Infomercial products are morphing from gizmos marketed to insomniac TV watchers to little splurges for shoppers bargain-hunting at stores like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. Walgreens is scaling back some of its other offerings to make more room for Topsy Turvy Planters, Perfect Brownie Pan Sets and ShamWows.

Shoe designer Adidas is the latest company to use augmented reality to promote its brand. Unlike other marketing endeavors however, Adidas is not embedding its AR imagery in an ad or website. Rather, in what may be a first for the marketing industry, Adidas says it will embed the code directly into the tongue of the shoe.

Consumers may have downloaded upwards of three billion Apps for their smartphones, but there is a limit to what they will pay.

With retailers forced to close around Manhattan, media companies have been plastering promotions where display windows once were. But in a new effort, MTV is looking to go beyond a standard billboard. Taking over the locale of a shuttered Circuit City at a heavily trafficked Fifth Avenue location, it has launched an interactive gambit designed to plug its new series "The Buried Life."

Apple's latest device will solve at least one problem facing mobile advertising: the hassle and cost of optimizing for the still-too-tiny screen sizes of smartphones.

With the specs for the iPad officially out for 24 hours, the advertising and publishing industry has had time to get beyond their initial impression of the device of the device and what it means for their business.

Akoo, a Chicago-based company that operates a social music television network for out-of-home environments on Monday announced the results of an advertising effectiveness study that focuses on the social TV space. The study focused on Akoo advertisers in the categories of gaming consoles, quick-service restaurants, consumer electronics retailers, movie studios and mobile broadband service providers. Among its main findings: traditional 30-second commercials, when integrated within an interactive, social TV programming environment, often outperform broadcast TV equivalents in such brand metrics as recall, consideration and purchase intent.

From the moment Apple announced its new iPad mobile device, people have been wondering when (and if) Hulu was going to make a specialized application for it. But Hulu has so far tended towards public generalities and general inaction when it comes to developing for anything but the PC.