Best Buy, Inc. (NYSE: BBY) will be treating some of its best customers to product giveaways and discounts come this Sunday night, when the retailer will open stores to a select group of customers who are subscribers to the retailer's "Rewards Zone" customer loyalty program.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Best Buy's customer loyalty program now includes 24 million members, up from seven million a year ago -- a spike that happened when the company abolished the annual $9.99 program fee for the "special club."

This could inspire more customers to shop at Best Buy during the holiday shopping season, although the company said that overall it expected a less-aggressive promotional environment this year.

The retailer is expecting between 500 and 1,000 customers to show up for special holiday shopping events like this special Rewards Zone night, although it was not clear if that number was nationwide or per store location (I'm guessing it was the latter).

I'm still wondering why competitor Circuit City, Inc. (NYSE: CC) does not have a program like this.

The conventional wisdom used to be that shoppers went looking for their favorite brands and that consistency of product packaging assured customer loyalty. Apparently marketers now have decided that good old reliable product packaging is making those products invisible to consumers. According to the New York Times, Pepsico (NYSE: PEP), known for its resistance to label design changes throughout its long history, is now changing some label designs every few weeks.

The problem is that, with the internet and hundreds of television channels, it's becoming increasingly harder for marketers to get their messages out to customers. Product packaging now has to do more than simply identify the goods within, but actually reach out and grab your attention. Hence, Mountain Dew bottles that appear to have been tagged by graffitti artists, or Unilever's (NYSE: UN) shampoo bottles shaped like video game joysticks. Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) has been in the forefront of bringing eye-catching advertising to its themed store aisles.

There are other motives for this experimentation with product packaging as well. Some companies are searching for ways to reduce container sizes and to have less environmental impact. Some household product manufacturers are looking to make their once utlitarian packaging so pleasing that people may be willing to display it in their homes.

And it looks like things are only going to get weirder. Pepsi has a plan in the works for cans that spray a pleasing scent when opened. And you know that product packaging that talks to you can't be that far down the road. If you thought pop-up ads and TV commercials were annoying, just wait for the day you go into the shop and all the products are screaming for your attention.

Shares of book retailer Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP) traded down 4.72% today as the company reported less than stellar earnings. The company lost 61 cents per share, compared to 31 cents in the same quarter last year. Same-store sales at the flagship Borders superstores declined 1.9%.

As I wrote in March, I don't really understand the company's strategy. They slashed their customer rewards program, making their books even more overpriced compared to online bookstores like Amazon.com (NYSE: AMZN). That move has done little inspire customer loyalty, and it's actually hilarious going into a Borders stores and watching the hapless clerk try to explain to a confused customer how the new program really isn't that terrible -- even though it is:

Under the old program, customers could spend $50 in a month to receive a 10% discount on all purchases on a certain day in the next month. Customers also got a 5% "Holiday Reward" on store purchases made through November 14.

Under the new plan, customers receive a $5 discount in the next month for every $150 they spend. This 3.3% discount expires at the end of of that month. Wow. What a deal.

The company's plan is to start its own website to compete with Amazon. Currently, the companies have a partnership. I can't even imagine why Borders thinks it can do online bookselling better than Amazon, and until they show that they can, I would stay far away from this stock.

The ninth name in my series of the top 25 stocks for the NEXT 25 years is Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. (NYSE: DKS). Dick's is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was actually established in 1948. The original concept was revamped and expanded during the past four years, and the company is on a high-growth trajectory. Dick's will be the most dominating purveyor of sporting goods and apparel in the United States.

Dick's stock closed at $53.40 on Friday and has a market capitalization of $2.8 billion. Dick's currently operates 294 stores, most in the eastern United States. The estimated revenue base for the fiscal year ending January 2008 is $3.8 billion, and for earnings per share I am estimating at $2.40. My January 2009 revenue and earnings per share estimates call for $4.5 billion and $2.95.

Dick's is taking advantage of a very fractured market. The preponderance of sporting goods sales occur in the big box retailers like Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) or Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). It's simply a "small department" for these huge general retailers. The other big competitors have been mom-and-pop stores and a few other larger concepts that have struggled mightily. Dick's is both the growth engine and the consolidator in the sporting goods space. The company has room to grow to 1,100-1,200 stores over the next decade. In 2005, Dick's acquired popular Midwestern retailer Galyan's and with it, the terrific locations.

Sporting goods that Dick's offers range from the usual baseball, football, basketball, and hockey equipment and apparel to the eclectic tastes in golf, fishing, hunting, and more. Dick's is attuned to the electronic world and offers the best line of navigational equipment for boaters and fishermen. What Dick's offers to the sportsman is total selection and information by extremely well-trained salespeople.

For airlines, it always seems like a race to the bottom. And, with the low-cost structure of the internet, we are seeing some creativity with airline fares. The latest comes from Skybus Airlines.

The concept is that -- for each flight -- there will be at least 10 seats at $10 a piece. That sounds pretty good for the customer. But hasn't deep discounting been a big problem for the bottom line, or can Skybus be another JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU) or Southwest Airlines (NYSE: LUV)?

Well, Skybus does have about $160 million in the bank (so there is some runway). There are some other tweaks: You can only purchase tickets from the company's website, and you'll probably be nickle-and-dimed on extras (like food, check-in of bags, and so on).

