AIG pushes plan for independence from U.S. government.

Burger King says that menu and marketing changes have boosted bottom lilne.

Campbell Soup creates limited edition to help food bank.

Chick-fil-A supporters (and Wendy's) show up for "Appreciation Day."

Christina Aguillera lends her voice to a good cause.

Costco experiences strong U.S. sales.

Crocs celebrates milestone a little too exuberantly.

DirecTV sees U.S. subscribers decline for first time.Continue reading...

On Twitter, the brand currently defining conventions of digital conversation, the source remains the strongest factor in value and quality and trust trumps emotion. New research shows the key factor in predicting a tweet's popularity is the source of the link being tweeted. And just as in search engine optimization, recognizable (brand) names help.

A just-released study from UCLA and Hewlett-Packard's HP Labs researched four factors and their influence on optimizing tweeted headlines and news links with accuracy 84% of the time:

• The credibility of the news source that generates and posts an article

• The category of news the article falls under (sports, technology, health)

• The subjectivity of the language in the article

• Famous people, brands or other notable entities mentioned.

The data was collected from Feedzilla’s API over nine days and 40,000 news articles, and popularity of articles was measured as the number of times a news URL was posted on Twitter. Using Stanford's Named Entity Recognizer to identify a famous person or company and measure prominence relative to others resulted in a score for each of those 40,000 articles based on the four factors.Continue reading...

Film: Madagascar 3 (DreamWorks Animation)
Total Products Spotted: 8
Standout Placement: Cirque du Soleil (by implication)
Most Memorable Placement (positive): Ducati
Most Memorable Placement (negative): HP
Other Product Placements: Airbus, Central Park Zoo, Duane Reade, Ferrari, New York Knicks, Central Park Zoo
Overall Product Placement Integration Grade (1-10): 4
Comments: There are some odd observations to be made about the products and brand names found in Madagascar 3. Most odd is that the most obvious brandcameo (Cirque du Soleil), while explicitly hinted at, is never mentioned by name — even though knowledge of that name is assumed of the audience.Continue reading...

TD takes top spot on Interbrand's new Best Canadian Brands ranking.

JCPenney continues claw-back of new business model, plans to use term "sale" again.

Sara Lee renames North American business Hillshire Brands and narrows focus to meat.

Apple uses more celebrities in marketing; what does that say about new products?

Justin Bieber debuts another fragrance concept called Girlfriend.

Burger King expands in Russia.

Clear Channel shifts royalty deal for music artists including Taylor Swift's label.Continue reading...

BlackBerry-maker Research in Motion saw its shares slump today after warning Wall Street that it's forecasting an operating loss for the first quarter. With the company hiring bankers at JPMorgan and RBC to explore a sale, investors worried and layoffs looming, the Canadian government dismissed rumors of a possible takeover.

Other brand news:

Best Buy store closures spur Walmart ads.

NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg bans sale of large sodas and sugary drinks.

GM is shifting Chevrolet ad budget from Super Bowl to sponsoring the popular Manchester United soccer team.

Disney Channel joins the TV Everywhere brigade.

Exxon Mobil shareholders approve executive pay.Continue reading...

Facebook heads into IPO today with record pricing and a strategy to raise money, not hype, WSJ says — but also with persistent questions among brand marketers about the value of advertising, among other challenges. Meanwhile, average investors face long odds on a big Facebook payday, which will make Bono the richest rock star and Mark Zuckerberg richer than Google's co-founders.

Yahoo names new executive team as Alibaba deal apparently looms.

HP plans to slash workforce by up to 30,000, WSJ says.

Bud Light is drawing online buzz from Millennials.

Amazon to sell ads on Kindle Fire welcome screen.

Barneys New York relaunches website.

Coca-Cola bests Pom Wonderful in court in latest round of long-running labeling dispute.Continue reading...

"To the gay community, I apologize," stated boxer Manny Pacquiao in an interview with Mario Lopez on Extra that aired today. "I'm against same-sex marriage, but I'm not condemning you. My favorite verse is 'Love one another as you love yourself. Love your neighbor.' So I love everybody!"

That's Pacquiao, a national icon in the Philippines and one of Hennessy’s “Wild Rabbit” campaign stars, extricating himself from the hot water he landed in this week, just as he strives to change his image from indulging in cockfighting, drinking and womanizing. (His Hennessy commercial’s tagline: ''Fighting the fights that really matter. That's my 'Wild Rabbit.'")

The controversy erupted after a profile on him published May 12th in the National Conservative Examiner referenced the oft-cited Biblical passage from Leviticus 20:13, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death.”

Pacquiao subsequently clarified that readers had erroneously believed he had quoted the verse, and that he loves and supports gays and lesbians, denounces anti-gay allegations, but does not approve of gay marriage because of his Roman Catholic beliefs.Continue reading...

AB InBev goes upbeat as profits and sales rise.

Adidas raises forecast after profit beats estimates.

Air Lease nears $5.5 billion purchase of 737 Max jetliners from Boeing as aircraft maker produces first 787 Dreamliner.

Amazon and Texas reach sales tax deal.

Apple sidesteps billions of dollars in taxes worldwide.

Cadbury shows the way on Google+.

Chrysler overruns magazine covers with new Viper.

Disney's Marvel's The Avengers aims to kick off summer box office bonanza.Continue reading...