• Apple Fesses Up; J&J Changes The Subject
    Steve Jobs revealed yesterday why Apple's public relations department went dark when all the controversy started swirling last week over iPhone and iPads "tracking" users' locations. And it makes perfect sense. It said nothing because it had nothing intelligent to add to the conversation at the time.
  • Everyone's Streaming For Entrance
    "Box office blockbuster" has been a trusty phrase for more than a half-century, but it's going the way of bricks-and-mortar Blockbusters as a true measure of a movie's footprint. When, if and who will see boffo profits from the newest distribution venues, however, await another's morning's reviews.
  • Weight Watchers Takes Aim At Beer-Chugging Males
    Wall Street can't seem to get enough of Weight Watchers lately. The stock hit a new 52-week high yesterday, although The Street still rates it as a "hold" because of poor profit margins. TraderShuffle.com, which does one of those technical thingamajiggys with algorithms, proclaims that the stock closed at $78.59 "just above calculated resistance at $75.25, moving to what appears to be a new range."
  • Walmart's Bringing It Home In San Jose Test
    Walmart announced over the weekend that it is testing a home delivery service for groceries in San Jose, Calif., not far from its Walmart.com digital headquarters in Brisbane. Financial Times' Barney Jopson and Alan Rappeport report that Walmart began a limited test on Saturday "as it looks to online commerce to offset the mediocre growth performance of its bricks-and-mortar stores in the U.S."
  • The Movie That Dares To Speak Thy Name (For A Price)
    Morgan Spurlock's film "Pom Wonderful Presents the Greatest Movie Ever Sold" opens in theaters. It's a hellish hand basket of surreptitious pitches and blatant come-ons.
  • iPhone Knows Where You Live (And Everything Else, Too)
    The Guardian broke the story that has every niche and cranny of cyberspace abuzz: "Apple's iPhone keeps track of where you go -- and saves every detail of it to a secret file on the device which is then copied to the owner's computer when the two are synchronized."
  • Extra! Extra! Advertised Prices May Reflect Actual Cost
    In a development that could, if it catches on, enable people to make sense of their phone and cable bills, among other things, the U.S. Dept. of Transportation will announce today that it is "Order[ing] Airlines to State Fees More Clearly," as Susan Stellin reports in The New York Times.
  • Entrepreneurial Spirits Rise Again
    It's unquestionably good news for marketing types when times are such that people are dreaming of hitting it big instead of scheming to just stay afloat. It portends a certain optimism in the air -- a welcome antidote this morning to Standard & Poor's warning yesterday that the government's credit rating would degrade if it doesn't get its deficit under control.
  • The Chinese Begin To Buy As Well As They Lend
    I would imagine that many marketers' eyes danced when they saw the following banner in the "Wall Street Journal" this morning: "Shell Shock: Chinese Demand Reshapes U.S. Pecan Business." The heck with the fact the we're in hock to the tune of $1.2 trillion to our "sugar daddy," as "Bloomberg News" columnist William Pesek puts it in a cautionary piece. If you can get that huge market hankering for your widget, the good times will roll again.
  • Black And White And Pink (Toenails) All Over
    Fashion has a long history of provocative advertising -- from United Colors of Benneton to Calvin Klein to Kenneth Cole -- that raises people's ire on the social, sexual or political front. J. Crew seems to have hit the trifecta this week with an ad in its online catalogue that was also emailed to its list. It portrays J. Crew president and creative director, Jenna Lyons, laughing with her 5-year-old son, Beckett, whose toenails have been painted.
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