In just one week, the EU’s sweeping ban on animal testing for cosmetics and personal care products goes into effect.

"All personal care products, from high-end to drugstore brands, will be subject to the rules," and "final products cannot be tested on animals and nor can any of a given products’ ingredients."

The European ban starting March 11th is a hard-won victory impacting companies and brands worldwide, and follows two decades of campaigning by organizations such as PETA, public protests, phone calls, and more than 20,000 e-mails.

“It’s enormously important because it started out as an ethical stand—animals should not die for shampoo—and brought about a whole new era of non-animal science,” Kathy Guillermo, SVP Laboratory Investigations at PETA, told brandchannel. “This ban shows that once an animal test is rejected, scientists can and will come up with a new and better way. We need to put the same limitations on household chemicals, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.”Continue reading...

With less than two weeks left before the XXX Olympics (hold your snickers) kick off on July 27th, brands that paid big bucks to be involved are getting their names out there in every way possible while those who didn’t unload their wallets are keeping busy figuring out how they can capitalize on all those eyeballs without getting themselves into any kind of trouble. But first, a word from an Olympics sponsor:

McDonald’s Succumbs to Chip Pressure

Britain, of course, is known for its fine fish and chips so it seemed like blasphemy, especially to the workers at this year’s Games, that the only fries that would be available in Olympic venues would be sold by American fast-food giant McDonald’s — which is, of course, an official IOC sponsor — at its temporary restaurants on the Olympics site. Following an outcry, the London 2012 Organizing Committee has agreed to allow other vendors of chips on the premises, which comes as good news to the 800 food vendors who can now sell their chips to Olympics visitors and personnel. It's not a huge chip off the shoulders of McDonald's UK, which projects that revenue from Olympics sales will represent less than 0.1% of its annual sales.Continue reading...

College students of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s rocked the nation with anti-authoritarian protests against the Vietnam war, nuclear war, racism, sexism, Watergate, and plenty of other things.

Today, college students in Chicago are getting upset about … hummus. Sabra hummus, to be precise.

According to the DePaul University group Students for Justice in Palestine, Sabra’s majority owners, the Strauss Group, “sends financial support to two Israeli military units accused of human rights abuses,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported. PepsiCo, by the way, owns the other 49%.

So the group’s members went to the student government offices and got them to agree to put the Sabra issue on a ballot. The vote was taken and 1,127 were in favor of getting rid of Sabra hummus in the cafeteria while 332 wanted to keep the chickpea dip around.Continue reading...

Weekend news: Lance Armstrong's former teammate, Tyler Hamilton, accuses him of taking performance-enhancing drugs (including during a Tour de France) in an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes — a charge the cycling champ denies. Click here to watch part 1 and part 2 of Hamilton's interview.

Also: Lady Gaga pops up on NBC's Saturday Night Live (and in a Google commercial); Tim Pawlenty confirms he's running for president; Beyonce, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift earn Billboard nods; Disney's box office Pirates booty; the Miami Heat's Chris Bosh and LeBron James prevail against the Chicago Bulls' MVP Derrick Rose; and more.Continue reading...

Katie Couric exits the CBS News anchor chair tonight with one final interview: Hillary Clinton.

Also stepping down this week: Mary Hart, who signs off Entertainment Tonight on Friday after 29 seasons in a final broadcast that brings out her former co-hosts.

Arnold Schwarzenegger puts projects on hold to deal with personal crisis.

Discovery Networks to run first in-show product placement under relaxed UK rules.

FDA pulls diabetes drug Avandia from shelves.

Gap quarterly profit falls 23%; partners with Goodwill for donated clothing discount.Continue reading...

* Best Buy will sell Apple's iPad in all its stores starting Sept. 26. The move follows the retailer's commitment to sell Amazon's Kindle.

* BP's exiting CEO Tony Hayward faces questioning by a UK government panel tomorrow, as US Department of Justice "expects it may" sue BP for damages related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

* Google will add a layer of social-networking (gradually) to its core products, CEO Eric Schmidt said today. Google Voice app may be coming to the iPhone.

* Heineken US CMO Christian McMahan is stepping down.

* IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, after slamming HP, says retiring at 60 (in 2011) isn't "cast in stone."Continue reading...

Apple ending "I'm a Mac" ads?

KFC's "pink bucket" promotion isn't all that, says Consumerist.

Nescafe to revive "Gold Blend" couple after decade break.

Chevrolet moves on from "Like a Rock" and "Heartbeat of America."

Victoria's Secret suits up with the NFL.

Israel will allow iPads to enter the country, while bootleg iPads show up in China.Continue reading...

The NY Times Magazine looked yesterday at brand management challenges facing Sesame Workshop in bringing its Muppets to Palestinian kids on the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where the show is filmed in a bullet-pocked building that "seems to be simultaneously under construction and decaying into a ruin."  "Shara'a Simsim," originally a controversial spinoff from the Israeli Sesame Street, airs on a microbroadcasting channel which journalist Daoud Kuttab, who produces the show, founded in order to broadcast it.

"Shara'a Simsim" was originally ordered up by Sesame Street in the '80s as a segment on the popular Israeli version "Rechov Sumsum." It was spun off in the '90s as a joint Israeli-Palestinian production -- a partnership that brought significant tensions. After the 2000-01 intifada suspended the cooperative effort, the show evolved into a Palestinian stand-alone.

Though local producers ensure that each extension of its globally popular kids' brand fits its culture, the brand is managed centrally from New York.Continue reading...