"I never understood how a woman, in particular, owns dozens of handbags and shoes, but only one pair of glasses that sit smack dab in the middle of her face every day," Richard Golden tells Marge Colborn. Golden, who sold Detroit Optical Centers to the Italian optical giant Luxottica Group for $110 million in 2007, will always be remembered for his hip dance routine and motorcycle spin in a series of 10-year-old TV commercials for D.O.C. His See chain now has 26 outlets nationally.

In a move that Marissa Miley and Rich Thomaselli call a "PR masterstroke," Pfizer says it will give away selected prescription drugs to workers who have lost their health insurance because they've been laid off. The program, called Maintain (an acronym for Medicines Assistance for Those who Are in Need), will provide more than 70 drugs manufactured by Pfizer, including cholesterol-lowering agent Lipitor and erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, at no charge to consumers who qualify. "It's probably worth more than $100 million in free advertising," says Dorothy Wetzel, the former vp-consumer marketing at Pfizer who now runs her own health-care …

Hewlett-Packard, which has had disappointing home sales for its TouchSmart desktop computers, is moving into commercial uses for the technology. The new strategy pits it against rivals like International Business Machines, which has long sold touch-screen computers to do things like print out airline boarding passes, Justin Scheck reports. Last month, H-P installed 50 touch-screen PCs in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport for travelers to access online maps and restaurant listings. They are also being put into luxury boxes in the Detroit Pistons arena, where basketball fans can access player statistics and see instant replays. And Uniguest, a company that …

Marketers such as Levi Strauss, Exxon Mobil, Siemens, Cargill and Procter & Gamble think the way to stand out in the clutter of "do-gooder" messaging is by featuring in their advertising some of the people they say they are helping, Erin Galliher reports. Two TV spots in a new campaign from Levi's, for example, feature a student from the Harvey Milk High School in Manhattan, which is for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender teens. Levi's has supported Harvey Milk for six years through sponsorships and hopes to raise $500,000 for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which hosts the school. Marketers …

Too many people are venturing out to movie theaters, according to Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes, which is putting a crimp on DVD rentals. He told analysts that nearly three million more people have gone to the movies each week in 2009 than last year, pulling traffic from his outlets to the tune of a nearly 20% drop in revenue ($1.12 billion) and a nearly 40% fall in net income ($27.7 million). But Keyes promises that Blockbuster's stores will be fully stocked and aggressively marketing the value of rentals in the wake of its renegotiation last month of …

Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie are in a race to turn one of entertainment's most powerful money machines into a timeless classic for 20th Century Fox, David Lieberman writes. If they succeed, he says, they could surpass Mickey Mouse, Snoopy and Bugs Bunny in their ability to generate sales from T-shirts and licensed merchandise, as well as video games, DVDs, books, fast-food promotions and theme park rides. About half as many people tune into the Sunday night show on Fox as did a decade ago, mirroring a trend for more broadcast TV programs. But Fox executives have a …