"Are you more than a pretty face?"

That's a pretty serious question to ask when you're a sunscreen company, but Hawaiian Tropic is on a mission to rid its brand of sexually charged imagery and instead promote confident, healthy skin care. The iconic sunscreen, famous for its sweet coconut smell, has a few more changes up its sleeve for a brand that built itself on bronzed, bikinied beauties.

The first to go? The Miss Hawaiian Tropic Bikini contests. While the events haven't been hosted in the US for years, Australia has kept it alive and well until now. Now, the brand is launching a social media campaign to find the "new face"—not just the body—of the brand, who will become the official spokesperson.

"The modern Hawaiian Tropic woman still loves to spend time in the sun, but also understands the importance of sun care in helping to keep her skin healthy," said Danielle Duncan, Brand Manager in a release. "We're looking for a new face of the brand who captures that sensibility, and shares the Hawaiian Tropic philosophy that broad-spectrum sun protection can be as luxurious and pampering as any other beauty product."Continue reading...

Cigarette warning labels haven’t changed a bit in the last 30 years, despite lots of data being unearthed in that time on the dangers of smoking and plenty of efforts by the government and consumer groups to have those labels changed. The main reason no change has occurred is because of the undying efforts of Big Tobacco’s legal departments. 

Those departments took a hit Monday when the Supreme Court rejected Big Tobacco’s efforts to challenge a 2009 federal law “that requires graphic warning labels on cigarettes and expanded marketing restrictions on tobacco products,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

This doesn’t mean that smokers will soon be carrying around cigarette packs with gruesome images such as a sewn-up cadaver, a crying woman who apparently has lung cancer, smoke coming out of a man’s trachea, and other such unpleasant sights. It will take time to get new images approved and they will likely go through their own legal challenges along the way. Plus, last August, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit “ruled that the proposed labels violated the tobacco industry's free-speech rights under the First Amendment,” the Journal reminds. The Obama Administration later said “it wouldn't mount a further legal defense of the labels, leaving the agency to consider new proposals."Continue reading...

There's nothing "new" about either aspect of Solixir energy drinks' product line or advertising campaign, but the Chicago-based beverage startup has created an original mashup of functional drinks and zombie-based marketing.

Solixir's four situation-specific formulas are Restore (for immune support), Think (for mental acuity), Relax and Awaken (for a "gentle" energy boost). It becomes the umpteenth beverage brand, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 behemoths, that lately have tried to snare American consumers with the promise of providing just the right two-ounce elixir for whatever nutritional or life challenge or circumstance that is facing them at a particular moment.

At the same time, basing a marketing campaign on zombie chic is like beating a dead ... well, whatever. As noted over the weekend by the Wall Street Journal, "interest in flesh-eating ghouls has far outstripped popular enthusiasm for vampires, wizards and hobbits." Even the federal government is using zombies to market these days in the wake of the mammoth success of AMC's The Walking Dead, buzz for the coming movie World War Z and other exemplars of the meme. And, of course, there's Zombie Blood and Zombie Jerky.Continue reading...

Buying a piece of meat can be a bit confusing. After all, is a pork butt actually a pork butt?

Consumers may never know because the pork and beef industries have teamed up on a two-year study and are now renaming more than 350 different cuts of meat to make them more accessible for consumers, Reuters reports. The chicken industry has decided to stick with its current naming conventions, but the new pork and beef monikers should be in stores by the summer.

It may take some time, of course, for consumers to stop looking for “pork chops” and instead keep their eyes open for "porterhouse chops," "ribeye chops" and "New York chops." Packaging for meat will change as well, the wire service notes, and consumers will be able to quickly see from what part of an animal’s body the meat comes from and also be given cooking suggestions. While the name changes are supposed to help consumers better understand what they're eating, some think the new monikers sound more like a meat "identity crisis."Continue reading...

Some countries have hidden cigarette brand names from consumers with plain packaging. Some countries demand retailers hide the cigarettes away. Some countries have put nasty images on the packaging so consumers can see what could happen to them someday if they continue to smoke, and some are just starting over. But one country is just planning to get rid of the darn things altogether.

It’ll take a few years, of course, for Scotland to get all tobacco products out of its country, but the plan is to have them gone by 2034, according to the UK's thecourier.co, so smokers might want to get their trips to Scotland over with sooner rather than later. The country has already banned smoking from public places and raised the age of purchase from 16 to 18; it now plans to ban smoking from the grounds of all hospitals and force retailers to sell smokes in plain packaging.Continue reading...

Cigarette buyers in Uruguay, Thailand, Australia and about 35 other countries and jurisdictions all have to deal with nasty images on the packs that remind them of just how unhealthy smoking can be. But the FDA, despite years of trying, can’t seem to get the same thing done in the United States. 

Last week, the agency abandoned its long battle to put such images on packs as it faced an April 5 deadline of whether to appeal a court ruling that favored Big Tobacco. Don’t think the plan is totally dead, though. The FDA will “undertake research to support a new rulemaking consistent with the Tobacco Control Act," MedicalDaily.com reports.Continue reading...

Honda has the best brand image, according to a Kelly Blue Book study.

FDA abandons graphic cigarette warning labels in favor of new approach.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg launches $12 million ad campaign against the NRA.

Amazon is the most visited online retailer in Europe.

Boeing's Dreamliner completes first flight test since being grounded.

With 1 million users, Fitocracy users are more engaged than any social network besides Facebook.

GQ allows users to personalize its iPad app with MyGQ technology.Continue reading...

Energy drink companies think they’ve been given a bad rap. They claim to have nothing to do with the deaths and injuries of youngsters that others have associated with them. Part of the problem has been that such concoctions as Monster Energy and Rockstar Energy were sold as dietary supplements, thus avoiding some restrictions from the FDA.

Now the two drinks that have been the subject of public outcry in recent years have switched over to labelling their products as “beverages” rather than “dietary supplements,” according to allgov.com. This new designation allows the companies to not reveal to the FDA “any deaths or ailments associated with the products,” the site reports.Continue reading...