extra texture :: marketing news + trends

Winners of the Firefox Flicks awards collect accolades for their innovative commercials promoting the open-source browser. But the internet’s choice wasn’t the judges’ favorite. (more)

In an invention out of George Orwell’s nightmares, Apple’s two-way screen takes your picture as you view it. (more)

Akeelah and the Bee is unabashed in its aim to empower underprivileged children with a sense of hope and achievement. (more)

Fifa, world football’s governing body, has announced that Budweiser owner Anheuser-Busch has become the first company to sign up as a World Cup sponsor from 2007 to 2014. (more)

Pizza Hut announced the introduction of Side Sampler, becoming the only national pizza chain to offer popular side items in one package. (more)

After fifty years on the market, the athletic shoe is undergoing a renaissance and has gained market share over the last five years. (more)

The Silver Bullet Train rolls in the cold for real Friday, when the mobile marketing vehicle for Coors Light travels to 15 markets during the next six months, starting in Los Angeles. (more)

One of the hippest designs showing up on must-have fashion lists for spring doesn’t come from Prada or Marc Jacobs. Instead, it is a line of vintage T-shirts emblazoned with a McDonald’s logo. (more)

Logan International Airport in Boston will welcome its first new airline in more than two years when discount carrier Spirit Airlines begins daily service to Detroit and Myrtle Beach, S.C., in mid-August. (more)

Coors, Visa, Pepsi and General Motors are among the NFL sponsors with draft-related promotions, including everything from ads and football-related contests to handing out product samples in the corporate VIP suites at the draft event, to be held at Radio City Music Hall. (more)

Hefty advertising budgets and film-star brand ambassadors notwithstanding, cola majors PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are recording flat sales with low single-digit volume and value growth for the second consecutive year. (more)

Procter & Gamble, one of the world’s biggest advertisers, is compiling its first digital agency roster for Western Europe as it prepares to invest heavily in the medium. (more)

Coles and Woolworths are racing for in-store TV dominance, with Coles preparing to push ahead with a national implementation of Coles TV and Woolworths confirming yesterday it is ramping up its plans for the area. (more)

People in Nottingham are being invited to hug a total stranger - all in the name of art. (more)

A couple are planning to marry after they “met” while playing their Xbox’s 4,300 miles apart. (more)

Naperville Central High School students sweat out an ‘Apprentice’-style scenario to sell their innovations to corporate executives (more)

Miller Nominates Anheuser-Busch Flip-Flops for List of America’s Most Famous Fibs (more)

Some people have become so desperate to find cheaper fuel for their cars they’ve begun making ethanol at home. (more)

The Big Clip is made from 10mm chrome plated steel rod, measures 28cm, attaches to the wall or links to form a chain making a fantastic coat hook or magazine rack. (more)

Felinophiles may want to be extra alert, because today is National Hairball Awareness Day. (more)

Eric Clapton has been named the new ambassador for the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s National Arts and Music Education Initiative, and they join with Mercedes-Benz USA in a charitable campaign. (more)

Rock color revisits the brand’s roots as Gap recalls the spirit of the summer of 1969, the year the company was founded. (more)

Retailers are looking to their past to improve their future. (more)

The French president, Jacques Chirac, unveils what he hopes will be his great legacy to France’s struggle against the global dominance of the US: a series of technological projects including a European search engine to rival Google. (more)

Princeton may be a college town without a local Blockbuster, but that has not kept students from finding less conventional ways to satisfy their film fix. (more)

Not too long ago little or small cars, AKA subcompacts, were an anathema to automobile manufacturers. The reasons were simple: SUV sales and profits were big and getting bigger. (more)

Scientists hope that mind-reading computers will one day replace typed passwords, making fingerprint readers and retina scans obsolete. Skeptics say don’t count on it. (more)

Some people claim surfing the web and reading blogs can actually improve your writing skills. Others shudder as a very public disaster unfolds. (more)

Drug-store based promotions of pharmaceutical products are gaining wide industry acceptance as brand managers realize their potential for increasing prescription volume and producing greater returns on investment than other consumer media campaigns. (more)

“A 200 mph billboard seems like a contradiction,” says Paul Ostasiewski, professor of marketing at Wheeling Jesuit University, “yet that’s an important part of what NASCAR sells. (more)