Ardent sports fans love having access to info as it happens. What’s the score right now? Who is winning the race? How many fouls have already been committed?

But answering questions like these along with watching videos of spectacular plays or events can use up a lot of a mobile user’s monthly data plan, but ESPN is apparently considering a way to help those poor sports-obsessed folks out.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, “ESPN is considering a plan to pay wireless carriers for the mobile content used by the sports channel's subscribers.” That way, any usage of ESPN mobile content wouldn’t count against a user’s monthly data plan. Such a deal isn’t imminent, but it has been discussed with at least one major carrier, the Journal notes.Continue reading...

Lipton is going back to basics, in a way, to add new aroma to its U.S. tea business with the first marketing campaign behind its staple black-tea products in America in nearly a quarter-century.

Lipton—the biggest name in tea globally, at over 100 countries and 100 years old—also has held on to its lead in the US CPG dry-tea market for decades, despite essentially having ignored its basic black teas in a marketing sense.

Now, the Unilever-owned brand has launched a campaign aimed at getting US tea consumers to "Drink Positive" (a play on "Think Positive") and to appreciate the uplift that tea can give them. It's also a move to increase the number of tea-drinkers by skewing younger.

The integrated campaign by DDB New York includes TV, digital (liptontea.com, its US Facebook page, Instagram and Twitter) and a visual refresh by making the iconic Lipton packaging a more vibrant shade of yellow.Continue reading...

It hasn’t been easy for Air Canada in recent years with plenty of quarterly reports filled with losses. So what's an airline in the red to do? Launch a new sub-brand called "Rouge," of course.

Starting in July, Canadians can start using the new low-cost airline, which will initially fly out of Toronto and Montreal to such destinations as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Costa Rica as well as Venice, Italy; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Athens. Consumers could start buying tickets Tuesday. 

Later next year, Rouge plans to add more Canadian cities to fly out of as well as international destinations – and not just the ones that Air Canada flies to. "The creation of this carrier is to assist us in serving many destinations that our existing model does not work on a competitive basis," said Ben Smith, Air Canada's chief commercial officer, to the CBC.

According to Yahoo! Finance, Air Canada plans to hire 200 people for Rouge, but those employees shouldn’t expect to be rolling in dough. “Cost savings are expected to come from paying lower wages,” the report notes, “and putting more seats in planes in a so-called new ‘multi-tier seating’ structure.” And we’re not talking just a few more seats. The CBC hears it could be as much as 20 percent more. Prepare to not only fasten your seatbelts but suck in your gut, Canada.Continue reading...

H&M has announced that its new store brand, & Other Stories, will launch in Spring 2013 in "selected European countries," with an online hub at stories.com (which was registered in March), and a waiting Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Along with the news that H&M's U.S. e-commerce launch has been moved to Summer 2013, H&M commented on the pending & Other Stories launch in the company's third quarter earnings update, which was softer than expected —Continue reading...

Starbucks has always been good for a pick-me-up in the morning. And now it is aiming to be a good place for a bring-me-down at day’s end.

The coffee chain has been experimenting with serving wine, beer, and small plates of food in select Pacific Northwest locations. Now the practice is getting its first test run elsewhere.

Starting Friday, visitors to its spacious (4,500 square feet) Woodfield location in the Chicago suburb Schaumburg, Ill., will be able to order a glass of wine or beer and warm rosemary cashews, among other things, according to the Chicago Tribune. By year’s end, five more stores in the area will do the same.Continue reading...

Starbucks has been spreading its wings in recent months. First the news came that some of its outlets would start serving beer and wine. Then Starbucks opened its first Evolution Fresh juice bar in suburban Seattle. Earlier this month, the ubiquitous coffee chain purchased the Bay Area's La Boulange bakery for $100 million in a bid to upgrade its food offerings. (That deal was done in cash, by the way. No word if the money was in a briefcase handcuffed to anybody’s wrist.)

That’s a lot of wing-spreading, but Starbucks execs over there must be cranking down extra double espressos these days because now comes word that Starbucks is giving more love to another sub-brand by opening its first Tazo tea store this fall in the hopes of doing for tea what the company has done for coffee drinking.

The plan is for the Tazo store, located in its corporate hometown of Seattle, to “sell more than 80 varieties of loose-leaf tea and other tea products,” Reuters reports, and “also offer hot and cold tea drinks, brewing equipment, pastries, packaged chocolates, infused sugars and honey.” As it is now, Tazo is a $1.4 billion brand for Starbucks, but the company would like to grow it since it estimates that the global market for tea is $95 billion.

And today Starbucks announced its first Seattle's Best Coffee "commuter concept" store in Brooklyn, near the NYC borough's new Barclays Center sports arena that will be home to the Brooklyn Nets this fall.

According to a press release, SBC's "concept menu, which debuted as a test in Chicago in March, boasts delicious coffee beverages, and commuter-friendly sandwiches and snacks that will appear for the first time on the East Coast." We assume that Brooklyn Nets co-owner Jay-Z will approve.

The images may make it look like a notebook, but Microsoft's new Surface line is all about tablets. As the center of the computing industry continues to shift from PC to mobile, Microsoft, maker of keyboards and mice for three decades, is directly challenging Apple’s iPhone and iPad dominance with the Surface sub-brand.

"Microsoft founders Bill Gates and Paul Allen made a big bet — a bet on software — but it was always clear that we had to push hardware in ways that sometimes manufacturers hadn't envisioned," said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at Monday's unveiling. "We believe that any intersection between human and machine can be made better when all aspects, hardware and software, are working together."Continue reading...

H&M today confirmed the name for the new higher-priced store brand it's planning to open in 2013, following rumors that it was developing a new sub-brand to extend its appeal to those shoppers who zoom in whenever the fast-fashion retailer collaborates on a diffusion line with a high-end fashion designer.

A publicist for the fashion-conscious Swedish-based retailer told AFP "it is correct that H&M will launch a new chain in 2013 called & other stories, but this is all the available information we have as of today." The retailer also confirmed to just-style.com that the new store brand will launch in Europe, and will "build on the positive experience of Cos."

H&M's stable of retail brands includes the higher-end Cos in addition to Monki, Weekday and Cheap Monday. A spokeswoman told Fashionologie that the new store brand "will not be a luxury brand, but it will be a retail chain that will follow the same ambition as H&M, to offer our customers the best price for a comparable item."

The & other stories name taps into a popular theme in retail, where creating a brand story is red hot. Witness the Stefan Sagmeister-branded Story, a New York concept store that launched in February and changes its theme, fixtures, brand partners and inventory every four to eight weeks. Its current theme: color.