Apatoff says "there's part of the market that wants unique and bigger arrangements." Teleflora is running a TV ad in 29 markets to …

"Starbucks is an image company," Andrea James writes, "one in which words matter." On the supposition that the words that company's executives have used to describe the company in 2007 and 2009 have changed dramatically, she put them through the word-cloud grinder. Lo and behold, words like "growth," "international," "markets," and "China" have been usurped by the likes of "customers," "coffee," and "value." Stevens compared a transcript from Starbuck's 2007 second-quarter corporate earnings call with the 2009 call. The former totaled 9,978 words, including numbers and questions from analysts. The 2009 call included 10,083 words. Because the total number …

If you've ever heard yourself sing "Hey Jude" and winced, you'll be comforted by T-Mobile's latest effort in Europe to remind us that we're not alone in the universe.