YouTube launches paid channels after rumors swirled earlier this week about subscription partners.

ESPN may subsidize wireless-data plans.

JPMorgan Chase is sued by California over credit-card cases.

AT&T returns to chatty kids for Mother's Day ads.

Amazon is reportedly developing a smartphone with 3-D screen.

Caterpillar and union suspend talks.

Chrysler faces uphill climb for Jeep in China.

Costco now offers travel packages to members.

Dell may see rival bid by Carl Icahn group.

Delta sees new terminal as symbol of air-travel makeover.Continue reading...

Chrysler knows a thing or two about how to coax an emotional response out of American consumers. Exhibit No. 1: The now-iconic "Born of Fire" TV ad during the Super Bowl game some 25 months ago, starring Eminem and the Chrysler 200. It and the "Imported From Detroit" campaign it introduced nearly singlehandedly rescued the Chrysler brand from the scrap heap.

Now, Chrysler is angling for would-be Exhibit No. 2: The evocative "Farmer" ad that it ran on behalf of Ram trucks during the Super Bowl in February. There's already evidence of a medium-term impact from the ad and the attention that was paid to it in the game's aftermath: Through April 1, sales of Ram pickups were up 15 percent year-over-year in the US, to 77,594 units. And that included a 26 percent gain in March over 2012 and a 3 percent increase in February over a year ago.

April sales figures will be released on Wednesday.

Olivier Francois, Chrysler's CMO, insisted that the spot and follow-up actions by Chrysler to mark what it calls "the year of the farmer" are persuading Ford, GM, Toyota and Nissan customers to consider Ram trucks too. "I receive letters every day from loyal customers of the competition thanking us for doing that spot and saying that they are considering the Ram," Francois told Automotive News.Continue reading...

Dirce Navarro de Camargo, Brazil's richest woman and owner of Havaianas, dies at 100.

Apple faces criticism over Siri's long memory as market expects it to report profit drop.

Nutrisystem joins forces with Walmart in retail push.

Amazon asks viewers for help in selecting which pilots to turn into original TV series.

Ahold donates a half-million dollars to Boston fund.

Boeing will see timeline of Dreamliner return to skies vary widely around globe.

Chipotle sees expansion of US investigation into its hiring.

Clorox aims to expand market for Green Works beyond niche.

Coach fights to keep its cachet as competition rises.

Comedy Central plans to use Twitter to host comedy festival.Continue reading...

Who knew The Weather Channel was such a hot commodity?

It turns out that the cable network's online and mobile properties are hot beds for advertising trends and a launch pad for hyperlocal marketing initiatives for major advertisers like Taco Bell, Delta Airlines and Jeep.

Twitter and The Weather Channel (TWC) have developed a weather-based ad-targeting product, leveraging 60 percent in the twitterverse that accesses the microblogger via smartphone, to receive Promoted Tweets related to… weather. “Based on certain forecasts, Taco Bell, Seamless, Delta Airlines, Farmers, Goodyear and others have fallen in line with Ace Hardware, targeting nearby consumers via mobile ad networks such as MoPub and Jumptap and—in a lot of cases—TWC's popular smartphone app,” notes AdWeek.Continue reading...

The hits keep on coming for Chrysler, which reported a 5-percent sales increase for March over a year earlier. Its Dart compact is selling better; it just wrapped up the successful sale of a limited-edition Detroit Red Wings version of its Ram 1500 pickup; it debuted a revamped Jeep Cherokee at the New York Auto Show; and it's nurturing a boost in interest for the Motown Edition of its Chrysler 300 sedan in the walkup to the April 14 premier of Motown the Musical on Broadway.

Chrysler just reported its best monthly sales since December 2007, before its spiral into bankruptcy and rescue by Fiat and the U.S. taxpayer. Sales of Ram pickups were up 24 percent in March, reflecting the appeal of the new Ram model and an uptick in the housing sector. Jeep sales boomed by 27 percent, while Dodge brand sales rose by 15 percent.Continue reading...

Apple loses iPad Mini trademark, and finds a fan in Kim Jong-un as North Korea rattles saber and tensions rise with U.S., while increased China headaches include hacking threat and iPad regulation.

Discovery Communications expands global channel reach and launches scripted programming.

Novartis loses cancer drug patent battle in India.

Amazon buys Goodreads community-driven user reviews website.

AMC reveals new tagline and logo.

Armani hires Cate Blanchett for $10M campaign.

AT&T scores with March Madness Twitter campaign.Continue reading...

General Motors brands and Lexus were the big winners when J.D. Power & Associates announced its highly regarded annual awards for dealership-customer satisfaction based on its survey of thousands of American automotive consumers.

Three GM brands—led by GMC, and also including No. 3 Buick and No. 4 Chevrolet—placed in the top five in Power's prestigious designation. No. 2 Mini and No. 5 Volkswagen rounded out the top five. Three Chrysler Group brands—Jeep, Ram and Dodge—finished at the bottom.

In the luxury arena, Lexus once again won the day—for the fifth straight year—followed by yet another GM brand, Cadillac; Jaguar; Acura; and Infiniti. BMW and Mercedes-Benz placed below average, while Land Rover gained the most of any luxury brand from last year.Continue reading...

The question of adding brands has become a hot topic for auto companies these days as they revisit strategies from before the Great Recession. Fiat, Chrysler and Volkswagen are among car makers that have become bullish on new brands while General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Hyundai are among competitors that haven't moved in that direction.

It didn't seem that this would be an issue as recently as three years ago. GM famously shed Saturn, Saab, Hummer and Pontiac (a few years after killing Oldsmobile) as it shrank down for the 2009 bailout, while Ford finally deep-sixed Mercury after decades of keeping it on life support. Going lean with brand architecture, the thinking was, would be the future as automakers focused on globalizing product platforms and marketing to keep things simpler, more cost-efficient and, they argued, less confusing to consumers.

Though lately, some players have been throwing that logic out the window—seemingly to good effect.

Chrysler, for instance, spinned off Ram from Dodge, began adding Fiat to its brand stable in the U.S., created an SRT performance sub-brand and announced that, soon, Fiat will be bringing Alfa Romeo to the United States again. Meanwhile, it has been bulking up its other brands with new products, such as Jeep, which just announced that it is resurrecting the venerable Cherokee nameplate for 2014. Continue reading...