Kraft has been making cheese since the early 1920′s. They’re a well-respected brand and a leader in the business. Still, they can’t simply rest on their laurels. They have to keep coming up with new products, like Fresh Take. This product creates a crunchy, flavorful cheese and crumb coating with almost no mess. The secret is their dual bag that magically zips open to become a mixing bowl and crumb shaker. Kraft took a kitchen chore (breading meats) and turned it into a fast and easy option for dinner.

Innovation is necessary if a company wants to grow, but it’s one of the hardest elements of running a business. Particularly when you’ve been around as long as Kraft has. It’s hard because innovation is a creative process and our days are generally anti-creative for a variety of reasons.

Comcast has a new video streaming service called Streampix that allows users to watch old movies and TV shows on demand.

The general consensuses on the web is that the service will become a direct competitor to Netflix, and Boston.com even went so far as to blame the Comcast announcement for a drop in Netflix’s stock price.

The Streampix service will be free to anyone who already subscribes to Comcast’s Xfinity premium service. For other Comcast subscribers, it can be accessed for only $4.99 a month, which is cheaper than Netflix’s base price of $7.99 a month.

Sure sounds like Comcast is out to take Netflix down, but the reality is, the cable company is simply trying to stay competitive in a rapidly changing media world.

New Year’s resolutions. Love ‘em, hate ‘em, you can’t hardly live without them. Even if you don’t write them down or announce them to the world, they’re there. We can’t help ourselves. There’s something about the start of a new year that makes us all decide it’s time to be better, smarter, richer, thinner or happier.

I can’t help you with the thinner or happier part, but here are 5 New Year’s resolutions that could make you a better, smarter, richer marketer.

1. I will listen to what my customers have to say.

“I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.”

Two months ago, Netflix Co-Founder and CEO Reed Hastings, announced a major change to the pricing structure for Netflix members which included increased fees for anyone wanting to get DVDs in the mail and stream movies.The result was a lot of bad press as loyal fans cried foul loud enough to be heard. Memberships were canceled, stock prices dropped and Blockbuster could be heard laughing all the way to bankruptcy court.

Yesterday, Hastings tried to patch things up with a lengthy note of apology and an explanation of things to come.