Coca-Cola today unveiled its London 2012 Olympics marketing plan, with an integrated campaign called "Move to the Beat" that's inspired by the sounds, spirit and culture" of the host city, and also extends and reinforces its global campaign to engage teens through music.

The centerpiece of the 2012 campaign: Grammy award-winning producer Mark Ronson is creating an anthem with flame-haired British singer Katy B that "fuses the sounds of Olympic sports with the beat of London music."Continue reading...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, unleashing a tidal wave of pink products as brands show their solidarity (and raise money) for a life-saving cause: breast cancer research. But consumers and marketers alike are leery of so-called "pinkwashing."

It's the subject of filmmaker Lea Pool’s new documentary about the industry that has grown up around breast cancer, the rise of corporate involvement in fundraising and its deleterious effect on research into the disease: Pink Ribbons, Inc., which premiered at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.

“What Pink Ribbons, Inc. questions is whether all these pink ribbons and marches and rallies are actually accomplishing anything at all, other than making people feel better because they think they’re marching for a cause,” writes Kim Voynar in Movie City News.

“More to the point, it raises the question of whether the effect of putting a pink, cheery face on the issue, and promoting the idea of “positive” fundraising walks as opposed to telling women yes, you should be getting angry and marching and protesting and demanding more support for research for a cancer whose primary risk factor is being born female, is more detrimental to actual progress than people think.”Continue reading...

Hyatt workers today returned to work, following a week-long strike that saw local religious leaders join the picket line in a show of solidarity.

Thousands of Hyatt workers in Chicago (with two hotels), Los Angeles, San Francisco and Honolulu walked off the job in a strike that ended at midnight last night, part of an "ongoing demonstration against the hotel chain, which hasn’t renegotiated contracts since Aug. 31, 2009 and has racked up 15 OSHA citations," as the Huffington Post reports.

Contract renewal talks on a new deal for housekeepers, bell staff, and restaurant and banquet workers have apparently did not go well after union workers hit the picket lines last week, “after a series of one-day work stoppages,” according to the Chicago Sun-Times.Continue reading...

He may be a captain of industry, but General Electric chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt isn't getting any salutes from other C-Suite comrades this week. They're feeling miffed that Immelt has been taking them to task, beating down US CEOs for not doing more to spur job creation.

In speaking out against corporate America, Immelt further infuriated conservative commentators who can’t abide his cozy relationship with President Obama.

Maybe Immelt didn’t get a Dale Carnegie course in winning friends and influencing people as part of his Harvard MBA, Class of ’82. In any event, earlier this week, the chair of Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness called out his fellow capitalist titans for being stingy about creating jobs at a time of rising unemployment in the US.Continue reading...

The sensational trial of Casey Anthony, the mother accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, has become the biggest media courtroom circus since O.J. It's also proving to be the most brand-laden trial since O.J. Simpson modeled gloves.Continue reading...

Weekend news: Lance Armstrong's former teammate, Tyler Hamilton, accuses him of taking performance-enhancing drugs (including during a Tour de France) in an interview on CBS's 60 Minutes — a charge the cycling champ denies. Click here to watch part 1 and part 2 of Hamilton's interview.

Also: Lady Gaga pops up on NBC's Saturday Night Live (and in a Google commercial); Tim Pawlenty confirms he's running for president; Beyonce, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift earn Billboard nods; Disney's box office Pirates booty; the Miami Heat's Chris Bosh and LeBron James prevail against the Chicago Bulls' MVP Derrick Rose; and more.Continue reading...

Wallace McCain, the head of Canada's McCain Foods, died Friday after a 13-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 81.

McCain was vice chairman of the privately-owned, family-held multinational manufacturer of frozen and non-frozen food products.

He is remembered as a great philanthropist and humanitarian who put family and corporate citizenship at the heart of McCain Foods and then Maple Leaf Foods, which he took over after being "unceremoniously dumped" (as his New York Times obituary puts it) from the family business following a feud with his brother.

Today, McCain Foods is responsible for one in three French fries, including McDonald's and KFC's, globally, while Maple Leaf is Canada's biggest supplier of packaged meats.Continue reading...

The pleasure of the annual TIME 100 special issue isn't which celebrities made the list (Justin Bieber and Oprah again?) and which ones didn't (no Lady Gaga?). It's discovering "influentials" you may not have heard of before, people quietly excelling in their fields such as Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh of the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. Check out the TIME 100 class of 2011 here and TIME's promotional clip below.Continue reading...