Wouldn’t you just love to deal with this PR Nightmare?! According to Newsday, Alexa Ray Joel, 23, the daughter of Billy Joel and ex-wife Christie Brinkley is recouping nicely after the aspiring singer overdosed on the homeopathic anti-inflammatory medication Traumeel over the weekend. "Alexa is feeling much better. She is with her family and looking forward to getting back on track," ...

Gatorade is looking to innovate itself out of a sales slump and will spend some $30 million on product and packaging development to do so. The granddaddy of the sports-drink category is pushing forward with plans to introduce "G Series," a grouping of three product categories, while giving another facelift to its core product lines. The company plans to offer three ...

By the time you read this, James Cameron's "Avatar" could very well have become the fifth movie in history to gross more than $1 billion worldwide at the box office, helped along by pricey tickets that brought in a projected $325 million domestically after only three weekends in theaters. So how did 20th Century Fox pull off what could be its ...

In the paranoid precincts of Hollywood, a question has been making the rounds: Is Ted Sarandos friend or foe? Sarandos is the content chief at Netflix and one of the studios' most devoted customers. Each year, on behalf of his company, he buys an estimated $240 million worth of DVDs that Netflix then mails out to its subscribers. All was going ...

After a Web site questioned its safety, federal officials moved quickly to clear the season's hottest toy. Cepia CEO Russell Hornsby was in China on Dec. 5, scrambling to ramp up production of Zhu Zhu Pets, when he heard the news. GoodGuide.com, a San Francisco startup that tests products on behalf of consumers, had just issued a press release saying Cepia's ...

The golfer has been a marketer's dream spokesman, and big brands are sticking with him. But some sponsors may rethink the celebrity endorsement model. Imagine you are a marketing executive locked in a long-term endorsement deal with Tiger Woods. You keep telling the world that you stand behind your man despite the mysterious SUV crash and swirl of innuendo about his ...

The holidays are no time to slow down your job search. In fact, those who continue seeking work may find it's less competitive, easier to reach hiring managers and a good opportunity to nestle into the front of the line for openings in the new year. True, company recruiters are likely taking time off and slowing down their hiring efforts from ...

Twitter is a fantastic tool offering companies instant access to consumers, but what is it that sorts the twits from the tweets? Whenever I watch TV talent show The X Factor, I view the programme with one eye on the telly and the other on real-time social media network Twitter. Part of my experience of watching the show live is following ...

Doritos cast the challenge and the six finalists have been chosen! Check out the videos that made the cut, give us your opinion of who YOU think reigns supreme, then VOTE! Personally, we're loving us some "House Rules!" Check'em out! Underdog The Smackout >> [page] The Smackout Casket >> [page] Casket Kids These Days >> [page] Kids These Days House Rules ...

As far as breakout musicians go, few artists have had quite the zero-awareness-to-ubiquity time-warp of Lady Gaga. And as far as brands go, few marketers of any kind have leveraged social media the way she has to drive sales of their core product -- in her case, albums and digital singles. Lady Gaga, with her army of nearly 2.8 million Twitter ...

Good marketers see the value of developing a presence where their audience already gathers, whether online or at the shopping mall. Social media is all about sparking conversation, not just online, but offline too. Done well, social media draws us in, delights us, and even offers glimpses of the future. These dynamics overlap into the real world, as people go about ...

Lack of innovation, not only the economy, blamed for season's sales slump. It might not just be the economy that's holding back sales this holiday season - it's also the lack of breakout products. Industry analysts and even retailers are hard-pressed to identify any must-have items beyond an $8 toy hamster. The Zhu Zhu is the closest thing to a must-have ...

Do you remember the story of Chicken Little? If one person tells you the sky is falling, you laugh at him. But if you're told the same story over and over, pretty soon you believe it. This also rings true with branding-just because everyone else is saying or doing something doesn't mean that it works. Time and again I see entrepreneurs ...

Corona brewer Grupo Modelo sued New York-based Constellation Brands late yesterday, alleging the wine-and-spirits giant wasn't paying its fair share of the brand's U.S. marketing budget. The two companies formed Crown Imports to market Corona, Modelo Especial and Pacifico in the U.S. in 2007 via a 10-year agreement. The suit comes as Corona is wrapping up its third consecutive year of ...

Wally Amos, who founded Famous Amos in Hollywood, Calif., back in 1975, has a great name for selling cookies. Too bad he can't use it. "I am known as the cookie man," Mr. Amos, now 73, said in an interview. "There is no one more associated with chocolate chip cookies than Wally Amos." But Mr. Amos sold those rights when splitting ...

Pepsi will not advertise its drinks in the coming Super Bowl on CBS, ending a 23-year run so the company can focus on a new, mostly online, marketing effort. Pepsi-brand beverages have been advertised in the Super Bowl since 1987. PepsiCo's Frito-Lay unit still will advertise in the game. Pepsi's Super Bowl ads won enormous consumer affection through the years, and ...

Yahoo's expensive "It's Y!ou" ad campaign is terrible, but here's a marketing winner. On Dec. 23, Yahoo sent employees to the San Francisco and San Jose airports to pay for airline customers' baggage fees, NBC Bay Area reports. Yahoo rep Meg Garlinghouse called the stunt "one small act of kindness. "We hope to inspire the Yahoo community to create a wave ...

When the New York Jets announced last week that they would not sell alcohol at their Jan. 3 Sunday night game, thinly advertised Majorska Vodka saw an opening for a major PR coup. The company put out a press release claiming that the lack of alcohol sales at the stadium would cost it $100,000 in revenue due to lost "tailgate parties," ...

The Super Bowl is more than a month away, yet CBS says it has less than a handful of remaining commercial slots for the game. CBS has sold 95% of its 62 ad slots, says Jo Ann Ross, president of network sales. This despite the fact that the nation still is climbing out of the economic downturn and that two of ...

Whenever a disaster occurs, CEOs and corporate communications professionals are thrust into action, determining if and how a company should get involved in relief efforts. The corporate philanthropic responses to the devastation in Haiti demonstrated a broad willingness by American businesses to help. One key question that companies needed to answer is, “Should we be first to give?” The benefits of ...