Adidas aims to outrun Nike with bouncier shoes (Boost), Google ad test and increased soccer focus as Confederation Cup and FIFA World Cup loom, while Nike feels the heat in China.

Disney's Oz: The Great and Powerful wins weekend box office, marking a comeback for Disney's studio arm.

Old Spice introduces wolfish marketing director to boost men's animal magnetism.

America's Brand USA global marketing arm expands reach with $200M boost and German campaign.

Apple CEO Tim Cook may testify in e-book antitrust suit.

Beam looks past corruption scandal with new brand strategy in India.

Bumblebee and Chicken of the Sea expand U.S. tuna recall.Continue reading...

Amazon bolsters challenge to Netflix with CBS deal, nabs top spot on Harris annual brand reputation survey and mobile retail satisfaction survey.

Alitalia considers giving up independence to stay viable.

American Express tests Twitter purchases by hashtag.

Apple CEO Tim Cook gets VIP invite to President Obama's State of the Union Address; Apple to webcast Cook's conference remarks today.

Auntie Anne's Pretzels can't get Chinese to bite.

Barclay's plans to cut 3,700 jobs and change focus.

BNY Mellon releases research about insurance industry challenges.

Carnival sees engine fire disable cruise ship in Gulf of Mexico.

Coca-Cola profits rise on higher case volume.Continue reading...

Chalk this up as a "black"-letter day for Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald, as the company beat analysts' forecasts with its quarterly profit and P&G stock rose to its highest level in four years. After several months of unrelenting pressure on McDonald over the company's less-than-stellar performance, no one would blame him for enjoying the rest of the afternoon.

McDonald has been battling slipping sales, market share and margins in many of P&G's brands with newly hatched plans to cut costs, renew product innovation, and narrow the focus onto key markets, products and countries. He's also being prodded by critics such as hedge-fund investor Bill Ackman, who's got a $1.8-billion stake in the company and wants changes fast, and the P&G executive retiree who wrote a 13-page letter of complaint that he sent recently to McDonald. And it didn't help that Warren Buffett this week commented that "the jury is out right now" on the company.

Yet in announcing per-share earnings of $1.06 for the fiscal first quarter that beat last year's $1.01 a share and analysts' expectations of a 96-cent quarter, P&G appeared to benefit from progress in all of McDonald's key areas of concern, including boosting productivity and widening gross margins.Continue reading...

Procter & Gamble had a good thing going with its mom-focused global campaign heading into the London Summer Olympics, and so like the world-class marketers they are, the company is trying to extend the string of positive impressions throughout the Games.

To that end, P&G CEO Bob McDonald and Global Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard joined the mothers of several Olympic athletes and other P&G executives to virtually "ring" the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange "remotely" — from the P&G Family Home pavilion in London.Continue reading...

Amazon.com tests "more airy" website redesign, as delivery locker test with 7-Eleven looms.

Apple designer Jonathan Ive enters a new era, as iPhone 5 speculation mounts and brand announces first store in Hong Kong.

Baidu taps Dell for mobile push.

Bank of America shares decline (despite Warren Buffett's $5 billion injection) in tandem with global banks.

BMW tests 1,000 times brighter laser headlights.

Cantor Fitzgerald's post-9/11 recovery is in the spotlight this week.

Carlyle Group files for IPO.

Coca-Cola will invest $4 billion with Chinese bottling partners to spur China sales.Continue reading...

Perpetually in search of brand innovation since 1883, when it introduced its first major brand, Ivory Soap, Procter & Gamble’s corporate commitment to innovating is articulated in the June issue of Harvard Business Review, where P&G is dubbed the "new growth factory."

The HBR article, "How P&G Tripled Its Innovation Success Rate" (co-authored by P&G CTO Bruce Brown and Innosight managing director Scott Anthony) looks at how digital platforms have filled the branded content hole created by the collapse of TV soap operas, a branding medium that P&G helped invent with Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers.Continue reading...

Consumer brand powerhouse Procter & Gamble is out to conquer the world.

The company is ramping up an aggressive international expansion strategy, a necessity if it hopes to continue to grow. Traditionally focused on U.S. and Europe, P&G is now setting its sites on the rest of the world as sales sag in its stronghold territories.

One of the main reasons for the soft market has been the changing spending habits of consumers, who've become more frugal and cost-conscious during the recession. According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly two-thirds of U.S. consumers replaced at least one food, beverage, or household product with a cheaper substitute.Continue reading...

Procter & Gamble CEO Robert McDonald tells the Wall Street Journal about his two main ambitions: "To win back ground lost as frugal shoppers have opted for cheaper alternatives to P&G's goods, and to conquer countries now dominated by rivals like Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive."

Starbucks is shifting strategy; CEO Howard Schultz wants to use its coffee shops as a testing ground to get more products into grocery stores.

Cisco and Microsoft reportedly join talks on Internet traffic that have intensified since net neutrality proposal by Google and Verizon.

Facebook raises questions about its logo for new Facebook Places, which invokes (as TechCrunch notices) Foursquare.Continue reading...