PepsiCo and its Frito-Lay subsidiary are on notice for “engaging in deceptive and unfair digital marketing practices in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act” for online marketing campaigns that may seem tame compared to the new Take This Lollipop Facebook-stalking campaign.

The complaint — filed by the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Consumer Action, Consumer Watchdog and The Praxis Project — focuses on Frito-Lay's no longer active digital campaigns for Doritos under the "Snack Strong Presents" branded entertainment banner.

Specifically cited in the complaint to the FTC: the online game Hotel 626 (which launched in 2008) and sequel Asylum 626 (launched in 2009), plus the Doritos Late Night concert series which last year released a Rihanna tie-in. According to the complaint, these efforts and related digital marketing are claimed to “target teens through a variety of stealth interactive marketing and data collection techniques involving social media, immersive multi-media content, mobile phones, and gaming platforms.”Continue reading...

Abbott Labs plans to split into two companies.

American Express equalizes health costs for gay employees.

Citigroup agrees to pay hefty fine to settle securities charges.

Daimler dismissed US. head of Mercedes-Benz over personal expenses.

Eni makes big natural-gas find off coast of Mozambique.

Fox's The X Factor gets off to a slow start.

Frito-Lay draws complaint about "immersive" marketing to kids.

Groupon discounts its IPO valuation.Continue reading...

Big food and beverage companies argue they are fighting federal regulators so stiffly about new front-of-package labeling standards for the nutritional characteristics of their products for an important reason: the government doesn’t want producers to be able to highlight the amounts of fiber, omega-3s and other positive nutrients in them – just to summarize how little sodium and other “bad things” they contain.

The debate could get sharper in the wake of the release of a new report that dimensionalizes the financial advantages brought to companies by developing and marketing “better-for-you” foods. Companies with a higher percentage of sales from BFY products had a 50 percent increase in operating profit (compared to 20 percent at companies with a below-average percentage of sales of those items), outperformed the S&P 500 by an average of 60 points (vs. 40 points) and generated higher shareholder returns than the other companies, according to a new study by the Hudson Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.Continue reading...

Apple could lure customers with pricing despite lack of iPhone 5, even as its new iPhone 4S fails to wow. AT&T, meanwhile, claims its iPhone 4S will be the fastest, while Samsung moves to ban the device in France and Italy.

Amazon Kindle Fire pre-orders top 2,000 per hour.

BNY Mellon gets sued by feds, state of New York.

Coca-Cola Amatil eyes Foster's assets in Australia.

Diageo to open "Happy Hour" on ESPN in two languages.

Disney gets 3-D fever.

Estee Lauder launches breast cancer awareness Facebook app.

Friendly's files for bankruptcy.Continue reading...

President Obama's decision to work his jobs speech on Thursday around the schedule of the National Football League's opening day shows that he's still got some keen political instincts. Because this week, in this economy, the NFL seems to be the one thing you don't want to mess with.

Brand marketers seem to have forgiven the uncetainties sown by the league's four-month labor stoppage and are ready to jump back on an advertising bandwagon that has outrun every other marketing vehicle over the last three years.

Certainly PepsiCo is the prime example: Today, the beverage giant and the NFL announced a 10-year extension of their current agreement to go into effect next year. According to the Wall Street Journal, the extension could be valued as a $2.3-billion investment in the continued marketing appeal of America's real pastime.

It's one of the largest sponsorship deals ever in sports and ensures that PepsiCo brands Pepsi, Gatorade, Frito-Lay, and others will be official marketing partners of the league at a cost of nearly $100 million a year.Continue reading...

When you're the president and Exhibit A in one of your centerpiece economic-development plans turns into a huge disappointment, the fallout is likely to be intensely negative. And we're not talking here about the $800 billion economic-stimulus program that President Obama launched in 2009.

Instead, it's the president's much-vaunted "green-jobs" strategy. And the brand under fire in this situation is Solyndra, a California-based solar-panel manufacturer that last week shut its doors and is now filing for bankruptcy protection despite receiving a $535-million federal loan guarantee and about $1 billion in venture capital.

The company, based in Fremont, Calif., was the first to receive funds under the Energy Department's loan-guarantee program for the clean-technology industry. Last year, President Obama visited Solyndra (its biggest US solar-panel contract: PepsiCo's Frito-Lay plant in Modesto, Calif.) and touted it for creating jobs. But facing competition from larger panel-makers, including some in China, Solyndra began to shrink almost before its new factory was built.Continue reading...

The buzz continues from the Wall Street Journal's look at PepsiCo's fortunes this week, with an article titled "PepsiCo Wakes Up and Smells the Cola" and a sidebar profile on CEO Indra Nooyi titled "PepsiCo Chief Defends Her Strategy to Promote 'Good for You' Foods."

While the hook was Pepsi's return to TV advertising this week following a three-year hiatus to focus on social media and crowdsourcing via its Pepsi Refresh corporate philanthropy program, the spotlight turned to Nooyi herself, who has come under fire since Coca-Cola was revealed to hold the #1 and #2 sales slots (with Coke at #1 and Diet Coke unseating Pepsi to take #2) in the US last year.

The big question: did Nooyi take her eye off what should be any brand leader's top objective — marketing and positioning its products to boost sales — in order to promote what she calls "Performance With Purpose"?Continue reading...

Apple signs music labels for cloud-based service, and denies claim by Amazon that “app store” is a generic term.

BP settles with partner in Gulf spill.

Coca-Cola creates chief sustainability officer position.

Frito-Lay rewards Cheetos fans for goofing off.

Goldman Sachs executives brace for subpoenas in mortgage investigation.

Honda recalls 2012 Civic for fuel line defect.

IMF is a reportedly a chauvinist haven.

Lance Armstrong refutes new doping allegations.Continue reading...