Juice brand Odwalla is launching a promotion in June in all 50 state parks systems that will prompt consumers to decide where they'd like a tree planted, Todd Wasserman reports. The company plans to spend about $200,000 in trees. In 2009, 11 state park systems participated in a similar program. Odwalla will also do some promotion and launch a Facebook campaign, according to Shari Boyer, CEO of Government Solutions Group, which negotiated the details with the National Association of State Park Directors, which voted in December to allow such deals. "Each state system …

Consumer package-goods companies attending the Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference agreed on the need for investments in advertising, in-store promotion, shelf signage, coupons and packaging to battle the encroaching share of market of private-label brands, Emily Bryson York and Jack Neff report. "Nothing like the thought of hanging to concentrate the mind," Heinz CEO William R. Johnson wryly observed. More specifically, he pointed out that his company has "significantly" increased couponing in the U.S and U.K. and boosted marketing spending 40% in its most recent quarter. Hershey expects to increase spending by 25% to …

Procter & Gamble is placing a bet on a raft of new products -- 30% more than last year in its main product categories -- to lift it from the sales doldrums, CEO Robert McDonald told investors yesterday. Pantene will be reinvented, McDonald points out, with new formulations, packaging and marketing starting in June. He also promises new Crest whitening products and a Crest Pro-Health Sensitive line of toothbrushes, floss and toothpaste, Ellen Byron and Anjali Cordeiro report. A new premium detergent called Sarasa will roll out in Japan; a bargain-priced detergent called Tide Naturals is slated for …

Bob Moore, who founded Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods in 1978 with his wife Charlee, told his 209 employees the other day that he was remaining as boss for the foreseeable future but that they had new owners. Themselves. Despite almost daily bids from entities that either want to buy the company or take it public, the 81-year-old Moore decided to implement an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. "These people are far too good at their jobs for me to just sell it," he said. The company markets about 400 varieties of stone-ground flours, cereals and bread mixes. In …

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment president David Bishop is at the nexus of a raft of issues that are transforming the industry, writes Ben Fritz, from double-digit decreases in DVD sales to the rising threat of piracy and the tricky business of deciding what to do with the likes of Netflix and Redbox. Sony, in fact, was the first studio to allow Redbox to rent movies the same day they go on sale. "Overall, we feel good about the economics of the deal," Bishop tells Fritz, which goes against the prevailing wisdom in Hollywood of preserving a sale-only period. …

Wal-Mart Stores announced a 21% increase in fourth-quarter profit this morning as international growth offset a 0.5% dip in sales in the U.S. market, William Spain reports. The period includes sales from the Christmas shopping season. "Walmart's exceptional earnings for the fourth quarter and the full year exceeded our expectations," says president and CEO Mike Duke in a statement. U.S. sales were about $71 billion. International sales rose 19.5% to $29.6 billion. The company forecasts comparable store sales without fuel during the 13-week period of Jan. 30, through April 30 to be flat, plus or minus …