If you're around Grand Central Terminal in New York this afternoon, you may want to catch the cast of Broadway's "Chicago" launch Maybelline New York's new Color Sensational Lipcolor for Rite Aid. The performance will be outside at Vanderbilt and 43rd at 3:30 and 4:30 p.m.

As hard as his recent comments about some of General Motors' advertising may have been, marketing chief Bob Lutz says he has no plans to review or fire any agencies in the short term. But the leash is short: he wants public perception of GM to start changing within three to six months. "If, after strong senior management direction, the agency, for some reason, repeatedly fails to come up with a product where the customer says, 'Yes! That's exactly what I want' and fails to move the needle, then obviously you start reviewing the agency," Lutz says. Lutz …

Consumers used their Visa cards more last quarter (an 8% increase) but spent less (a 7% decline), the company says. It expects net annual revenue growth of high single digits in 2009 and at the lower end of the 11% to 15% per cent range in 2010. Visa and rival MasterCard have been insulated from the credit card losses that have affected banks' card businesses because they only process transactions and do not directly lend to consumers, Saskia Scholtes writes. They also are benefiting from a worldwide shift away from cash and checks towards electronic payments. Visa says …

Basic Levi's, Lee and Wrangler jeans are faring well in this hardscrabble economy -- sales are up 17%, according to NPD -- but high-end jeans are feeling pinched around the waistline, Jayne O'Donnell and Michelle Walbaum report. True Religion, which sells jeans that top out at $398, says its wholesale sales were down 17% in the first quarter, and sales at its stand-alone stores were down about 10%. Citizens of Humanity COO Gary Freedman admits that business is down without releasing numbers. High-end makers are dropping their prices in turn with the trend. About 95% of 7 for …

Nick Wingfield writes that Steve Ballmer in particular, and Microsoft in general, may be on the upswing after a series of calamitous events ranging from the failed acquisition of Yahoo last year to problems with its Windows Vista OS and Xbox 360 console. Windows 7 is being praised by advance reviews, Xbox is hot and the new search engine, Bing, is gaining momentum and respect -- both internally and in the marketplace. "Suddenly you don't feel like a moron for saying you use a Microsoft product," says Keith Richman, CEO of Internet video site Break.com.

So here's the bottom line about who'll be drinking what at the "let's-grab-a-beer" summit at the White House tonight. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. will reportedly have Red Stripe, a Jamacian brew owned by Diageo, according to Scott Horsley. Sgt. James Crowley, the Cambridge officer who arrested him, is said to favor the MillerCoor's faux craft beer, Blue Moon. Obviously, making those choices is not as simple as ordering up a brewski at the corner bar. In fact, Time reports that the Boston Globe reports that the White House has only served domestic, American-made beer since …