America's FDA keeps working toward forcing cigarette makers to encase their product in packaging with some incredibly nasty images in order to help consumers understand what could happen to them if they continue smoking. Australian health officials don’t have to wait anymore. 

Thanks to a world-first law that went into effect on Dec. 1st, nicotine lovers (and haters) in the land Down Under are now faced with images a gangrene-mangled limb and a skeletal cancer victim when they buy their cigarettes. The images, which caused an uproar when revealed last year, take up most of the pack’s packaging with the cigarette’s brand name (no logo) printed on the bottom quarter of the packaging, in plain text on an olive-toned blah background.

“They’re so horrifingly ugly that they are magnificent,” Fiona Sharkie, executive director of anti-smoking campaigner Quit Victoria, told Bloomberg. How horrifyingly ugly? Check out the grotesque warning images below.Continue reading...

Despite making billions of dollars every year, it likely isn’t always fun working in the tobacco industry. After all, people are always trying to stick extra taxes on their product or completely eliminate any branding from the packaging or sticking images of awful possible side effects such as dying on the packages. 

The tobacco industry, which is being pressured worldwide to be more forthcoming about the dangers to consumers, took another hit Tuesday. A US federal judge ruled Tuesday that tobacco giants such as Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Lorillard Tobacco, and British American Tobacco to buy a slew of advertising on various media to fill the public in on the health dangers of smoking and basically admit they lied, CNN reports.

So American consumers can now look forward to seeing ads in their newspapers and on television that say such things as "Smoking kills, on average, 1,200 Americans. Every day." Or perhaps: "More people die every year from smoking than from murder, AIDS, suicide, drugs, car crashes, and alcohol, combined." And if that wasn’t enough: "Secondhand smoke kills over 3,000 Americans each year."Continue reading...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t the only leader of a major city who is trying to get his constituents to be a little healthier. After all, the United States Conference of Mayors shelled out some bucks back in 2009 to produce an online guide to help its members fight childhood obesity. 

But the fight isn’t limited to just America. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is targeting the fast-food joints in his city to get a bit healthier. Johnson apparently isn’t happy with his legacy being only about that he was the guy who happened to be at the helm when the Olympics came to town. 

Nope. Johnson is ready to follow in Bloomberg’s footsteps. Back in June, when Bloomberg announced that he wanted to limit the amount of soda New Yorkers could buy in one cup, Johnson wrote, "where New York leads, London is not far behind,” the Standard reports. Now he’s making his move. The Mayor’s London Food Board partnered with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health to create a Takeaways Toolkit in an attempt to help “fast food takeaways … make their food healthier,” according to Fresh Business Thinking.Continue reading...

As expected, following the failure of a court-ordered mediation at the 11th hour, Hostess Brands is moving ahead with liquidating the 82-year-old company and its assets, and laying off about 15,000 of its 18,500 employees. According to the company's statement today following the preliminary court hearing today:

Hostess Brands is winding down the Company after a nationwide strike initiated by the BCTGM that commenced on November 9th crippled its operations at a time when the Company lacked the financial resources to survive a significant labor action.

Among other provisions, the Court order allows Hostess Brands to return excess ingredients and packaging; provides liquidity through an amended debtor-in-possession financing agreement and consensual use of cash collateral; and authorizes the Company to implement a non-executive employee retention plan to ensure the Company has the necessary personnel to implement the wind down.

Hostess Brands said it intends to retain approximately 3,200 employees to assist with the initial phase of the wind down. Employee headcount is expected to decrease by 94% within the first 16 weeks of the wind down. The entire process is expected to be completed in one year.

The wind down was necessitated by an inflated cost structure that put the Company at a profound competitive disadvantage. The biggest component of the Company’s costs was its collective bargaining agreements that covered 15,000 of 18,500 employees.Continue reading...

"Buyer beware" applies now, more than ever, as holiday shoppers take to the web and mobile to snap up bargains. According to the latest MarkMonitor Shopping Report, one in five bargain hunters in the U.S. and Europe mistakenly shopped on e-commerce sites selling counterfeit goods while searching for deals online.

