The end of the government's popular Cash for Clunkers program and low inventories of vehicles led to a 40% plunge in U.S. auto sales in September compared with August, although year-over-year declines were more modest and generally in line with forecasts.
The popular Cash for Clunkers program gave a strong boost to auto sales in August, resulting in the industry posting its best month this year by far. But sales dropped sharply in the last week of August -- after Cash for Clunkers ended.
Starting today, many "robocalls" from telemarketers will be illegal. But there are lots of other ways that telemarketers can get to you. Here is how you can tune out and reduce the solicitations.
Starting Tuesday, many "robocalls" from telemarketers will be illegal.
Louis Sirico had no reason to suspect that he was flooding his customers' email inboxes with content they "didn't really care" about. Sirico is the founder of IndustryWizards.com, a San Jose, Calif.-based professional online network that connects industry experts with one another and provides its 50,000 members with high tech-related content, product reviews, and research via blogs, discussion forums and monthly e-newsletters.
THURSDAY 3 p.m. Kristine Wexler can't remember what comes next. Wearing a pair of four-inch stilettos that are killing her feet, the CFO of In Context Solutions, a market research startup, stands mutely in front of a classroom at Rice University in Houston. Eleven judges -- investors and industry experts from around the country who have gathered to select the winners in Rice's annual business plan competition -- stare at her expectantly. Wexler's three teammates hover nearby, willing her to speak. She knows ICS's financials inside and out, but Wexler is at a loss.
The Federal Trade Commission is attempting to shut down three companies that the agency alleges have bombarded millions of consumers since 2007 with deceptive "robocalls" to sell them phony extensions to their original vehicle warranties.
Have you ever seen "CMP," "CQM," or "PMP" behind someone's name and not had a clue what it meant -- or if it meant anything at all?
General Motors cut its forecast for industrywide U.S. auto sales Thursday, a development that could lead the company to ask for additional loans from the federal government.
The Better Business Bureau is assuring individuals who recently received a check from a federal court in Pennsylvania that the checks are legitimate and part of a settlement agreement with Wachovia Bank related to telemarketing fraud.
The end of the government's popular Cash for Clunkers program and low inventories of vehicles led to a 40% plunge in U.S. auto sales in September compared with August, although year-over-year declines were more modest and generally in line with forecasts.
The popular Cash for Clunkers program gave a strong boost to auto sales in August, resulting in the industry posting its best month this year by far. But sales dropped sharply in the last week of August -- after Cash for Clunkers ended.
Starting today, many "robocalls" from telemarketers will be illegal. But there are lots of other ways that telemarketers can get to you. Here is how you can tune out and reduce the solicitations.
Starting Tuesday, many "robocalls" from telemarketers will be illegal.
Louis Sirico had no reason to suspect that he was flooding his customers' email inboxes with content they "didn't really care" about. Sirico is the founder of IndustryWizards.com, a San Jose, Calif.-based professional online network that connects industry experts with one another and provides its 50,000 members with high tech-related content, product reviews, and research via blogs, discussion forums and monthly e-newsletters.
THURSDAY 3 p.m. Kristine Wexler can't remember what comes next. Wearing a pair of four-inch stilettos that are killing her feet, the CFO of In Context Solutions, a market research startup, stands mutely in front of a classroom at Rice University in Houston. Eleven judges -- investors and industry experts from around the country who have gathered to select the winners in Rice's annual business plan competition -- stare at her expectantly. Wexler's three teammates hover nearby, willing her to speak. She knows ICS's financials inside and out, but Wexler is at a loss.
The Federal Trade Commission is attempting to shut down three companies that the agency alleges have bombarded millions of consumers since 2007 with deceptive "robocalls" to sell them phony extensions to their original vehicle warranties.
Have you ever seen "CMP," "CQM," or "PMP" behind someone's name and not had a clue what it meant -- or if it meant anything at all?
General Motors cut its forecast for industrywide U.S. auto sales Thursday, a development that could lead the company to ask for additional loans from the federal government.
The Better Business Bureau is assuring individuals who recently received a check from a federal court in Pennsylvania that the checks are legitimate and part of a settlement agreement with Wachovia Bank related to telemarketing fraud.
Despite the tough economic times, you can't just expect to stop lusting after those Frye riding boots you've had your eye on forever, or that your longtime trusted hair stylist is going to suddenly start cutting her prices.
In the vast world of marketing and advertising, James Stengel just may be the king. He is Procter & Gamble's global marketing officer, and thus commands the world's largest ad budget - about $6.7 billion. It's an enviable position, but uneasy lies the head that wears an ad king's crown.
The Federal Trade Commission unfurled Tuesday results of an enormous telemarketing fraud sweep, saying it had filed more than 180 cases that represent thousands of alleged victims and millions of dollars in losses.
What's in an urban brand? Civic leaders across the country ask that question as they strive to make their towns attractive to entrepreneurs and others in shaky economic times.
Dear FSB: I sell a unique product through my website. It's a liquid, concentrated, caffeine-free tea that doesn't require refrigeration and doesn't go bad. I've been reading about blogs and wondering if this would be a way to get more customers. Perhaps adding a video to show how easy it is to make my product would be good also. However, I need a good source of information on how to tackle these marketing tools. Any suggestions?
Dear FSB: We have a website (sellmyinventory.com) that is designed to help retail and wholesale business owners reduce or liquidate excess merchandise. Although our traffic has been growing of late, we haven't been able to target likely customers as precisely as we would wish. Any suggestions?
Dear FSB: I am co-owner of a fairly new company that helps companies get better pricing for the products and services they currently use. In effect, we enable you to outsource your purchasing department. Since we do a personal assessment of our customer companies, our business to date, is in the local market. What is the best way to market our services locally? Is online marketing still a viable option?
Ralph Fiol met the future of Internet search marketing at the bottom of the sea. Fiol lives in Miami and loves to scuba-dive. But a few years back he had a problem. "There was no smart way to quickly find wrecks I wanted to dive, get information about them, and take that information with me no matter where," says Fiol, 40.
As if there weren't enough tussling in the technology world, two software giants are duking it out over - get this - bean counting. Internet-search giant Google recently cut a deal with Intuit, the 800-pound accounting software gorilla.
Dear FSB: I am chief content officer at Chillibreeze.com. It is a small content development startup founded by Ralph Budelman of Chicago. Based in Bangalore, India, it caters to the content needs of a global clientele.We have a unique business model. All of us, including our CEO, work from home. We have a network of 2,000 Indian writers, scattered around the world. Most of our writers are stay-at-home moms, who have given up lucrative careers so they can get more time with their families. To date we haven't marketed our company actively. We have a website that is ranked high on search engines and is bringing clients to us. However, as we expand, we would like to market ourselves more.
You can't expect to compete as a small business today without taking advantage of online marketing tools. These links can help.
A bogus e-mail warning consumers that cell phone numbers will soon be released to telemarketers is making the rounds again
The cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list
The cherished dinner hour void of telemarketers could vanish next year for millions of people when phone numbers begin dropping off the national Do Not Call list.
Online advertising could take a hit from the problems in the subprime mortgage sector, according to a published report.
Chrysler LLC named Deborah Wahl Meyer its chief marketing officer on Wednesday. Her appointment is effective August 28.
Microsoft Corp. said Monday it formed a new business group to work with advertisers and publishers and gain a foothold in an online advertising market expected to grow to $80 billion by 2010.
Yahoo Inc. said Sunday the Internet media company was merging the two main parts of its U.S. advertising business under one sales executive, David Karnstedt, and that veteran advertising sales executive Wenda Harris-Millard has left the company.
Peter Rost is worked up about pink cupcakes. The ex-Pfizer senior executive turned blogger believes he has uncovered another instance of unethical marketing by Big Pharma. Today he's taking on Astr...
Microsoft announced Friday it is buying online ad agency aQuantive in a $6 billion cash deal, paying top dollar to buy into the suddenly hot sector.
Dear FSB: We make a product called the GolfCap (golfcapads.com), which allows clients to buy advertising on tee boxes in golf courses and driving ranges. How can we best evaluate its appeal to potential clients? --Brad M. Monson Vice President, Operations Curb Appeal Outdoor Advertising Corp. Calgary, Alberta
Is a Super Bowl commercial worth it?
One of the world's largest traditional advertising agencies is scooping up a top interactive marketing firm. And Wall Street is wondering if more Madison Ave-Silicon Valley mergers are in the offing.
Google is projected to pocket a full quarter of US online advertising market in 2006, according to a report released Tuesday.
Ready to pump some life into your business?
The online advertising market has been red hot this year but the chief financial officer of search leader Yahoo! said Tuesday that demand was weakening a bit as the economy shows signs of slowing.
It's no secret that traditional media companies are facing some turbulent times.
Retail chain stores delivered sluggish sales numbers last month, as high gas prices and cool weather took a toll on consumer spending.
ON A FEBRUARY DAY IN 2005, Tom Mitchell received a panicked phone call from his dad and stepmom in Columbiana, Ohio. Len, 82, and Ruth, 64, told him that their entire $100,000 retirement savings wa...
Halfway through the most important presentation of his career, with media baron Rupert Murdoch sitting in judgment, Ross Levinsohn had the troubling sensation that he was about to blow it.
As the weather gets nicer, even the most devoted Internet users find other ways to keep themselves busy.
As the scandal involving Red Cross workers and Katrina donations shows, you can never be completely sure your money is safe when making donations to charity.
Officials announced a $5.34 million settlement Tuesday with satellite TV provider DirecTV over alleged violations of the Do Not Call rule, the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the Federal Trade Commission in a consumer protection enforcement case.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) - It's tough to figure out which physics cliché best describes Google. Is it more like an irresistible force or the immovable object?
Ask someone in your office to give a speech to colleagues, and he might get the jitters. But dare him to pick up the phone and pitch a business deal to a total stranger, and he'll probably go into ...
Even before Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, scammers were hard at work trying to get your charity dollars.
Locals call it Viagra Falls--a fountain in the middle of a roadside lake, spraying jets of water three stories high. On a summer morning under blue skies, it's a serene backdrop for a pair of elder...
Tens of thousands of children are going to starve to death in the West African Nation of Niger unless they get aid. In fact, 1.2 million people are starving. It's a crisis that could have been avoided, according to the United Nations. But it seems no one was listening to the warnings last year.
We're all subject to life's little frustrations. Take, for example, those annoying subscription cards that fall out of magazines. It's enough to drive you batty.
An unwelcome dose of reality hit the booming online marketing industry this week. Online security fears are beginning to lower confidence in online commerce.
Intel, the world's largest maker of semiconductors, raised its sales forecast for the second quarter Thursday, citing strong demand for chips used in laptop computers.
Every year an estimated 25 million people, or one out of every 10 Americans, are the victims of consumer fraud. Their collective losses: some $40 billion from telemarketing scams alone. Widespread ...
If you have the sort of friends I do (the sort who forward really important e-mails), chances are you've recently gotten a message that read: "In a few weeks, cell-phone numbers are being released ...
Who was looking out for your wallet last year? Who was gunning for it? Buried in the fine print of our financial lives—and lurking behind the curtain of any financial story—are people and organizat...
For Michael and Martha Hogan, giving to charity is not just a tradition—it's a passion. The St. Louis couple, both 51, donate regularly to some two dozen nonprofits, ranging from major groups like ...
'Tis the season for giving. And, for many people that means more than just buying presents for friends and family -- it means giving to charity.
Intel slashed its third quarter sales forecast Thursday, confirming investors' fears about weakening demand for technology products.
The market is obsessing over Intel...and with good reason.
"Directory assistance. What city and state, please?"
Not all telemarketers have gotten the hint that consumers really don't want to take their calls.
Talk about a great way to kick off a meeting.
The Federal Trade Commission has filed a complaint against National Consumer Council (NCC), alleging the debt negotiation program violated telemarketing rules by calling consumers on the national do-not-call registry, the agency said Wednesday.
Hate telemarketers? Then you're gonna like this. One company is offering consumers the opportunity to make money every time they listen to a pre-recorded sales pitch in the middle of dinner.
Last summer Sally Mikolajczyk received one of those ubiquitous sweepstakes offers in the mail. A retired social worker with the City of New York, the 86-year-old says she had "nothing better to do"...
It's hard to believe that online advertising generated more revenue in the fourth quarter of 2003 than in any other quarter since 1996, when the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers started tracking this statistic.
Presented with a magazine ad touting GM's quality improvements, the middle-age man on the videotape checks off a box on his market survey card indicating that he feels reassured.
Presented with a magazine ad touting GM's quality improvements, the middle-age man on the videotape checks off a box on his market survey card indicating that he feels "reassured." But Dan Hill, wh...
You may get more telemarketing calls: The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association is partnering with the nation's largest carriers to start a wireless-number 4-1-1 directory next year....
The most striking spontaneous mass phenomenon of the past year isn't Howard Dean's out-of-nowhere support or even the baffling rise of Net-powered flash mobs. Overlooked but more important is Ameri...
Young-Bean Song, head of analytics at Seattle-based software firm Atlas DMT, might have the toughest job in online advertising. No, he doesn't sell the ads. Instead, he's trying to figure out who's...
Telemarketers hold a special place in our national consciousness, somewhere between ambulance-chasing lawyers and Bernie Ebbers. That's why most of us are celebrating the upcoming introduction of t...
It's somewhat disconcerting that Nancy K. Bryan knows more about how men regard their penises than any woman--no, any person--I've ever met. She's sitting across from me, dressed in what looks like...
Andrew Tomkins, a British computer scientist, is pretty much your typical ivory-tower egghead. He's spent his entire adult life either in academia--he earned advanced degrees from MIT and Carnegie-...
