Kathy, I'm Lost, I Said

Anheuser-Busch InBev has asked federal regulators for approval to replace the name "Budweiser" on cans and bottles this summer with the name "America," AdAge reports.

"You have this wave of patriotism that is going to go up and down throughout the summertime," Marketing VP Jorn Socquet said. "And we found with Budweiser such a beautiful angle to play on that sentiment."

If approved, the brand's labels would also include song lyrics like "from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters this land was made for you and me."

The Booming Business of Selling Books

You can take the boy out of Madison Avenue, but not vice versa.

Earlier this year, madman-turned-author James Patterson launched his thriller Private Vegas with a bang, by selling a single advance copy rigged to explode 24 hours after the reader opened it.

Patterson asserted that the reader who started the book would experience a veritable "race against the clock" to finish it.

The novel's price tag: $294,038.

At the same time, Patterson offered 1,000 free copies of Private Vegas on his website, digital versions rigged to "cinematically" self-detonate 24 hours after they were opened.

Patterson's experiential social media campaign racked up 419.8 million impressions, and thrill-seeking readers spent 13,896 hours reading the advance copies of Private Vegas, according to CMO. 

Paul Malmstrom, a creative director with the author's agency, bragged in a news release, “For this launch, we aimed to create the most thrilling reading experience ever. One that takes the suspense of Patterson’s new novel to a crazy, new level."

Yup, crazy… like a fox.

Patterson has sold more than 300 million copies of his novels in the past 25 years.

How to Make a Bundle

New research from Harvard Business School and Carnegie Mellon University shows that bundling products can increase purchases significantly if customers have the option to buy the products separately.

Studying sales of video consoles and games, the authors of The Dynamic Effects of Bundling as a Product Strategy found that bundling in fact increases product purchases.

However, if customers cannot compare the prices of the products when sold individually to the prices of the same products when bundled, many will undervalue the bundled products and postpone their purchases. 

That's because they assume the products must drop in price eventually, so savings will be theirs by waiting.

So if you want to drive sales of bundled products, be sure to also price and offer the products individually.