What does PepsiCo believe in even more than Beyonce? The answer might be crowdsourcing.

Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show served as the main kickoff to its huge investment in the globally popular entertainer with a concert that some felt usurped the game itself. But the walkup to her much-anticipated performance used a highly populist approach that underscored PepsiCo-Frito Lay's faith in the crowd as much as any pop star.

The bulk of the ad, produced by NYC-based Mekanism, featured a lightning-fast succession of Pepsi enthusiasts culled from more than 120,000 photos submitted to the brand via New York-based Olapic and Crowdtwist. Olapic collected and curated the pictures while CrowdTwist rewarded uploads through a point-based platform. Mekanism, as TIME puts it, took that material in a bid to manufacture "viral on demand" for the Pepsi brand.Continue reading...

Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment by lululemon.

In the $14 billion women’s athletic apparel market, heir apparent Lululemon is facing a direct challenge by Ellie, the latest startup incubated by L.A.-based Science.

Pledging the same quality of workout gear at half the price, Ellie's approach eschews sophisticated tech in favor of consumer demand gauged by social media: items are first introduced on Facebook to gauge reaction and test trend strength.

“With an on-site pattern-maker, they can showcase designs they are testing across social media to get users/fans to decide if they like them, and if it’s popular, the outfit is manufactured within four days and available for mass market retail,” a rep told VentureBeat. “That’s lightning speed for clothing manufacturing.”Continue reading...

Editor's note: This article has been updated with comment by lululemon.

In the $14 billion women’s athletic apparel market, heir apparent Lululemon is facing a direct challenge by Ellie, the latest startup incubated by L.A.-based Science.

Pledging the same quality of workout gear at half the price, Ellie's approach eschews sophisticated tech in favor of consumer demand gauged by social media: items are first introduced on Facebook to gauge reaction and test trend strength.

“With an on-site pattern-maker, they can showcase designs they are testing across social media to get users/fans to decide if they like them, and if it’s popular, the outfit is manufactured within four days and available for mass market retail,” a rep told VentureBeat. “That’s lightning speed for clothing manufacturing.”Continue reading...

It's a classic football play: the end around, where the offense skirts the brunt of the defense in search of easy yardage on the perimeter. It's the same kind of approach being used for the Big Game by an increasing number of Super Bowl advertisers.

Well, they're not exactly "Super Bowl" advertisers. These brands avoid having to confront the $4-million pricetag of a full-run, 30-second Super Bowl ad on CBS by assembling regional and even national blocs of time on local TV stations. Because viewership on pretty much every CBS affiliate in America will be at an annual high on Sunday evening, just as on the network as a whole, these brands can be assured of getting great bang for their buck.

Old Spice is launching arguably the strangest end-run for Sunday. The P&G brand could well afford to take out a national ad during the game to promote its new Wild Collection campaign. But instead, Old Spice is running the ad above only on the CBS affiliate in Juneau, Alaska, promoting the brand's new premium line of guy scents including Wolfthorn. Alaska, you see, has America's biggest wolf population.Continue reading...

Best Buy Canada will lay off 900 employees and close 15 of its stores including eight Future Shop locations, while Sears Canada will lay off 700 of its workers as both retailers brace for the arrival of Target next month and the expansion of Walmart there. Nordstrom is also launching in Canada with four stores in major cities.

“The retail landscape continues to change, and our success is dependent upon our ability to evolve along with it,” said Mike Pratt, president of Best Buy Canada. “By taking a proactive approach in transforming our operations now, I have no doubt we will be in the best position to continue innovating our store experience for consumers and grow into the next decade.”

Sears spokesman Vince Power in a statement that the imminent layoffs across Canada are “part of our initiative to right-size the organization, which is working in concert with other initiatives to make Sears successful." 

Best Buy Canada, like its American parent, faces stiff competition from online electronics retailers such as Amazon and Apple and is replicating a U.S. strategy of switching to smaller stores, which are less expensive to operate. Meanwhile, Sears Canada — which has suffered for years from falling sales and profits — is shrinking its overhead from its 360 department stores and 300 distribution centers.

While Canada's retail sector has been wobbling ever since Walmart arrived in the mid-90s, this latest round of market rumbling is spurred by Target’s immiment expansion plans, as the cheap chic retailer gets ready to open the first of its 124 stores in Canada next month.Continue reading...

Target is taking "online only" to a new level.

Last week, the retail giant hosted the Target Everyday Show, an interactive event on Twitter leveraging its tongue-in-chic “Everyday Collection” TV campaign by creating a virtual runway show that drew on people’s tweets about everyday products submitted via hashtag. 

Calling the event its Tweet-to-Runway Show, Target chose its favorite tweets by fans to be featured on its YouTube channel and on a microsite, EverydayShow.com. 

Witty tweets won the day, including “Why does my chocolate milk taste like bananas?” as one tweet chic model asked to the camera. “Monday, you saucy minx you. Coffee me,” cited another.Continue reading...

It’s been slightly more than a year since Coca-Cola failed quite publicly in attempting to help fight climate change — an effort that made plenty of consumers unhappy with the beverage company's embrace of a controversial political cause.

But Coke hasn't backed down, continuing its partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to help keep the Arctic ice intact and protected from melting — and help save its iconic polar bear.

To help the cause, Coke will hand over $4 million to the WWF for its Arctic Home project over the next three years. Further, 300 million Coke products will feature the image of a mother polar bear and her two cubs, according to a press release from the nonprofit Responding to Climate Change.Continue reading...

With the spring launch of Target's Canadian stores nearing, Walmart is paying heed to the new competition with a preemptive move of its own.

The retail giant said Tuesday it will plunk down about $450 million CAD to expand its presence in Canada, growing to 388 stores by this time in 2014.

Walmart has been in the Canadian market for years, but the anticipated opening of Target stores likely has something to do with its latest expansion plans. In 2012, Walmart invested even more than the $450 million, spending about $750 million CAD to add 46 new stores, 39 of which formerly belonged to the chain Zellers.Continue reading...