Soccer’s quadrennial World Cup is the world’s most-watched sporting event, but there is another event held annually that packs a heftier long-term punch for 500 kids from around the world.

Since 2000, France’s Groupe Danone—the makers of such products as Evian, Naya and Volvic water along with Brown Cow, Stonyfield and Dannon yogurt, among other products—has sponsored 40 youth soccer teams from across the globe to come play in the Danone Nations Cup, essentially a World Cup for the 10- to 12-year-old set. Since 2003, the event has been supported by former French soccer great Zinedine Zidane, who gracelessly ended his career at the 2006 World Cup by getting kicked out of the game for headbutting an Italian player. 

After nine championships in France and two in South Africa, the Cup Final has been played in Spain and Poland in the last two years. Word has finally come this week that the world’s youth soccer elite will be heading to London’s Wembley Stadium for this year’s final on Sept. 7. The American team will be decided after the U.S. final to be held on May 27.Continue reading...

Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg continually stresses the rationale for organic eating and frequently mentions that avoiding diseases caused by pesticides and other factors in the diet is a huge part of it. But it's a strong message that isn't digested easily by American consumers who aren't true believers in organic, so the brand must continually develop more palatable ways to spread the gospel of organic eating.

The brand's new "Be a Food Superhero" campaign attempts to make that message more fun. The Londonderry, N.H.-based leader of the U.S. organic-yogurt market — majority-owned by Groupe Danone — is pitching the light-hearted campaign on Facebook to draw folks to a microsite.

Once there, they can virtually assume the identity of a "superhero" and use that persona to explore baby steps that they can take to improve their diet and the sustainability of organic agriculture. Along the way, the brand will kick in a contribution by Stonyfield to FoodCorps, which builds "healhty school food environments in high-obesity, limited-resource communities," as Stonyfield put it in a statement.Continue reading...

The catchphrase of The Lorax — "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing's going to get better" — can mean a lot of different things depending on one's perspective when it comes to the marketing of Universal's record-breaking new #1 movie.

To purists, it means that unless consumers speak up, Hollywood's commercialization of Dr. Seuss, including signing a cross-promotional sponsorship deal with an automaker, the movie's environmental message is for naught. To Mazda, the brand that's ponying up for The Lorax tie-in, it means that unless some consumers care an awful lot, sales numbers are not going to get better.

But is the outrage about Mazda's Lorax partnership making "perfect" the enemy of "good" — and overlooking ?Continue reading...

100 likes, 857 dislikes. That's the YouTube tally for the Mazda tie-in commercial for Dr. Seuss' The Lorax movie, based on the animated version of the kids' classic environmental-themed book that's hitting cinemas on March 2nd.

The comment "I'm absolutely disgusted with this! The REAL Lorax would never work with the Onceler. Mazda, stop using Dr. Seuss's material, it's only going to make your company look bad and downright stupid" has been voted up 28 times. Another irate comment, "Consider the movie and car both boycotted. WTF were you thinking?" is par for the course.

The shame of it? It all could have been avoided.Continue reading...

Dannon USA hasn't advertised in the Super Bowl before, but executives of the American arm of France's Groupe Danone know a good Super Bowl ad when they see one.

"It has to be memorable," Michael Newirth, senior director of communications for Dannon USA, told brandchannel. "It tends to have a healthy dose of humor. And usually it's got some element of surprise. And you can expect to see some of all of those in [the ad] we share on February 5."

And actually, Dannon has given a lot away already about what its first-ever ad in the Big Game will entail.Continue reading...

It used to be easy to succumb to guilty pleasures when traveling. After all, the hotel minibars were stocked with cookies, chips, and sodas, among other things. Not anymore. The healthy-food marketplace has entered this previously untouched zone: organic has come to the hotel minibar.

Marketwatch reports that “hotels and resorts are increasingly stocking minibars with healthier alternatives to traditional high-fat, high-sugar snacks,” which is helpful to the waistlines of travelers as well as the bank accounts of hotel owners and healthy-food providers.

The report notes that Hyatt's Andaz Wall Street in New York stocks organic Clif Bars and Terra plain and vegetable natural chips in its minibars, while the Four Seasons Austin in Texas is testing sales of six “organic, healthy and/or locally-produced products, including peeled mango, ginger tea and nut-and-fruit gluten-free energy bars” this summer. And those two luxury hotel locations aren’t alone.Continue reading...

Yogurt-maker Stonyfield Farm prides itself on being a good steward of the Earth. In addition to producing organic yogurt, Stonyfield gives 10% of its profits to efforts that help to protect and restore the planet (that's over $12 million so far).

Now the New England-based company is introducing "one of the first plant-based containers for the dairy industry and believed to be the first for yogurt," according to AP.

Stonyfield will begin packaging its yogurt in containers using PLA, the polyactic acid polymer made from corn. The packaging may be created from a renewable source, but typically it uses genetically modified corn as the basis for production.Continue reading...

AOL and several private-equity firms are exploring making an offer to buy Yahoo, according to the Wall Street Journal, "devising a bold plan to marry two big Internet brands facing steep challenges." (The New York Times' take: not so fast.) Yahoo's shares soared this morning on the report.

Audi Q5, Cadillac SRX, Volvo XC60 and other "less sexy models" propel U.S. luxury auto sales.

Burberry sales rise, fueled by Asia.

BYD gets a setback in plant construction from the Chinese government.

Corona Light aims to be “most liked” brew on social media.

Edge shave gel launches “anti-irritation” campaign via Twitter.Continue reading...