Say good-bye to low-ball bidding. After a handful of offers that severely under-valued video streaming giant Hulu, it looks as if those interested have keyed up their game. 

The behind-closed-doors bidding war heated up over the weekend with bids of up to $1 billion from Yahoo, Time Warner and DirecTV as well as bids from Silver Lake Management, Guggenheim Digital, investment firm KKR and media executive Peter Chernin. 

"Today, 89 million people in the US will watch 1.2 billion online videos,” notes VentureBeat. “By 2016, online video viewers are expected to double to 1.5 billion.” It's no doubt that whoever snatches up Hulu will have a very lucrative addition to the family. Hulu recently announced more than 4 million paid subscribers of Hulu Plus, its $7.99 per month subscription service that lets users watch content on mobile devices and set-top boxes not available to those with a free account. First-quarter 2013 saw nearly one million people sign up and combined subscriptions and ad revenues saw Hulu generate $695 million last year.Continue reading...

Walmart is clearly the world's largest dry-goods grocer but it may surprise many to find out that the chain also is the world's largest single seller of fresh produce. Now the company is trying to leverage that status by developing a new ad campaign about its produce chops, highlighting and simplifying a 100 percent money-back guarantee, stripping time out of the produce-logistics network and training store personnel to do a better job of weeding out bad fruit.

In doing so, Walmart is attempting to move to the front of grocery trends including more healthful eating and "local" sourcing of produce, and "sustainability" overall, in the same way that its major plunge into organic foods a few years ago vaulted it to trailblazing status from that of an irrelevant player.

"We're the largest seller of produce in the world, but we have the opportunity to sell more as demand increases," Jack Sinclair, Walmart's executive vice president of grocery, told reporters on a conference call on Monday. "There's a trend toward healthy eating at all demographic levels, and our goal is to make that as affordable as we possibly can. Our access to affordable produce, our systems and distribution network allow us to do that uniquely well.Continue reading...

"This seems to be the only actual ad on reddit."

That was Reddit user pierce98's salient observation about the JanSport ad that appeared recently on the popular entertainment and social network site.

Partnering with bluesy jam band The Stone Foxes—both the band and brand call the San Francisco area home—JanSport created a tour diary titled "Get on the #REVCON." ( A "Revcon" is the brand name of a classic motorcoach, aka, a "recreational vehicle.") The campaign is in several YouTube episodes and also on Reddit.tv.Continue reading...

Starbucks prohibits smoking up to 25 feet from cafes.

Apple faces start of e-book antitrust trial as it's said to be pressing for internet-radio deals.

P&G cuts online display-advertising costs.

Arby's searches for new CMO.

Chrysler sales in May rose 11 percent on strong Dodge brand sales.

Dannon teams with IBM to use big data against yogurt out-of-stocks.

Infiniti shelves EV and scales back short-term expectations.

Intel looks to shed Atom brand as it moves on from netbooks.Continue reading...

In the most literal brand extension of Coca-Cola’s "Share Happiness" campaign, Ogilvy France and Ogilvy Asia-Pacific partnered on a can that splits in half: Just twist, turn and share.

The Coke Social Can is specially designed so two people can share a soda in a totally germ-free way. "The Coke Sharing Can does twist into 2 cans from one—each with their own top to open," tweeted Kim Ball of Ogilvy & Mather France.

Coca-Cola has not revealed whether it’s a real product with a future or just a sweet promotion for its ongoing Share Happiness campaign that has seen vending machines rigged to give hugs, hand out flowers, conduct social experiments in China and even connect war-torn countries.

The brand has also run with the sharing theme in the U.K. offering a personalized Coke with 150 of the nation's most popular names, which was inspired by a pioneering 2011 campaign by Coca-Cola in Australia.

The US government now confirms: There might be something to this whole "self-driving" thing. As you were.

Catching up at least rhetorically with the state of the art automotive self-guiding technology, the US Transportation Department has made its first policy statement on autonomous vehicles and pronounced them good—for the most part. It said that driverless cars should not yet be allowed except for testing but that semiautonomous features already in widespread use preventing accidents in thousands of today's vehicles are, well... good for safety.

The department will continue to monitor their progress to make sure they stay good for safety. "Whether we're talking about automated features in cars today or fully automated vehicles of the future, our top priority is to ensure these vehicles—and their occupants—are safe," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.Continue reading...

MillerCoors Apologizes to Puerto Rican Community Over Beer Can Graphics

The National Puerto Rican Day Parade isn’t until June 9 in New York City, but there is already a lot of emotion in the air. Unfortunatley for the folks at Coors Light, which is a sponsor of the event, it isn’t all good.

Many in the Puerto Rican community were incensed that Coors Light placed what appeared to be the Puerto Rican flag on beer cans commemorating the event. The outrage has inspired MillerCoors to apologize and pull further cans from being sold. “We apologize if the graphics on our promotional packaging inadvertently offended you or any other members of the Puerto Rican community,” Nehl Horton, a spokesman for MillerCoors, wrote in a letter to the Boricuas group, according to The New York Times.

MillerCoors has sponsored the event for seven years, but not without incident. Two years ago, MillerCoors had to discontinue its Puerto Rican Day ad campaign that used the word “emborícuate,” which means “make yourself Puerto Rican.” But the play on words in the ad was on “emborráchate,” which means “get drunk.” Not a smooth move.Continue reading...

Our most-read blog posts of the week:

#1 Colgate Looks to Reinvent Toothbrushes With Caffeine, Flavors, Diet Aids

#2 Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram Play Catch-Up as Social Ad Battle Heats Up

#3 TaylorMade-Adidas Scolds Sergio Garcia After Racist Remark

#4 Puerto Rican Community Outraged Over Branded Coors Light Can

#5 News Corp. Unveils New Logo as Company Embarks on Split Future

#6 Bob McDonald Out as CEO as P&G Rehires Lafley for Top Post

#7 Sprint Interactive Cinema Experience Reveals What Androids Dream

#8 Abercrombie & Fitch Doesn't Even Look Cool To Its Investors as Brand Hits Low Point

#9 Greek-Style Yogurt Tastes Great—But Not if You're a Fish [UPDATED]

#10 Ad Watch: Kmart Has Pun, Puma's Dance Dictionary, Geico Hump Day and more