When we profiled the Kashi brand in 2010, it was a company emerging as a leader in the natural and organic food category. While it started out making cereals, after being acquired in 2000 by the cereal giant Kellogg, Kashi embarked on an aggressive expansion plan to expand its brand to snack bars, crackers, cookies, waffles, pizza, and frozen entrees.

Kashi has continued to bask in the positive light of natural and organic goodness, fueled by the 9.5 percent growth of the U.S. organic industry in 2011 to a cool $31.5 billion in sales, according to the Organic Trade Association. Arguably, Kashi has been a natural and organic foods darling — an example of a brand that stayed true to its core — and certainly not one expected to be connected with controversy. Until recently.Continue reading...

The Olympic Games is one of the biggest platforms for branding, with its international spotlight shining on more than four billion TV viewers in some 200 countries and territories worldwide. 

Sustainability has been front and center for the London 2012 Olympics, as the London Olympics organizing committee (LOCOG) bid was based (and awarded) on the promise on making the 2012 Summer Games the "greenest ever," starting with the initial bid through the building of the low-carbon Olympic Park. Of course, with any lofty (particularly environmental) goal comes great scrutiny — and peril if perceived to be falling short.Continue reading...

The Olympic Games is one of the biggest platforms for branding, with its international spotlight shining on more than four billion TV viewers in some 200 countries and territories worldwide. 

Sustainability has been front and center in the London 2012 Olympics, as the London Olympics organizing committee (LOCOG) bid was based (and awarded) on the promise on making the 2012 Summer Games the "greenest ever," starting with the initial bid through the building of the low-carbon Olympic Park. Of course, with any lofty (particularly environmental) goal comes great scrutiny — and peril if perceived to be falling short.Continue reading...

As the globe tuned in to watch the Formula One race last Sunday in Bahrain — which went ahead despite the slew of politicians, human rights groups, and even F1 fans who argued against it — fans of the sport are questioning what kind of hit the F1 brand has taken as a result of the controversy, particularly as F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone is rumored to be planning a return in 2013.

The controversy stems from the months of violence and political unrest that have snarled the country. Protesters called the race “a publicity stunt by the country's rulers to make the nation seem more unified than it actually is,” according to CNN.

Even though last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix was cancelled due to a spate of violence, F1 officials went ahead with the 2012 race, which saw the ouster of a team of a British journalists (a TV crew for Channel 4) who were covering the anti-government protests hours before Sunday's race. Reporters for CNN, Reuters and the Financial Times were denied entry altogether.Continue reading...

Bank of America just can't get out of the limelight. We noted late last year BofA's questionable decision to introduce monthly debit card fees during the much-hyped Occupy Wall Street protests. Now, months after the OWS movement has died down, BofA is again facing populist scrutiny with this week's launch of a parody website: YourBofA.com.

The website has been attributed to The Yes Men, who have been credited for other satirical websites for the likes of George Bush and the WTO.

The mock BofA website opens with a fake letter from CEO Brian Moynihan acknowledging that the bank “isn't working anymore” and suggesting that the American taxpayer will ultimately own the company. Further, the website offers a forum to visitors to suggest ideas for how to improve the bank and its policies.

The site even hits below the belt by bringing grandmas into the mix, prominently displaying an elderly woman next to the quote “I want my bank to let grandmas stay in houses they've owned their whole lives.” And if all of that wasn't enough, another section of the spoofed site allows visitors to create fake BofA ads online or by downloading Photoshop templates. Customers, beware.

Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, with 2011 sales of $421.85 billion, is dealing with a major blow to its reputation after being accused over the weekend of a far-reaching bribery campaign carried out by executives in Mexico eager to boost the company's growth in that market.

The New York Times described the Mexican scandal as “a prolonged struggle within the company that pitted its much publicized commitment to the highest moral and ethical standards against its relentless pursuit of growth.”Continue reading...

For more than a decade, Vermont artist Bo Muller-Moore has been making t-shirts that urge folks to “eat more kale” instead of, oh, fast food.

He’s received a lot of free publicity and an uptick in sales in recent months thanks to the legal eagles at Chick-fil-A who have been trying to get him to stop using the phrase after he filed for a trademark. The chain feels his t-shirt slogan is too close to its trademarked “Eat mor chikin” slogan (misspelled as a cow might spell it — if a cow could write signs begging fast food restaurant brands to serve another species' meat).

While plenty of folks have had a chuckle or two over the legal kerfuffle, it’s anything but funny to the food chain’s lawyers, who filed a complaint last week with the Trademark office that consumers may think the two messages are coming from the same place, according to Vermont's Burlington Free Press.

A day later, the Trademark office announced that it agreed with Chick-fil-A that "Eat more kale" is too close to "Eat more chikin," and now Muller-Moore has six months to respond or the rejection of this trademark request will become permanent.Continue reading...

The general public got its first glimpse of "finely textured meat" (aka pink slime) almost a year ago, when Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution on ABC raised the issue with moms in a Los Angeles school district, but since then the hue and cry against the ammonia-treated filler has beent aken over by parents and nutritional advocates using, deftly, the free social media tools at their disposal.

The issue certainly caught the eye of Houston resident Bettina Siegel, who writes about kids and food on her blog, The Lunch Tray. Siegel posted a petition on Change.org on March 6th, rallying support to lobby Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to “put an immediate end to the use of ‘pink slime’ in our children’s school food.”

By the next day, more than 220,000 names had been added, rare for the site which launches 10,000 petitions on average each month. "It was incredible," said Brianna Cayo Cotter, communications director of Change.org, regarding Siegel’s petition. "In 10 days she made the USDA, the meat industry and major retailers all back away from it. Now the demand for pink slime has dropped so dramatically that some of the factories are starting to shut down."Continue reading...