Aston-Martin sells stake to Italian private-equity firm.

Citigroup sees CMO depart for Gilt.

YouTube relaunches site to feature original channels.

Coca-Cola relaunches Glaceau Vitimanwater in the UK.

Daily Beast considers charging for web content as Washington Post also plans paywall.

Delta faces California suit over app.

Ford finds opportunities in "social shifting."

Google to rein in free Google Apps.Continue reading...

One of the main reasons for Kraft to split into its new Kraft Foods and Mondelez International units was to free the latter to pursue the beckoning opportunities in the global snacking business without being tied down to the slower-growth, mature North American groceries business, which now alone comprises Kraft Foods.

But in the early going, at least, both newly independent entities are pursuing something of the same strategy to tap into their separate growth opportunities: paring back non-performing, small or relatively insignificant brands, and applying innovation resources and expansion ambitions to brands that have a chance to make the most of them.

Mondelez, for example, already has said that it may divest some products as it seeks to streamline its range. The company will pursue a "simplification agenda," Tom Cofer, head of Europe for Mondelez, confirmed to Bloomberg.Continue reading...

Ever heard of Beer Nuts? The brand of bar peanuts, redolent as it is of junk foods and calorie-laden alcoholic concoctions, is typical of male consumption of nuts.

But now Kraft has another approach in mind. Leveraging the increasingly understood association between nuts and health in a new way, the Planters brand has signed a deal to co-brand a nutritious nut mix with Men's Health magazine, as we noted here yesterday.

Planters Nut-rition Men's Health Recommended Mix has rolled out with an advertising campaign on the back cover of the May issue of the magazine and a TV spot (watch it below) that's now running on ESPN and other US cable networks.Continue reading...

ESPN's new Michael Jordan commercial, above, features a different Jordan, hilariously.

Below, P&G's new Tide commercial promotes its support of US athletes at the London 2012 Olympic Games, T-Mobile spokesmodel ditches the pink dress, Planters goes nuts with Men's Health, and more new campaigns:Continue reading...

Remember all that stuffy marketing from Kraft brands like Oreo, Trident and Tang? Well, once the newly named Mondelēz unit gets its freedom from Kraft in a spinoff of the company's fast-growing, internationally oriented snacks business, expect the marketing chiefs to push the envelope.

The brands to be deposited into Mondelēz — including the aforementioned Oreo, Trident and Tang — "tend to have a younger, vibrant appeal that allow us to push the edge of the marketing much further than some of the classic, traditional, more Midwestern-focused brands," said Mary Beth West, Kraft's chief marketing officer, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. "That's not a value judgment," she insisted.

But West herself does plan to leave "Midwest" parent company Kraft Foods — based in Northfield, Ill. — to join Mondelēz. And she will be taking Dana Anderson, Kraft Foods SVP of marketing strategy and communications to join Kraft Foods CEO Irene Rosenfeld, who is also decamping to Mondelēz.Continue reading...

When M&M’s Ms. Brown appeared on TV screen during the Super Bowl, she represented a whole new resurgence for brand mascots. They may seem retro, but branded characters and icons are making a comeback because, as the Wall Street Journal reporter Suzanne Vranica points out above, who wants to talk to a logo?

While mascots took off in the 1950s, the use of icons had fallen out of favor in recent years ... but that was before Twitter and Facebook. Mr. Clean, for instance, has 277,000 fans via his Facebook page. The latest example: a new ad campaign by StubHub, which is using a talking tree as its mascot.Continue reading...

What's in a name? Kraft Foods is about to find out, after announcing today that Mondelēz International is the moniker of the corporate global snack-foods unit that it will spin off by the end of this year, as announced last August.

"Mondelay," you say? Nay, nay! No need to dust off your high school French. The new name — pronounced "Mohn-dah-LEEZ" — is a Kraft-coined word that, the company explained in a press release, is intended to evoke the idea of "delicious world."

"Monde" derives from the Latin (and French) word for "world," the company explained, and "dēlez" is a "fanciful expression of 'delicious.'" And, of course, "International" captures "the global nature of the business."

Even though it won't be consumer-facing, pronunciation will be a challenge ("mon-de-lay," "mon-de-less," or "mon-de-leez"?) for the new name which was, as it turns out, employee-sourced.

Last fall, Kraft invited staffers around the world to suggest names and received suggestions from more than 1,000 employees. The winner was inspired by separate suggestions from two employees, one in North America and one in Europe.Continue reading...

When Luke Dunphy began eating an amalgamation of Oreos as if it were corn on the cob in an episode of ABC's Modern Family last week week, it put a cap on a frenetic and impactful season of marketing for Kraft and its assorted brands.

Having the kid character pig out on Oreo cream was a winning bit of TV-sitcom placement befitting the 100th anniversary of the iconic cookie introduced by Nabisco, which later was acquired by Kraft. But Kraft also has been getting more aggressive about promoting other and some newer brands as well, ranging from the new BelVita Breakfast Biscuits to a line extension of its Mio drink-mix-in brand to the launch for its Planters Peanut Butter.

What's going on here? For one thing, the venerable company likely is trying to juice the performance of many of these reliable brands before it divides them between a North American grocery business and a global snacks firm by the end of this year, to try to create better financial results for the whole.Continue reading...