extra texture :: marketing news + trends

This March Coca-Cola will launch Coke Zone, an innovative on-pack ‘Always-On’ rewards programme aimed at teens and young adults, which will enable consumers to collect points all year round from leading brand packs. (more)

Consumers are likely to be put off by price increases on Kraft Foods products later this year, but they’ll be back in grocer aisles picking up the company’s brands, its chief executive predicted. (more)

Although corporations like Apple, Google and Wal-Mart tout their green virtues on a daily basis, a new report finds that the results of corporate “greening” efforts have been mixed at best. (more)

Dell, which has been pushing its computers into more retail stores, says it will close its 140 shopping mall kiosks in the United States. (more)

The online community MySpace is introducing tools for developing games, media-sharing features and other programs that better integrate with the Internet’s leading social-networking site. (more)

It’s not a pleasant time to be a Yahoo Inc. employee or shareholder. (more)

A sneak peek shows the truck-nugget tackles today’s big issues: driveability, fuel efficiency, space. (more)

The popular performance apparel maker will battle Nike and Adidas on the athletic shoe wall, hoping to transform itself in the process. (more)

Kelly Weatherly was sent off for a week at a resort, along with almost all the women in her community of 760, leaving the town and the children in the hands of the men. (more)

Break, a popular web site for young men, launched three related sites and formed an advertising network with other web publishers aimed at 18- to 34-year-old males, a highly-sought-after demographic group. (more)

Dairy farmers throughout Ohio are being pressured to stop using a synthetic hormone that boosts milk production in cows, angering large-dairy farmers who claim the move will reduce profits and increase retail milk prices. (more)

At Bush & Clinton Forever, we strongly believe that a family’s political experience, pedigree, ambition and “brand name” are of paramount importance in American political life. (more)

Japanese researchers have implanted a small camera inside a mouse’s brain to see how memory is formed, in an experiment they hope to some day apply to humans to treat illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease. (more)

A US company has come up with a novel way to beat the traffic — a jetpack. (more)

Ikea has built Britain’s first flat-pack village. (more)

Wal-Mart will move design and development of its apparel to New York in a bid to revive declining clothing sales and cut production time. (more)

Size matters in pornography, except when it comes to tiny mobile phone screens, the next frontier for erotica. (more)

Contests give consumers a chance to design Hallmark cards. (more)

Make sure the colors you choose are sending the right message to your customers. (more)

Wal-Mart cutting prices 10-30 pct on certain items. (more)

Advocacy groups keep advertisers on their toes. (more)

Anheuser-Busch looks like a stock that could hold up well during tough times for the economy. (more)

Using complicated math, the Rubicon Project matches ads with relevant websites in real time. (more)

An upscale New York restaurant is the first to feature “ubiquitous computing,” with an innovative table-top interactive menu. (more)

Gene pioneer Craig Venter has unveiled the world’s first man-made genome, setting the stage for a profound milestone: the creation of life from scratch. (more)

Jostling for space in this most unusual of all showrooms are elaborately decorated burial caskets in the shape of an aeroplane, lion, cucumber, tomato, lobster, shoe, snake, a World War Two gun, a white Mercedes Benz, or Coke bottle. (more)

Chocolate hotel room offers sweet stay. (more)