Marketing

"The study of people in their natural environment is, The Hartman Group believes, the future of marketing," explains a Seattle Post-Intelligencer story.

"Earlier this year, McDonald's Corp. unveiled plans to enlist rap artists to produce several songs that would integrate the Golden Arches' iconic Big Mac sandwich into lyrics," as "part of the company's ongoing strategy to court the youth market, especially young men, through hip-hop," reports AdAge.

"K Street," the Washington DC street famous for its lobbying firms, "has tinkered with its traditional business model in recent years," reports The Hill.

"When Sears Portrait Studios wanted to lure new mothers, it didn't just order more ads of smiling babies or mail out big coupons," writes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Instead, the company hired the Vandiver Group "to create a word-of-mouth marketing campaign in mid-2003." First, Vandiver identified "influentials" - people others look to for information or advice - who are mothers, using phone surveys.