Before NBC’s The Office hit the airwaves nine seasons ago, the folks of Scranton, Penn., were a little weary about a sitcom calling the coal-mining town home. After all, as the Scranton Times Tribune points out, the city had been the butt of jokes on All in the Family, Friends, and The Sopranos. The Championship Season, the 1973 Pulitzer winner for Drama about a high school championship team in Scranton that gets together 20 years later, doesn’t exactly leave theatergoers feeling like they want to rush off to visit the place.

Now, the series that focuses on the employees of the Dunder Mifflin paper company is coming to a close and Scrantonites seem to be pleased with how the series gave “a steady supply of residual pop culture cachet.” That cachet won’t come to an end when the series airs its final episode on May 16. It’ll fade with time, but Office love is probably at its peak in Scranton right about now, especially after the show’s cast members, writers and creative team paid a visit this past weekend as part of a big “Wrap Party,” Entertainment Weekly reports.

Along with them came about 10,000 fans who wanted to celebrate the legacy of the sitcom. The stars of the show were paraded through town, signed autographs with fans, sang old tunes to the adoring masses and sat through an extended Q&A.Continue reading...

Interbrand announces the 2013 Best Retail Brands report.

Coca-Cola honored with first Clio brand icon award.

Starbucks names new global CMO in former Sephora marketer Sharon Rothstein, as McDonald's passes Starbucks as most social brand.

Apple rumored to pull out the stops for the next iPhone to take on Samsung, which has replaced Nokia as top smartphone brand in China and confirmed it's developing a smartwatch to take on Apple's rumored wearable computer.

BlackBerry prepares to bring million-selling Z10 smartphone to U.S. on Friday with 100,000 apps.

Burger King hopes folks gobble up new turkey burger.

Carl's Jr. and Hardee's introduce Jim Beam bourbon burger.

Clorox introduces smart tube technology to packaging design.Continue reading...

One company announced the deal early, but the merger between Office Depot and OfficeMax has been a long time coming.

Office Depot jumped the gun by posting a draft press release about the deal on its web site early this morning; shortly after, the two companies confirmed that a deal was done. The still-to-be-approver merger will create an $18 billion global "office solutions" company whose combination is meant to help them survive the intensifying competition not only with archrival Staples but also with Amazon.com and other retailers that are increasingly peddling office supplies.

"In the past decade, with the growth of the internet, our industry has changed dramatically," Neil Austrian, CEO of Office Depot, said in a press release. "Combining our two companies will enhance our ability to serve customers around the world, offer new opportunities for our employees, make us a more attractive partner to our vendors, and increase stockholder value."Continue reading...

Retailers OfficeMax and Office Depot are close to becoming one entity, a source tells Reuters, in order to pose a more serious threat to competitors like Staples and Amazon. It isn’t a done deal just yet but the expected stock-for-stock merging could happen—or fall apart—this week.

The rumored merger has already set both retailers' stocks aflame, with Office Depot jumping 28 percent to $5.89 per share and OfficeMax surging 19 percent to $12.77 per share.  According to Bloomberg, the companies have been discussing a possible stock swap that would "create a single office supply retailer to compete with Staples."

While the two companies wouldn’t comment, “one of OfficeMax's top shareholders, Neuberger Berman, said it would support a merger with Office Depot depending on terms of the deal,” the Chicago Tribune reports.Continue reading...

Disney and Netflix sign landmark agreement for the web streaming service.

GlaxoSmithKline begins assembling new global branding effort on its impact around the world.

Tesco bails out of Fresh & Easy venture in U.S.

AOL's Advertising.com group acquires Buysight.

Apple upgrades iTunes, secures USPTO patent for "retina."

Beer tax dispute heats up in Europe.

Blu Dot tests Twitter game of musical chairs.

BMW has US luxury auto sales crown in its sights.

Campbell Soup Company donates $500K to Salvation Army.

Citigroup announces 11,000 job cuts and $1B charge.Continue reading...

The retail stampede is on, as early bird shoppers are being wooed this year to become pre-bird shoppers.

Whether Black Friday actually starts on Thanksgiving Thursday at 5:23 p.m., which is when eBay says it starts, or 9 p.m., which is when Target is opening its doors, doesn't really matter anymore. The fact is that America's biggest shopping day is getting a jump on itself, and there's no going back. Neither will retailers trying to get a jump on Black Friday by pre-positioning themselves with shoppers weeks ahead of time as they set their Black Friday plans.

Walmart already has released its Black Friday promotions online — buy now! — telling USA Today that it has bought so "deep" that it will have enough of some of the hottest electronics items — including iPad 2s — to satisfy shoppers who are sure to swarm their stores on Thanksgiving night while the day's slate of NFL games on TV is still playing itself out. Of course, retail workers are outraged, with charges of "pure greed" being bandied about, while at least one Walmart (in Bergen County, NJ) is being forced to close for two hours on Thanksgiving to give staffers a chance to gobble down some turkey.

Walmart and other bricks-and-mortar chains have been shifting more of their deals for Black Friday to the web for some time now. Staples plans to begin on Thanksgiving Day with some special mobile offers. The National Retail Federation projects that fewer Americans will brave physical stores this year than last year — but thanks to the deals and ease of shopping online, they'll spend more.Continue reading...

Apple stock plunge concerns Wall Street.

Toyota recalls another 2.77 million vehicles.

Papa John's hit with $250 million lawsuit over unwanted text-message (aka spam) promotion.

BP settles with Russian partner.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II depicts David Petraeus as secretary of defense.

Cisco beats profit estimates.

GM and Peugeot halt talks on deeper tie-up.Continue reading...

Heading into last year's year-end holiday selling season, Amazon flexed its muscles and felt some backlash when it provided an app that allowed consumers to find lower prices on any products they found at competing brick-and-mortar retailers. This year, Amazon is finding plenty of new ways to corral consumers as the holiday seasons looms ever closer. One marketing tactic sees the e-tail giant expanding its premium Amazon Prime program. For an extra $8 a month, consumers can get free 2-day shipping, monthly Kindle rentals, and a selection of unlimited streaming video.

And back on the muscle-flexing front, the company just won a legal battle against Apple and such publishers as Simon & Schuster and HarperCollins in Europe, which allows the online retailer to sell online books cheaper than its competitors. Another battle keeping its lawyers busy is for the .cloud domain name, which Amazon wants to secure — but so does Symantec, ARUBA S.p.A., CloudNames AS, and Dash Cedar, among others. 

But don’t think Amazon has completely ditched the brick-and-mortar world. Staples, the largest U.S. office supply retailer, is planning to install Amazon-branded lockers in its stores that would allow consumers to have Amazon packages shipped to their stores for pick-up. Amazon already has similar deals with a few grocery, convenience, and drug stores, including at select D'Agostino, Gristede and Rite-Aid stores in New York.