Yum! Brands third quarter earnings report is being closely watched.

Barclays to buy ING online assets.

Yahoo's Marissa Mayer urged to repurchase stock, profiled in New York magazine.

AT&T shares network with IBM to lure more customers to the cloud.

Amazon veers more into advertising.

American Airlines loses traffic over operational issues.

Apple asked by Taiwan to blur satellite image as Samsung spat dings brand perception.Continue reading...

Comedy Central partners with Urban Outfitters on Indecision 2012 collection.

7-11, Walmart, Target and other big retailers team up on mobile wallet to combat Google Wallet.

Apple reportedly in talks with U.S. cable operators to develop a set-top box; and takes a swing at Amazon.

Johnson & Johnson launches ingredient transparency website for baby and beauty products as J&J removes formaldehyde from products.

Bumbo foam child seats recalled following injuries.

Calvin Klein sued by Lululemon for alleged patent infringement.

Chick-fil-A uproar may have inspired gunman.Continue reading...

As the world (and London's Heathrow airport) bids adieu to the Summer Olympians and gets ready for the Paralympic Games, a few thoughts to leave you with:

IOC Chief Rogge Celebrates His Last Games            

International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge is getting ready to pass on the leadership torch and he is ending his long reign a happy man. Rogge toasted London’s Games Sunday, saying that these Olympics were “absolutely fabulous.” What bigger compliment can there be?

London 2012 Will Be Paid Off in Nine Years

The Summer Olympics may have cost billions for London to throw, including all the lost revenue from tourists who were scared away and residents who worked at home during the Games. But the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates that the whole extravagant shebang will pay for itself by 2021. The big jump will come in 2015, the think tank estimates, when the country will start generating an extra £1.8billion ($2.8 billion) a year due to the Games.Continue reading...

This will be the most broadcasted, most publicized, most branded, and most ballyhooed Olympics ever. Just when you don’t think stakes can go higher, they somehow suddenly do.

Athletes Must Now Stop Promoting Themselves

Wednesday marks the day when all self-promotion by Olympic athletes has been ordered to stop. No more gear sold with their names on it. No more ads featuring their faces to run — unless of course it is for a brand that has paid out the big bucks to officially align itself with the Games. The moratorium will last till Aug. 15, three days after the end of the Games. As NPR points out, "To understand what this means, consider Michael Phelps: Subway has long sponsored the Olympic swimmer, but it's not an Olympic sponsor. That means no Subway ads featuring Phelps can air between July 18 and Aug. 15. But this Head & Shoulders commercial of Phelps washing his hair is fine — Head & Shoulders is owned by Procter & Gamble, which is an Olympic sponsor." Blame the IOC and London 2012 organizing committee's drive to protect official sponsors from non-sponsors piggybacking on their efforts. “Ambush marketing seems to be an issue that continues to rear its head in every Games,” said Lisa Baird, the USOC’s chief marketing officer, according to the Washington Post. “There are ambush marketers out there that want to imply an association with the Olympics. They’ll take terminology; imagery, and they will get very close or crossing the line to really imply that they are a sponsor. That hurts us.” That hurts all of us, Lisa.Continue reading...

"Digital is one of the most crucial things for a modern brand manager to get right, so the pressure is on for (social media/digital strategist) Siobhan to explain her strategy. Twitter, Facebook, Mashable and even MySpace all have their part to play in creating the digital legacy for the Games."

BBC Two's Twenty Twelve comedy series (already a must-see) nails the overzealously social nature of the London 2012 Summer Olympics in the video above. All kidding aside, teams of social media strategists at the BBC and indeed around the world have been working almost as vigorously as the athletes, organizers and sponsors on how to make this the most interactive Olympic Games yet.

Since the previous Olympics in Beijing, tech advancements including Super Hi-Vision, live 3D TV and live broadcasting via smartphones have moved center-stage. Now the advent of social apps, social TV and social everything will be threaded through this Olympics, and — brace yourselves — all Olympics to come.Continue reading...

In the wake of skepticism by brands — such as GM's recent we're out/we're in Facebook dance — on the efficacy of FB ads, the venerable BBC decided to put it to a test.

The BBC's tech reporter, Rory Cellan-Jones, created a bogus brand on Facebook, calling it VirtualBagel, to test the effectiveness of Facebook advertising by posing questions (such as asking why users clicked "like" on the page) and trying to suss out what makes users trust brands they encounter, even fake brands, on the site.

The page showed minimal information, but within 24 hours, had more than 1,600 ‘likes,’ primarily from India, Egypt, Indonesia and the Philippines, and the page was most popular overall in Cairo, with 75% of ‘likers’ 13 to 17-year-olds. Within four days, it amassed 3,000 likes, clearly from fake profiles of people living in those countries.

"What was striking was that hardly anyone from the US or the UK - two of the most valuable markets for advertisers - appeared to have clicked to like VirtualBagel," commented Cellan-Jones about the response to the faux FB brand page. 

Furthermore, “when the advert was adjusted to target only the UK, the number of people liking the page dropped to a trickle and the click-through rate - one measure of effectiveness - fell to just 10% of the previous level.”Continue reading...

Olympic sponsor Adidas has unveiled the next phase of its Olympic 'Take the Stage' campaign, above. The focus of the spot is Team Great Britain athletes in what's being called the brand's biggest-ever marketing spend. According to Brand Republic, "It's being supported by a large-scale digital output across a dedicated site, www.adidas.com/all2012, Facebook and Twitter, using the handle @adidasUK, with a dedicated hashtag #takethestage, which will run for the next six weeks." Below, check out the official London 2012 Predator shoe and a new addition to Stella McCartney's Team GB Olympics kit — a rain cape.Continue reading...

With 32 days before the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games kick off in London....

Official sponsor McDonald's UK offers sneak peek at designer Wayne Hemingway's sustainable, Mad Men-inspired uniforms that will debut at its biggest restaurant (if for only six weeks), which is now under construction at the London Olympics Park:Continue reading...