Marketing

He's a war hero who became a media mogul, celebrity pitchman, pop icon and philanthropist. He's so famous he was given his own ZIP Code, 20252, to handle the fan mail. He is 65 years old but has no intention of retiring. In fact, he looks fitter than ever. Working outdoors with a shovel will do that. Smokey Bear was born in August 1944, sired by a committee of ad men and government bureaucrats hoping to safeguard a key war material: wood.

RadioShack Corp. recently announced that it is forthwith to be known as The Shack and launched a campaign to get consumers used to the new image. "We're contemporizing the way we want people to think about our brand," Lee Applbaum, RadioShack's chief marketing officer, said of last week's announcement. Companies rename themselves for a variety of reasons. William Lozito, president of Minneapolis-based brand-naming company Strategic Name Development Inc., calls RadioShack's move a "name-ectomy" and compares it to Pizza Hut's decision in June to call itself The Hut. The shortening is a nod to the abbreviated, text-message-driven nature of youth culture, Lozito said.

One of my many undistinguished postings was a summer job as an assistant manager of a Radio Shack (then spelled as two words) in a strip mall in Rock Springs, Wyo. Dante couldn't think of a better description of hell. This was in 1982, and Radio Shack was actually a pretty happening electronics retailer, selling cordless phones, turntables, circuit boards, resistors and a magical something called a TRS-80 Color Computer, with which one could glimpse the future's horizons in a game called Starfire.

For entrepreneurs wondering when California might become more business-friendly, Nevada has an answer: When pigs fly. In a series of aphorism- laden ads running this week on TV, on radio and in print, the Nevada Development Authority once again is trying to lure businesses from the Golden State, this time by comparing the California budget to a swine and lawmakers to monkeys. "If the Legislature doesn't stop monkeying around, you can kiss your assets goodbye," says a voice-over in one spot, which features a monkey making spitting sounds at the camera as cartoon bananas fall from the sky. It's just the latest attempt by neighboring states to lure jobs and tax revenue by highlighting California's reputation as a high-cost, highly regulated place to do business.

With more than $240 million in production costs alone riding on the highly anticipated James Cameron-directed film, 20th Century Fox is making a big change to Hollywood's sneak-preview tradition for "Avatar." Four months before the digital 3-D movie debuts, Fox is working with giant-size movie screen company Imax to show 16 minutes of it Aug. 21 in more than 100 theaters, about 70 of which are in the United States. The unprecedented promotion signals just how aggressively Fox is pushing its massive event film and how Imax is trying to position its theaters as consumers' first-choice destination for "Avatar."

During a visit to a Gap store two years ago, Patrick Robinson didn't need to try on a pair to know that the chain's jeans were the wrong fit. "I felt there was a problem, and the problem was the jeans hadn't been moved forward with the brand," he said. "The jeans were an old story." It wasn't idle criticism. Robinson had just been brought in as Gap's executive vice president of design to shake things up amid growing concern that the brand was losing its appeal. Over the next year and a half, he led an overhaul of the chain's denim, the biggest reworking of jeans in the company's history.

Dump out the coffee cans, car ashtrays and the bottom of your purse. The lowly penny, which almost was taken out of circulation three years ago, is making a comeback as the recession puts a crimp in back-to-school sales. Spiral notebooks, batteries, markers, crayons, pencils and even some clothing are just a few of the items going for 1 cent these days. The gimmick, which seems as old as the penny, is gaining traction as merchants try to attract penny-pinching consumers with deals.

Will the success formula of Comic-Con International work for a Mickey Mouse operation? The leadership at Walt Disney Co. hopes so as it moves forward with the D23 Expo, a four-day event next month in Anaheim that will celebrate -- and sell -- all things Disney with celebrity appearances and slick sneak previews of upcoming films, television shows and theme park attractions. The approach is pure Comic-Con, the pop-culture festival that has become one of Hollywood's most potent megaphones by providing hard-core fans with insider-access experiences that turn many of them into Internet apostles for movies, television shows and other projects.

The Golden State won't let its businesses go easily, especially not to Nevada, if one California lawmaker has his say. A week after the Nevada Development Authority ran a series of advertisements urging California companies to jump ship, Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana) is retaliating. "I was pretty outraged by the nastiness of their tone," he said. "It's one thing to compare states in a factual way, but when you're doing nasty ads veiled in humor which dehumanize Californians, that's over the top."

Clippers guard Baron Davis arrived last month at Mumbai Airport in India and stepped into a taxicab. He immediately noticed how India's driving habits hinge more on aggressiveness and efficiency than conventional traffic signs. "A dog was walking across the street and the driver was going 70 [miles per hour] and not looking," Davis said. "The closer it gets, I'm in the back of the car screaming like 'Aghhhhh'! Then he goes right past the dog, laughs and says, 'stupid American.