The latest brand to hop on the crowdfunding bandwagon is giving students a unique way to get geared up for college.

On Tuesday, Microsoft launched Chip In, its innovative platform that lets students with an .edu email address pay for their Windows PC purchases. Included in the promotion are some of Windows' top offerings, including its Surface Pro. To get things rolling, Microsoft contributed 10 percent of the cost as the first donation, leaving the rest up to family and friends, who donate via a personalized campaign page. 

When a campaign is fully funded, the student receives a promotional coupon code to buy the device from MicrosoftStore.com, redeemable only with an .edu college e-mail address or international student identity card. To make the platform more enticing, Microsoft is offering free four-year subscriptions to Office 365 University edition for the first 10,000 students who sign up.Continue reading...

Apple faces a limited ban on product sales in wake of court victory by Samsung.

Toyota recalls nearly a quarter-million Prius and Lexus hybrids.

Allegiant Air emerges as most profitable airline in America.

Amazon plans major expansion of grocery delivery, report says, while it is attacked by French culture minister as "destroyer of bookshops" and reaches deal with Viacom to stream kids' shows.

Bloomberg begins fund to invest in startups.

Carl's Jr and Hardee's go after McDonald's disaffected Angus customers.

Chrysler challenge of federal recall effort on Jeeps is unusual.

Delta plans to reduce operations at Memphis hub.Continue reading...

Sometimes serendipity brings marketers together in a partnership that makes great sense for both. That appears to be what has happened in a California-only linkup between Fiat and Jones Soda.

Fancying themselves on the cutting edge of American culture, the two brands were already talking, but when they discovered that Fiat was planning to roll out its new California-only 500e this spring at the same time that Jones was planning to launch distribution of its new Natural Jones Soda in California, a fated promotion took shape.

Thus, the newly announced "Jonesin' for a Fiat 500e" summer-photo contest promotion featuring the new all-electric version of the Fiat 500 and the lighter-calorie, reduced-sugar line of new sodas introduced by one of the original boutique-soft-drink brands. They'll be seeking submissions of photos of any Fiat 500 model via social media, partnering in sampling Natural Jones Soda and providing peeks at the 500e at California surfing events and other showcases, and even giving away Natural Jones to visitors to Fiat "studios" in the state.Continue reading...

What parent wouldn’t want their kid to eat a cereal that improved his or her “attentiveness, memory, and other cognitive functions by 20 percent?” Pretty much none. Unfortunately for Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats, that phrase may also describe the validity of the claim.

The company has been ordered to shell out $4 million in a class-action suit as part of an agreement in which Kellogg’s won’t be assigned a guilty or innocent verdict. AdWeek notes that the company “changed its marketing message” after the Federal Trade Commission filed a false-advertising case against the company in 2009 after an ad was aired that claimed that the cereal was “clinically shown to improve kids’ attentiveness by 11 percent,” ThinkProgress.org reports.Continue reading...

Following global anti-GMO marches and the discovery of unapproved GMO wheat in an Oregon field, the latest blow to Monsanto has been dealt by its own governance. The company, which manufactures genetically-modified organisms announced that it would cease its GMO lobbying efforts in Europe as it faces increasing opposition from the European Union and local farmers. 

"We are no longer working on lobbying for more cultivation in Europe," said Brandon Mitchner, representative for Monsanto’s European branch, Tageszeitung in an interview, according to RT.com. "Currently we do not plan to apply for the approval of new genetically modified crops. The reason is, among other things, low demand of the farmers.” Monsanto Germany spokeswoman Ursula Luttmer-Ouazane added, "We've understood that such plants don't have any broad acceptance in European societies. It is counterproductive to fight against windmills."  

Most recently, Austria, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland and Italy have joined the EU in wanting to ban the cultivation of GM crops, invoking an environmental protection provision knows as the "Safeguard Clause." Monsanto competitors Bayer CropScience, BASF and Syngenta have already pulled out of the German market due to widespread opposition.Continue reading...

Just as the conventional wisdom in the auto industry used to be that Toyota's quality always would be unparalleled, the thought has been that Ford would never catch General Motors in US sales volume.

But these days, just as Toyota's grip on the quality crown is being threatened by some other auto makers, Ford has come within a whisper of beating GM in sales. In May, on the strength of a 14 percent year-over-year sales gain, Ford came within 6,000 units of besting its long-time larger rival in US sales, as GM posted just a 3 percent relative gain.

"It's not necessarily saying that GM's performance was bad, becasue it wasn't," said Jessica Caldwell, an analyst for Edmuncs.com, according to The New York Times. "It was just that Ford was better. Ford has a balance in their portfolio, while GM is a little more hit or miss."Continue reading...

Since 2009, Intel has been touting themselves as the "Sponsors of Tomorrow," but now, the storied brand is focusing more closely on the present as it encourages a new wave of tech-savvy consumers to "Look Inside."

The new slogan, a play on the brand's longtime marketing campaign "Intel Inside" is indicative of a shift towards a more focused, crisp brand identity. "'Sponsors of tomorrow' didn’t leverage our heritage as much as 'Look inside' does," Deborah Conrad, VP and CMO at Intel told The New York Times. "'Look inside' is a call to action, and 'Intel inside' says, 'Hey, here I am.'"

The change in market messaging coincides with Intel’s announcement of its fourth-generation Core microarchitecture, formerly code-named Haswell. The hybrid processor-graphics combo on a single chip can deliver 50 percent better battery life than current-generation laptops and twice the graphics performance for computers, gaming machines, desktops and laptops. “The chips use extensive “power gating,” where unused transistors—the on-off components of digital computing—are turned off when they are not in use and reawakened quickly when needed,” explains VentureBeat.Continue reading...

Since sunglasses and sportswear powerhouse Oakley started to really go after a female audience back in 2005, the company has learned that you can’t just make your products pink and expect the women to start showing up. 

“Companies don't think about the special needs females have,” Josée Perreault, Oakley's senior VP-global business and the brand's highest-ranking female executive, told AdAge. “It's a trap that male-dominant companies fall into. We're totally [past that]—though there's still some pink in our collection.”

Since those ill-fated efforts, Oakley “has improved its designs, placed more women in leadership roles, launched women-specific ad campaigns and started an education program dubbed ‘Female Speak’ in stores,” AdAge reports. It’s first female-focused campaign, “Perform Beautifully,” came out in 2010, but didn’t differentiate itself enough from other brands.Continue reading...