I had a chance to interview Rafi Mohammed, who is an expert on pricing. He runs a consulting firm, Culture of Profit, and is the author of the book The Art of Pricing. He says: "How do new airlines enter a market and give customers a value-based reason to try their service? It always starts with a discount. New airline entrant Skybus is offering discounts in a grand and intelligent style by guaranteeing that at least 10 seats per flight are offered for $10 (plus taxes). Not only have these $10 fares made a huge marketing splash, but they are designed to create loyalty to the Skybus website. Sure there's a good chance that the $10 seats will be sold out, but it definitely makes sense for a traveler to at least check availability when booking a trip to see if luck is on their side. And if that $10 fare is not available, they may stick around to book a $79 fare."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

There really isn't much of a battle of the brands between Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) and JetBlue Airways Corp. (NASDAQ: JBLU).

Southwest Airlines is clearly the superior brand. It's the low-cost airline that everybody loves. I've flown Southwest a few times myself and found the service good, though I was annoyed by the trash that I found underneath my seats. I've never flown JetBlue because it doesn't fly out of my local airport in Philadelphia, while Southwest does.

In some ways, it's not a fair fight between Southwest and JetBlue. Southwest. which was founded in 1971, operates 2,800 daily flights in 60 airports in 59 cities across the United States. JetBlue is eight years old and serves 50 destinations with 550 daily flights.

Investors also prefer Southwest. Its shares are only down 3 percent this year, compared with the 17 percent decline for JetBlue.

Though its tempting to argue that Southwest will destroy JetBlue in the marketplace, I'm not ready to write off the scrappy New York-based airline quite yet.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

A portfolio manager once said, "If a nuclear explosion hit my city and I had to pick one place to hole-up for a couple of years until all was calm, I would want to be at a Costco store. It has everything any human being could ever want or need." Well, I don't know if I could spend a couple of years in a Costco store, but no problem with a couple of hours!

Sam's Club, a division of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) versus Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST): they have collectively changed the way people shop. The differences are profound between the two, yet conceptually they are very similar. Both "warehouse" concepts sell in bulk fashion. If you're looking for a small jar of Grey Poupon mustard, forget either of these two warehouse stores. But, if you want two side-by-side 16-ounce jars of Grey Poupon, enough to satisfy a football team, then you have come to the right place.

As similar as these two are, the differences do exist. Costco offers tremendous prices to its customers (club members) and quality. Costco has figured out the consumer will come in with a set list of items to be purchased, only to be enticed to expand that list as they walk the store. Strategically placed "special" items, or Costco employees serving out free samples of delicious food and drink items not normally found on the customer's list. It's brilliant marketing: on-site demonstrations and/or sampling of the product. "An impulse purchase" is the expression I have used many, many times as I've explained to my wife why I bought this or that.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

The sad part about this subject is watching these two companies going in almost opposite directions -- at least for now. General Motors General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM) has a current market capitalization of $18 billion versus the behemoth Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE: TM) with a massive market capitalization of $236 billion, over 13 times bigger than GM. Yet on the surface one would never guess these numbers as their revenues are fairly close in comparison: GM for 2007, estimates revenues of $173 billion, and Toyota's at $200 billion.

It's what's underneath the hood that distinguishes these companies.

Toyota has just come off a five-year period of growth in its per-share earnings at 26% per year, an astounding accomplishment for such a large company. General Motors has experienced flat to negative earnings per share growth over the same five-year period. Toyota is opening new plants, both in Japan and the U.S., to handle demand, while General Motors is closing plants to save costs and resources.

Toyota has set itself apart as the undisputed world leader with the hybrid auto: half combustible engine, half battery powered. The hybrids are still at a price premium to comparable standard combustible, gasoline-powered models, but they will close that gap over the next two or three years. The hybrids come in luxurious lines of the Camry, the Highlander SUV, and the Lexus RX series, as well as the economical Prius model. GM has yet to enter the hybrid field in a serious way.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and watch out for more Battle of the Brands posts.

America use to have the battle of Sears vs. Kmart back in the 1970s and 1980s. Well, both are now combined into one entity named Sears Holdings Corp. (NASDAQ: SHLD) which, frankly, is still struggling for its identity. The new king of the hill from a revenue perspective is Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT). No question, with revenues this fiscal year ending January 31, 2008, expected to be $380 billion, Wal-Mart is the behemoth. The largest retailer in the world, period. But I wouldn't touch the stock. The comment most attributed to Wal-Mart is "it's tired." The stores look worn and the shopping experience arises more out of necessity than desire. Also, with a $200+ billion market capitalization, moving the needle even just 10% is quite challenging.

Why bother with a company that will have a very difficult time growing its revenue and earnings base? Why bother with a company that is being attacked, successfully, on both sides of its key businesses: the discount retailer and the warehouse stores? Why bother with a concept that has saturated its market with more than 3,200 stores in place? The only sure-fire way to grow the earnings base is through same-store-sales monthly increases, and yet, Wal-Mart is struggling in this capacity. The answer is not more stores, and pricing increases go against the Wal-Mart credo of everyday low prices. Sure, shareholders of the past 30 years have been exceptionally rewarded and Wal-Mart is the quintessential American brand, but there is a far better and exciting story for shareholders going forward. That story is the rising titan, Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT).