Pretty soon, consumers will be buying batteries and clock-radios at "The Shack" instead of at Radio Shack.

I cringe just thinking about the business meetings that led to this strategy...

Here's how the presentation to Radio Shack probably went. The marketing and advertising consultants said something like:

We need a "hipper" feel that's more relevant to the personal lives of 18-34 year old consumers. We need consumers to connect with us not only at a functional level, but at an emotional level too.

In one of those meetings, someone probably threw around a few fancy terms like "Loyalists" or "Potentials" without any real understanding of what these groups represent and how Radio Shack could target them.

As David Coursey of PC World writes, this is the re-branding equivalent of a "comb-over." David is spot-on.

Bottom line - this is an attempt to "dupe" consumers rather than to connect with them authentically or to offer them something that's truly better...or at least something that's new.

For a few months, I have been wondering when we might see teens and 20-somethings began to desert the major social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

As more and more adults in their 30's and 40's open accounts on these sites, I figured, these sites would cease to be seen as "cool."

At least in Great Britain, this may already be happening. As London's Financial Times reports, the proportion of 15- to 24-year-olds with profiles on MySpace and Facebook has declined. It will be interesting to see when or if this trend shows up on this side of the Atlantic.

The 15-to-24 age group tends to seek its own space, which is probably what inspired the name MySpace. You may be a 17-year-old who gets along with "mom" and who likes your 49-year-old uncle, but do you really want them writing on your wall every week?

Ever had dinner with a general? I have, and I do so every four months or so. That's how frequently General Tso's Chicken is delivered right to my home from a local restaurant.

The newly released book "Chop Suey" -- billed as a history of Chinese food in the U.S. -- and a review of the book by the Wall Street Journal produced these stats:

* Roughly 40,000 Chinese restaurants are operating in the U.S.

* An estimated 80% of these restaurants offer what is called "a limited Chinese American menu."

That's a cryptic way of saying the menu is fairly predictable: egg rolls, sweet and sour soup, Kung Pao Chicken, etc.

Back in the mother country, there is more proof that China is rapidly entering the mainstream of large industrial nations. As this L.A. Times story reports, a growing number of Chinese farmers are embracing, growing and selling organic foods -- hoping to appeal to China's version of the "Whole Foods" consumer.

What can the Palins, the Gosselins, and the Hogans learn from Tracy Morgan? The value of a negotiated divorce settlement. The Morgans recently reached an out-of-court settlement, sparing them the expense and pain of a hard-fought divorce.

Though sad, it was also a smart move, as seen in this recent USA Today Snapshot from a survey Wakefield conducted on behalf of the New York Association of Collaborative Professionals.

As the Snapshot illustrates, higher income families are more likely to have a brutal divorce, but it' an issue that affects everyone regardless of income level. More than one in five adults know someone “who got so caught up in ‘winning’ their divorce that their family life, work life or social life suffered.” One out of every four American males (26%) knows such a person. This is roughly 48 million Americans who know firsthand the toll divorce can take on someone’s life.

We at Wakefield are buried in babies these days -- it seems that everyone is having them -- so we thought that this study might an an interesting (and helpful) read for our breeding brothers and sisters.

A study of American mothers with infants or toddlers, sponsored by Beech-Nut and conducted by Wakefield, finds that more than half (52%) of moms are concerned that their baby will someday have issues with childhood obesity. The study also found that despite this concern, moms are choosing their baby food based on name recognition, not on a thorough examination of its nutritional value and ingredients.

Basically, moms are neglecting to read before they feed. Even in this age of hyper-health consciousness, moms aren’t carefully reading the labels when deciding which baby food to buy. Less than a quarter (23%) of moms read the label in its entirety when buying baby food.

In another bad sign for baby, nutrition is taking a backseat to tradition. Nearly half (46%) of moms say that they just “buy the brand I know” – meaning that they’re relying more on habit than on an examination of which food has the most nutritional value for their baby.

So moms, from everyone here at Wakefield: please read before you feed!

A lot of requests have come in for the stats that I shared during my interview on NPR's Kojo Nnamdi Show out of Washington, DC. I've posted them below for your convenience.

Wakefield polling data indicates that school wellness policies either are not well understood, or not enforced.

While nearly seven in ten (68%) moms say their child's school has a wellness policy prohibiting less healthy foods in vending machines and cafeterias, there’s a disconnect between the cafeteria table and mom’s kitchen table: millions of moms don’t understand their schools’ wellness policies. More than two in five (43%) moms don’t know which foods are prohibited at their child’s school, and almost a third (29%) don’t know why specific foods are prohibited.

This is a problem since, when schools are in session, moms end up on the sidelines when it comes to their kids' lunches. Nearly nine in ten moms (89%) don’t completely trust their kids to eat healthfully when they’re not present to supervise, and more than four in five (84%) moms suspect their kid is engaging in unhealthy lunchtime behavior at school.

For example, one in five (20%) moms think that their kid is trading healthy food for unhealthy food when eating at school. Based on my own experience, a lot more moms don' realize that Junior is trading his carrot sticks for cookies.

Worse yet, a lot of lunches end up in the trash. More than two in five (42%) moms suspect that their kid is only eating some of their healthy food and then throwing the rest away, and nearly a third (32%) say their kid is throwing away healthy food without even taking a bite.

Another Wakefield Snapshot

Quality customer service is crucial in a tough economy. Yet, Wakefield consumer opinion data reveals that nearly half of American adults (43%) feel that customer service has actually gotten worse during this economic downturn.

Amazingly, at a time when quality customer service is more important than ever, 103 million consumers think the companies they interact with should be doing a better job. This data and more can be found in a survey Wakefield recently conducted on behalf of Jacada.

Americans' appetite for food extends well beyond mealtime. The popularity of cable TV's Food Network and Bravo's hit show Top Chef are ample proof. So is the buzz around the recently released movie Julie & Julia.

From Emeril Lagasse to Paula Deen, celebrity TV chefs have definitely gotten our attention. But what effect are their shows having on the eating and cooking habits of Americans? I haven't seen any solid data yet that truly answers that question.

Across the Atlantic, a British survey explored a similar question last year. So what did the British survey find? Those TV cooking shows did not appear to have changed the cooking habits of British families much at all. As the Times of London reported:

An insatiable appetite for TV cookery shows has had little impact on the variety of food served in the average home, according to new research.

Just six dishes account for the most frequent meals in 98 percent of British households despite the best efforts of [celebrity TV chefs] Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay.