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The Oprah Winfrey Network launching Saturday is wary of promising too much of a good thing — Winfrey herself. In stoking interest in the cable channel, the goal is to exploit Winfrey’s popularity while emphasizing that OWN won’t be all Oprah, all the time.
“We really don’t want to be a niche brand. We want to be a mainstream cable” network with appeal beyond Winfrey’s fan base, said Darren Schillace, vice president of consumer marketing for OWN. Get the full story »
McDonald’s promoted its vice president and general manager of the Indianapolis region to vice president of multicultural marketing.
Edgardo A. Navarro Linares will be responsible for the company’s strategic and ethnic consumer marketing efforts in the United States. Get the full story »
February marks the start of the year of the rabbit in the Chinese lunar calendar.
It may be an auspicious sign for Playboy Enterprises Inc., which opened a nightclub in Macau last month as it seeks to expand its business by licensing the trademark bunny head logo on lifestyle products in Asia, its fastest growing region.
The company, founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953, also plans to open a Playboy Mansion in 2012 in Macau, a former Portuguese colony on the southern coast of China, and has been busy cutting deals to sell Playboy-branded merchandise across Asia.
From The Chicago Sun-Times | S.C. Johnson, a home products manufacturer in Racine, Wis., said last week that is putting the advertising accounts for its entire global portfolio of iconic brands into review, something that could “spell disaster” for DraftFCB/Chicago. DraftFCT, one of the largest global advertising agency networks with headquarters in both Chicago and New York, has handled advertising for a huge number of S.C. Johnson brands since 1953, including well-known products such as Pledge, Windex and Raid.
The Peace, Love, Popcorn logo is being challenged by the Popcorn Factory.
The Popcorn Factory's logo
Here’s the story of how peace and love turned into a lawsuit about popcorn.
In May 2008, Gary Paparella and his youngest daughter, Meagan, were at a Pittsburgh restaurant doodling logos and names on napkins for a gourmet popcorn and candy store. The family was moving to Frisco, Texas, for Paparella’s job at Dr Pepper Snapple Group and had decided to leave the corporate world behind to open a family business.
That’s when 19-year-old Meagan wrote the words “love peace popcorn,” doodling a heart, a peace sign and a piece of popcorn. Today, the brick and mortar store sells “peace love popcorn” T-shirts, fudge and, of course, popcorn in more than 60 flavors — even dill pickle-flavored. They’re on Twitter, Facebook and online with three registered domain names. They even trademarked the name and logo.
Get the full story »
Procter & Gamble Co.’s Gillette brand will not renew its endorsement contract with golfer Tiger Woods, which ends Dec. 31, a company spokesman confirmed Thursday.
A CareerBuilder.com Super Bowl 2006 ad. (Chicago Tribune)
CareerBuilder’s 2011 Super Bowl ad is already drawing attention from PETA activists.
PETA said it learned earlier this month that the company was planning on using chimpanzees in the ad, which prompted actress Angelica Huston to write a letter to Matt Ferguson, the company’s CEO, urging him to watch her 2008 video on the abuse of ape actors.
Huston said chimpanzees are often physically and emotionally abused during training, and that when they grow too strong to handle, they are kept in small cages at roadside zoos or “warehoused in horrifying conditions on training compounds.” Get the full story »
A Snuggie pub crawl in Chicago. (Chicago Now)
The line has expanded to include dog Snuggies. (Snuggie)
New York Times News Service | Consumers purchased about 4 million Snuggies during the 2008 holiday season and, typically, a success story for a kitschy infomercial product would end there. But not so for the blanket with arms, which, from a marketing perspective, turns out to have legs as well.
By the end of 2010, maker Allstar Products Group will have sold 25 million blankets, the equivalent of one for about every 12 residents of the United States, and Scott Boilen, president of Allstar Products, which is based in Hawthorne, N.Y., says there is no indication that sales are waning. Get the full story »
For the second year, OnStar is teaming up with NORAD to track Santa Claus on his Christmas Eve flight around the world.
From 5 a.m. Dec. 24 until 4 a.m. Dec. 25, OnStar advisers will let subscribers know exactly where Santa is based on data from the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which has been following the old elf’s adventures for 54 years using North Warning Radar System, geo-synchronous satellites with infrared sensors and Santa Cams. Get the full story »
A 3-year-old eats fries from his Happy Meal in a California McDonald's. (AP /Eric Risberg)
After months of threats, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has sued Oak Brook-based McDonald’s, alleging that its practice of giving toys with children’s meals is deceptive advertising.
The organization garnered a slew of media attention last summer when it threatened to sue McDonald’s, claiming that the toys constitute a method of circumventing parental control and teaching children unhealthy eating from a early age. Get the full story »
The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on manufacturers of certain weight-loss, body-building and sexual-enhancement supplements that contain potentially dangerous ingredients.
The FDA said Wednesday that some manufacturers are deceptively labeling products to hide that they contain ingredients known to cause adverse health effects. Other supplements contain ingredients that should be available only by prescription. Get the full story »
Dannon Co. has agreed pay $21 million and drop some health claims for its Activia yogurt and DanActive dairy drink under pressure from state and federal regulators.
The food company has claimed in its marketing that its Activia yogurt helps relieve irregularity and that its DanActive drink helps people avoid colds or the flu. Get the full story »
UBS is aiming to polish its tarnished image with a new dress code, as it seeks to regain the faith of retail clients after posting the biggest loss in Swiss corporate history during the financial crisis.
A 52-page internal document seen by Reuters advises customer-facing staff in five pilot scheme branches on how to make a good impression with customers by choosing flesh-colored underwear and stockings and avoiding smelly foods and tobacco. Get the full story »
American talk show host Oprah Winfrey, third from right, is joined by Australian stars, from left, Nicole Kidman, Keith Urban, Hugh Jackman, Olivia Newton John and Russell Crowe in Sydney Tuesday. (AP/ Jeremy Piper)
The long-awaited OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network is gearing up for its premiere on New Year’s Day. And the bold ambition of this venture would spark doubts if there were anybody else’s name attached. Consider: a cable network repurposed from Discovery Health and all-dependent on just one person’s identity, vision and marquee power.
But that person is Winfrey, a cultural force. Now, as she moves through the final months of her daytime syndicated talk show, which will end next September after 25 years, OWN is poised to become Winfrey’s new TV home base.
Instead of a daily hour boasting Winfrey’s on-air presence as host, OWN will be a round-the-clock environment in which — her network vows — she will often be seen but, what is more important, always be felt. She will be the network’s spiritual curator, maintaining a constant presence, even from off-camera, as she offers a slate of programs all guaranteed to meet her “Live Your Best Life” mandate. Get the full story »
Federal prosecutors in southwestern Illinois say they’re planning to take legal action against a telemarketer who sold extended auto-service contracts. The U.S. attorney’s office in southern Illinois says it’ll detail the move during a court hearing Monday afternoon in East St. Louis. Get the full story »
