The latest experiment in creating a zap-proof commercial is something of a reverse product-placement play, Stacey Vanek-Smith reports. As commercials roll on CNN's new evening new show, "John King, USA," a little window at the bottom of the screen stays focused on what's going on at the set, from paper shuffling to hair grooming. "People are so much more media savvy than they used to be. I mean, there's almost nothing that they don't know. So we just wanted to let them in a little bit more on everything," says Erik Rydholm, executive producer of ESPN's "Pardon the …

"Cheap marketing stunts" such as moving the secret recipe and offering a 500-calorie sandwich that replaces bread with chicken breasts has generated a lot of ink and buzz for KFC, Emily Bryson York reports, but the sizzle hasn't translated into sales. Not only that, but the tomfoolery shows a lack of consistent brand positioning, she writes, which has contributed to a loss of six points in market share since 2005 to 30% in 2009. "They don't have a clear identity anymore, and I think that's hurt them," says branding consultant Denise Lee-Yohn. The NPD Group's Harry Balzer observes …

As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, Jack Neff writes that a growing number of marketers are focusing more on how consumers treat the planet rather than solely promoting their own sustainability efforts. He cites campaigns by Hanes, Whole Foods Markets, Walmart, Coke and Chevron, among others. Green marketing "used to be more about the journey [companies] were taking," says Adam Werbach, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi's sustainability practice and former CEO of the Sierra Club. "Now it's more about taking the journey along with the consumer." One reason for the shift is emerging data …

Procter & Gamble's Bounty is launching a new campaign on Earth Day to clean up the nation's schools. "Make a Clean Difference" will bring together 1,000 volunteers in 30 schools in 10 U.S. cities, Elaine Wong reports. Though "clean" is an implied benefit of all paper towels, this is the first time Bounty has played up the attribute in its advertising, Bounty brand manager Dave Lee tells Wong. In previous efforts Bounty has famously emphasized its durability and absorbency when tackling messes. The initiative taps into consumers' desires for corporate social responsibility, cause-related community efforts and …

Kraft sees India as a potentially huge market in which it will be able to use Cadbury's existing infrastructure to market products like Oreo cookies, Kraft cheese and Tang drink mix, CEO Irene Rosenfeld tells Anjali Cordiero in a brief Q&A. "We could have launched Tang ourselves in India years ago. The challenge is it's costly to build the infrastructure," she says. "The decision to piggyback Tang on a chocolate infrastructure that already exists is much easier to make." In the U.S., Kraft believes the widespread presence of Cadbury's gums in gas marts and convenience stores gives it …

As auto sales plummeted and marketing budgets tightened, diversity marketing took a bigger hit than general-market efforts, Laura Clark Geist reports. Automakers' spending on Hispanic-targeted TV, magazine and radio advertising dropped 38% last year to $322.2 million, according to Nielsen data, and black-targeted spending dropped 18 percent to $85.8 million. Overall, ad spending dropped 13% over the same period. Ethnic minorities purchase almost one-quarter of new vehicles, according to Randi Payton, president of the media company On Wheels, which publishes African Americans on Wheels and Latinos on Wheels. Not surprisingly, he suggests that automakers increase their efforts to …

Jacob E. Osterhout takes the occasion of the release of "The Joneses," a comedy starring David Duchovny and Demi Moore as a pair of stealth marketers masquerading as a perfect family, to take a look at the state of the burgeoning industry that he says is also called "undercover or buzz marketing." Osterhout leads with the tale of a pretty 26-year-old actress flirting with a man in a midtown New York bar. When she passes him her BlackBerry to thumb in his phone number, however, she really doesn't have a date in mind. She just wants him to …