SMITH BRAIN TRUST — For years, soda servings have been ballooning. For its first half-century, Coke's main product was a 6.5 ounce bottle. Later came the reign of the 12-oz. can. In recent years, you couldn't get anything smaller than a 20-oz. behemoth-bottle from many vending machines.

Giving Day returns to the University of Maryland on Thursday, March 3, giving all members of the Robert H. Smith School of Business community the opportunity to boost their contributions through several hourly contests held across campus. From noon until 2 p.m., the Smith faculty and staff’s donations will be eligible for an extra $3,000 prize to be awarded to the Smith School - if they can donate the most money of any on-campus unit within that timeframe.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — In the most inflammatory chapter yet in the war between the government and tech companies over encryption, a federal magistrate judge has ordered Apple to create software that would help the government defeat the security mechanisms on an iPhone 5c owned by Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife killed 14 people in San Bernardino, in December.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — Though it was Leo Van Munching Sr. who introduced Heineken to the United States, it was his son who brought the company’s marketing strategy into the modern age. “While his father felt that Heineken was a serious brand for serious beer drinkers, Van Munching Jr.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — A feminine care brand sponsoring a football telecast might seem odd.

"All across the television landscape, viewers are changing how they watch TV," a host of NPR's Morning Edition recently noted. "Instead of taking in episodes of hit shows like 'The Big Bang Theory' once a week, people are stockpiling episodes to watch them later."

SMITH BRAIN TRUST -- It might not be the sexiest industry in the world, but investors foresee strong growth in the mattress industry, which generates some $14 billion in sales annually in the United States. There's intense activity both in the traditional part of the industry, dominated by a few large manufacturers and retailers, as well as in a plucky start-up sector that uses an online-sales model.

SMITH BRAIN TRUST — After the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Obama administration pressed major tech companies for

Here's good news if you're looking for discounts, bad news if you're in the retail industry: Third quarter 2015 was brutal for much of the retail sector. After Macy's reported that same-store sales were down 3.6 percent, its stock had its worst day in six years.

The INFORMS Society for Marketing Science (ISMS) has named marketing PhD student Seoungwoo Lee of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business as a winner in its ISMS Doctoral Dissertation Competition for 2015.