Marketing

Starbucks Corp. said Thursday that it would unveil a new instant coffee as part of its attempt to turn around sluggish sales and shed its reputation for pricey lattes. The Seattle company has been working on the product for more than 20 years and has a patent pending on the technology that will allow it to "absolutely replicate the taste of Starbucks coffee in an instant form," spokesman Vivek Varma said in an e-mail to employees.

Every so often, the unexpected success of a certain movie will leave those of us who cover Hollywood a little thunderstruck. I think Slate's Willa Paskin hit the nail on the head when she wrote earlier this week: "Sometimes events occur that make me feel as though I live in a nation of strangers." Her Exhibit A: "My fellow citizens plunking down $24.

The latest release from the Decemberists landed at No. 14 on the album charts this week despite a sizable handicap: It wasn't available on CD. EMI's Capitol Record opted to sell "The Hazards of Love" as a near-exclusive via Apple Inc.'s iTunes Store for a week. Illustrating the growing viability of the digital marketplace, the experiment resulted in iTunes shoppers' downloading about 18,000 copies during the week ended March 22, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Most people in Hollywood are bad at math, which is probably why actors are so wildly overpaid and movie budgets are always spiraling out of control. But in what other business could you possibly write the following equation: 0 x 0 x 0 x 0 = $100 million-plus? Or to make it a word problem: Is it possible to take four actors whose careers are virtually in commercial eclipse, throw them together in the same film and have movie marketers predicting the picture will be a big box-office success?

In these tough economic times, what's a store to do to make sure it's still in business a year from now? "Get a tarot card reader," said Emese Boone, owner of Box Turtle in Little Rock, Ark. And she's not kidding -- Boone hired a local tarot card reader to give free readings during a recent jewelry trunk show in her clothing, jewelry and housewares shop.

Alt-rock drummer extraordinaire Josh Freese is honoring the promises he made as part of an outlandish marketing campaign he cooked up to promote his new album "Since 1972." One 19-year-old fan from Florida decided that rather than investing $20,000 in a car, he'd prefer to hang out for a week and play miniature golf with the onetime member of Nine Inch Nails, the Vandals and A Perfect Circle.

To reignite its creaky "Star Trek" movie series this weekend, Paramount Pictures must beam up young moviegoers who may have never heard of Captain Kirk, Spock or the starship Enterprise, and international audiences who have been indifferent. Paramount, despite having one of the most recognizable titles in entertainment, must overcome a perception that its new movie in the decades-old franchise will appeal only to aging Trekkies and not younger Twitter fanatics.

This holiday weekend, it seemed as though downtown's Union Station had been transformed into Disneyland. Hundreds lined up inside one of the station's tunnels. Snacks being unwrapped and empty water bottles being crunched created the soundtrack. And impatient children were tugging on their equally impatient parents. And the wait time? About three hours. And it was all brought to you by -- fittingly -- Disney.

A $300 jar of beauty cream is a tough sell these days. And that's just fine with CVS and Walgreens. The nation's largest drugstore chains are making over their beauty departments as the recession cuts into household budgets. CVS Caremark Corp. is rolling out spa-like beauty boutiques attached to its drugstores, including one in Mission Viejo. More are planned for former Longs Drugs stores in California, which were bought by CVS last year. And Walgreen Co.

Dish Network Corp. said Thursday that it agreed to pay nearly $6 million to settle charges that it improperly marketed, promoted and sold its products and services. Although the satellite TV provider isn't admitting any wrongdoing in settling with attorneys general in 46 states, it agreed to pay restitution to affected customers and make fuller disclosures in advertising and written contracts.