Germany's Sparkasse Chemnitz bank has launched a Karl Marx credit card, following an online contest that pitted the socialist philosopher against nine other options, including "a palace, a castle and a racetrack," NPR reports. Reuters has more.

The Olympics are coming to the United Kingdom and chocolate maker Cadbury, which is based in Birmingham, England, would like to give back a little something special to a few of the Queen’s loyal subjects in celebration.

Cadbury, an official sponsor of the London 2012 Games, has a few extra tickets to the Opening Ceremonies but they aren’t just going to wrap them up inside their candy bars like something out of Willie Wonka. Instead, the candy brand has teamed up with the Shazam music app and ITV to take consumers on a multimedia adventure.

Cadbury will first air an advertisement on the finale of ITV's Britain’s Got Talent on May 12 that asks viewers to use Shazam apps to identify a song, according to Marketing Week. The call to action invites viewers to “unwrap a virtual Cadbury chocolate bar to find out whether they have won tickets” or not. (Britain's Got Talent, on a sidenote, has had to suspend mobile voting due to technical issues.)

Marketing Week notes that ITV and Shazam recently partnered so that consumers can “interact with ads shown on the ITV Family of channels” and “use the audio-recognizing application to enter competitions, get additional information about a brand or download free music.” Cadbury is the first brand to take advantage of the possibilities of this new partnership.Continue reading...

As Walmart battles the damage to its reputation in the wake of the Mexico bribery scandal, in the United States there's still nothing as golden for small vendors as getting a go on the shelves of Walmart stores across the country. With one deal, personal fortunes are made and entrepreneurial success stories are written.

That's why the sky is now the limit for a trio of startup brands that won valuable shelf-space via Walmart's first "Get on the Shelf" crowdsourcing contest: HumanKind Water, Plate Topper and SnapIt Eyeglass Repair Kit.

More than 4,000 inventors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses entered the contest with video submissions for products ranging from household wares and children's toys to organic food and green items, Walmart said in a press release. The winners' products will be carried on Walmart.com and at Walmart stores in the United States.Continue reading...

While fast-food chains are responding to nutritional criticism by enhancing their kids menus, American children appear less and less interested in what they're peddling. NPD Group calculated that visits to fast-food restaurants in which kids meals were purchased have declined every year since 2007 and fell by 5 percent last year from 2010.

It's not that parents don't want healthier fare to their children when they eat out. In the U.S., analysts are suggesting that the notion of kids' meals is becoming increasingly outdated as family eating patterns change. And for that reason, they say, even sales of McDonald's iconic Happy Meal might be only flat these days at best — and at a chain whose other product lines are growing robustly, that's not good performance.

One factor, for example, is tight budgets that continue to afflict many American households — especially fast-food consumers — at a time of high unemployment and continued economic uncertainty. Mothers have "probably switched to the value menu because it was cheaper than the kids meal" at many chains, Bonnie Riggs, NPD restaurant-industry analyst, told the Chicago Tribune.

It also appears that kids are becoming disenchanted with the licensed toys packaged in the meals, at a younger and younger age, dropping from age 12 to eight. Blame digital entertainment, cell phones, and other rivals for kids' attention. But all of that apparently doesn't hold true in the UK, where McDonald's is using the revamped Happy Meal as a marketing hook to win over parents (via their kids) around its London 2012 Olympics sponsorship.Continue reading...

Never mind its sponsorship-based spat with rival Nike ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games. As part of its official Olympic sponsorship, Adidas has launched "Take the Stage" as an invitation to fans and Olympic Games visitors to "show us something with heart, something with passion and this slot could be yours."

The campaign — which aims to give undiscovered talent (namely, 32 teenagers from London's boroughs) the chance of a lifetime on the platform of a lifetime, at the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games — launched on April 7 on ITV1's Britain's Got Talent show.Continue reading...

One model that caught our eye out of the Geneva Motor Show this week: Fiat is selling a limited-edition 500 model, decked out in American colors and icons. It's made in Italy, for Italians (and presumably anyone else) who might want to celebrate the fact that the Italian automaker is now selling Italian-made 500s ... in America.

And that's not all that is interesting and potentially mind-bending about the Fiat 500 America. There's also the fact that it is being sold on TwitBid, a Twitter-based auction site, to the highest bidder.Continue reading...

Google's homepage logo today is a tribute to International Women's Day, celebrated on March 8th since the early 1900's. The Google Doodle (as they call their logo reinterpretations) is driving traffic to the official IWD website for an overview of the range of events and activities taking place around the world today, and you can also participate virtually on Facebook and Twitter (hashtags: #IWD or #IWD12).

One must-read snapshot today comes from the Worldwatch Institute: 12 innovations that are "helping women get access to credit, improve their incomes, feed their families, introduce sustainable crops to markets, and reduce rural poverty."

Google is also inviting students to submit their designs for the annual Doodle 4 Google competition. This year's theme: "If I could travel in time, I'd visit..."

And below, check out how Dove celebrated IWD in Asia.Continue reading...

Apple's App Store is closing in on the 25 billion download mark, which the brand is celebrating with a contest that doesn't require actually downloading anything despite the invitation to “Download the 25 billionth app and you could win a US$10,000 App Store Gift Card.” At the very least, the online app counter on the Apple homepage is as fascinating to watch as those old flip-style airport flight information signs.