“Consumers are being waylaid by rogue e-commerce sites, causing brands to lose business. The findings from our Shopping Report underscore the importance of developing proactive brand protection strategies in the digital age,” said Fredrick Felman, chief marketing officer of MarkMonitor, Thomson Reuters' enterprise brand protection business.

Working with Nielsen “to analyze anonymized data from Nielsen’s permissioned online panelists in six countries over a nine-month period, nearly five million shopping sessions were surveyed…focusing on the search terms the shoppers employed, such as 'fake,’ 'replica,’ 'cheap' or ‘discount,’ to determine their motivation.”

The MarkMonitor Shopping Report examined multiple demographics including age, income, education levels, and household size, and found that there are only minimal differences between online consumers seeking counterfeit goods and bargain hunters looking for a good deal on legitimate goods.

“These findings really challenge the common assumption that consumers who purchase counterfeit goods are distinctly different than those consumers buying genuine goods,” said Eric Solomon, SVP, global digital audience measurement, Nielsen.

“Deal seekers outnumbered consumers seeking fakes at the rate of 20 to 1,” notes the release from MarkMonitor, but deceptive pricing on counterfeit goods, often priced comparably to legitimate goods on sale, discounted at 25–50% off list prices, suggest ‘blowout’ or year-ender sales and lure unsuspecting shoppers.Continue reading...

Google wants "open" to be the word associated with its brand. The company is creating an "AirPlay-like open platform" and it's a key member of the Open Internet Coalition, a lobby group backing the FCC's net neutrality rules in the US. It's also trying to raise awareness about Open Internet issues globally, today releasing a video (below) and Twitter hashtag campaign ahead of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) global meeting in Dubai. The call to action:Continue reading...

It's understandable that the record-breaking sum that BP will be paying out — $4.5 billion in fines and other payments — as a result of the Department of Justice settlement over the 2012 Deepwater Horizon accident, oil spill and response raised eyebrows. While two employees are being charged wth manslaughter, the company also pled guilty to 14 criminal charges in connection with the cataclysmic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico two years ago, and admitted to criminal conduct and deliberately misreporting the impact of the spill.

It's a record-breaking sum, but as a reader noted on our story, it's "a drop in the barrel" for the oil and gas giant. Even the fact that the DOJ investigation is ongoing, and BP will be subject to additional including federal civil claims and claims for damages to natural resources and fines under the Clean Water Act, with potential fines of up to $21 billion, the brand is more than prepared to absorb the financial hit.

The bigger question is how much, if at all, things have changed in the corporate culture that led to the accident, and led to harsh criticism over its handling of the accident. As Tom Zara, Interbrand's global Corporate Citizenship practice leader, comments, the DOJ penalty is directed at the "ethical bone structure" that led to the disaster, and the loss of 11 lives. "Notoriety of criminality isn’t the death knell of a brand, but corruption of culture will kill the brand."

The Justice Department press release detailing BP's guilty plea doesn't mince words on that front:Continue reading...

Competition from huge and established beverage brands hasn't been able to dent 5-Hour Energy's dominance in the energy-shot segment it created. And criticism of its elixirs by nutritionists and dietitians hasn't been able to slow its sales past the $1-billion-a-year mark.

But here's something that might take a bit of fizz out of 5-Hour Energy: The drinks have been cited in the deaths of 13 people in the last four years, according to reports received by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. The New York Times reported, "Since 2009, 5-Hour Energy has been mentioned in some 90 filings with the FDA, including more than 30 that involved serious or life-threatening injuries like heart attacks, convulsions and, in one case, a spontaneous abortion."

The energy shot made by a suburban-Detroit-based company, Living Essentials, has been associated with 92 "adverse-event reports" over that period, including 32 hospitalizations, an FDA spokeswoman told a number of publications. The death reports comprise open cases being investigated by the agency. The FDA stressed that there is no evidence linking the 5-Hour Energy brand to the deaths or hospitalizations, but that the agency continues to investigate the reports.

5-Hour Energy spokeswoman Elaine Lutz said in a statement that 5-Hour Energy takes "reports of any potential adverse event tied to our products very seriously" and that the company complied "with all of our reporting requirements" to the FDA. She also noted that the shots are intended for "busy adults" and that 5-Hour Energy is an effective dietary supplement and not a beverage or energy drink.Continue reading...