Robert Kenner, the director on a new documentary about the way food is produced in the U.S., has been a busy man recently. "Now" host David Brancaccio devoted a long segment to him and his doc on Friday; he was on Campbell Brown's CNN show last night. Kenner takes the message of "Fast Food Nation" and "Super Size Me" -- the notion that food engineered for mass consumption may not be all that good for you - and, well, supersizes it. The synopsis on the "Food Inc." Web site says the movie exposes "the highly …

The black-and-white checkered Vans that Sean Penn wore in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and that catapulted the brand into the mainstream in the 1970s were his own pair of shoes, Kai Ryssdal discovers in an interview with the company's vp of marketing, Doug Palladini, who has compiled a book that traces the development of the brand, Vans: Off the Wall. Sales doubled from $20 million to $40 million as a result of Penn's exposure, but Palladini says it was a double-edged sword because the exponential growth occurred "without any sort of discipline whatsoever." Plus, the …

Three decades ago, Fiat attempted to introduce small, fuel-efficient cars to the U.S. market and bombed. Now that it's allied with Chrysler, it's ready to try again with the 500 model, which it hopes to introduce by 2011. It first must meet U.S. regulatory standards for crash-worthiness and emissions, Davide Berretta reports. The egg-shaped 500 is only eleven feet long and would be one of the smallest cars available in the U.S. -- between Daimler AG's Smart car and BMW AG's Mini Cooper. It gets 46 miles per gallon and costs $15,793 to $24,146. The 500 was named …

Who is the last marketer you'd think would be behind a series of Internet videos http://zack16.com/ that feature a 16-year-old boy who wakes up one morning to find that his "guy parts" have been replaced by "girl parts" while he slept? If you guessed Freud & Gamble, you'd be half right. The campaign is for P&G's Tampax, although the only reference to the brand so far has been when the unmanned lad, Zack Johnson, has a period during French class and sneaks into the girls' restroom to use a Tampax vending machine; Jack Neff reports. Zack is also tweeting …

Coldwater Creek seemed to have a pretty good idea, Patty Odell reports, but it's blowing it to smithereens in the execution. The retailer sent postcards to customers inviting them to "become part of the Coldwater Creek team" by calling an 888 number. The plusses are obvious, Odell says. The recipients already know the brand and are probably already spreading the good word about it by word of mouth. They'll require less training than recruits who shop elsewhere. But, Odell reports, after one caller left a message at the 888 number, the weeks turned into a month with no …

There's no perfect way to run a global marketing operation, according to Paul Polman, who has worked as a senior executive at Procter & Gamble, Nestlé and Unilever in recent years. "The model you apply is really a function of the business you're in," he tells Jack Neff. "You have to be careful." Polman admires the way Unilever CMO Simon Clift shares best practices around the world, but he sees a difference between sharing knowledge and trying to force a single global direction on every market. "It doesn't serve anything to have a standard product globally and not win anywhere," …

Hallmark, which will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2010, is keeping up with the times not only by selling e-cards but also by leveraging its hallowed brand name outside its core business, Barry Silverstein reports. One long-term spin-off has been the "Hallmark Hall of Fame," which originated in 1951 and has earned 79 Emmys and attracts 10 to 20 million viewing households for each program. "It continues to work its magic on our image to a degree I cannot fully explain," says Hallmark chairman Donald J. Hall. "I am not aware of any such vehicle, in or out of …