For the 31,147 angry consumers who filed telemarketing-related complaints with the Federal Trade Commission last year, help is on the way: The agency has proposed the creation of a national "do not...
Any self-respecting, self-promoting advertising executive will tell you that clients thrive or die on the quality of "the creative product." Maybe so. But these days, in the midst of the worst adve...
When Charles Strauss stepped up to the podium to deliver a speech at last fall's Internet World, the crowd seemed half asleep. Strauss, who is CEO of Unilever's U.S. operations, served up the verba...
To see why our proposal makes sublime sense, just follow the lines through the business cards we've designed. Start with Tony Fadell, a 30-year-old who has worked and consulted for more than nine c...
This is what the Too-Much-Information Economy has come to: Americans are now shelling out more than $10 a month for their phones not to ring.
Pam Kraft thought it was her ex-husband who was calling all the time and hanging up. The divorce, after all, had been messy. "I thought it was him," she says. "I felt threatened." But it wasn't him...
In the early '90s Intel faced a dilemma. Computer users showed little willingness to upgrade to its latest chip, and Intel's older chips faced fierce competition. The company's response: the multiy...
Are you too polite to hang up on cold-calling telemarketers? Help has arrived. It's Easy Hang Up (Hello Direct, $19.95; 800-444-3556), a pillbox-size gadget that plugs into your phone. Next time a ...
Revenue recognition has always been a cloudy area of accounting, but in Silicon Valley it's downright murky. At the heart of the matter is a question: Is a manufacturer's distributor really a custo...
When Madison Avenue bigfoot Sam Hill talks about great marketers, he's worth listening to--and he doesn't just talk about the usual suspects like Coke. Some of the best marketing ideas of all, says...
WHEN SHIRLEY HINTON LEARNED OF the double murder of her aunt Hazel Gleese and Hazel's husband Leo early this year, she suspected their preacher. "He promised to check on them every single day," she...
Last year consumers were swindled out of an estimated $40 billion by telemarketing frauds alone. In all, dishonest scammers now rake in $100 billion annually, and lately con artists are using techn...
Who among us, forkful of dinner in midair, has not answered the phone only to be greeted by someone trying to sell swampland in Florida or a plutonium credit card?
It started as a management practice, grew into a mantra, and now it's an all-out mania: listening to the customer. These days customers are variously described as "king," "first," "No. 1," "always ...
ARE YOU competing to dominate your industry's future? To find out, ask yourself three questions we often ask senior managers: First, what percentage of your time is spent on external rather than in...
If you're in the market for life insurance -- or even if you aren't -- don't be surprised if an agent tries to sell you on variable universal life, an increasingly popular policy that combines a de...
Uganda wanted 18 helicopters to help stamp out elephant and rhino poaching but didn't have the $25 million to pay for them. Enter Gary Pacific, head of countertrade for McDonnell Douglas Helicopter...
BREATHES THERE an American of economic substance who has not answered the phone and heard words like these? Is this Henry Longfellow? Henry! Nice to talk to you this evening. This is Arthur Steele ...
THE RECESSION cast its pall selectively, and the recovery will begin just as unevenly. Is the consumer leading it? Clothing and housing will rebound, but cars will languish. Capital goods? Aircraft...
PITY Joseph E. Antonini, chief executive of Kmart Corp., the big discount chain. At every analysts' meeting, press interview, and probably every golf outing, charity ball, and weenie roast he atten...
SO YOU THOUGHT you could slip into the supermarket and buy that diet-busting macaroni and cheese, and no one would know, eh? Wrong. Kraft knows. In fact Kraft USA knows quite a lot about macaroni-a...
AS ANNUAL MEETINGS go, Procter & Gamble's promised to be pleasantly uneventful. Sales and profits were up; ditto the stock price and the outlook for the future. Even the animal-rights activists wav...
Intelligence always had been Paul Collins' strongest asset. Until his retirement in 1985, he served as superintendent of a California public school system. He also helped found two colleges and the...
SOMEDAY SOON, an ad agency may come to you with a simple, startling pitch. ''Give us your whole marketing budget,'' they'll say. ''Not just your advertising money, but everything you spend -- on di...
SOPHISTICATED new techniques of market research are yielding fascinating and sometimes startling facts about how consumers behave and how advertising works -- or doesn't. The new methods, introduce...
WITH HIS deep-throated Nixonian baritone, Charles W. Moritz, chairman and chief executive of Dun & Bradstreet, likes to note the importance of tradition at the 144-year-old company. Yet he is chang...
IT'S ONE of the boldest gambles in marketing history, but Coca-Cola Chairman Roberto Goizueta, 53, says he has no qualms about changing the world's favorite soft drink after 99 years: ''I was much ...
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