Al Jazeera buys Current TV from Al Gore, prompting Time Warner Cable to drop channel.

Hormel Foods branches out as it buys Skippy peanut butter brand from Unilever.

Toyota declares a rebirth.

5-Hour Energy sees ad claims rebutted (again).

AB InBev plans to launch stronger U.S. version of Budweiser this year.

Amazon wins dismissal of App Store false-ad claim by Apple.

Apple "bet" energizes AT&T.

China recovery confidence spurs Hong Kong luxury sales.Continue reading...

NYSE Euronext is in merger talks with the IntercontinentalExchange. (Update: Sold!)

Foursquare starts using Facebook data for recommendations.

General Mills announces more than 100 new products for 2013.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos among retail leaders honored by NRF.

Apple feels heat in Brazil over iPhone brand and sees "pinch to zoom" patent rejected.

Barack Obama pledges to take action on gun control.

Best Buy digital chief resigns.

Darden takes new tack to spur U.S. restraurant brands.

Deutsche Bank image remake suffers.

Disney raises bar on customer experience with new Fantasy Land.

eBay stops advertising inside mobile apps.Continue reading...

Aston Martin draws bids.

ConAgra to buy Ralcorp in huge packaged-foods deal.

Nintendo sells out Wii U in first week in US.

Adidas features celebs including Snoop Lion, other celebrities in Ebenezer Scrooge holiday campaign.

Airbus jabs Boeing with "Pinocchio nose" in ad campaign.

Barnes & Noble updates holiday wish lists via Nook campaign.

Bombardier signs largest-ever deal, with VistaJet.

Ericsson files patent claim against Samsung.

Mario Batali expands restaurant empire to Boston.Continue reading...

China is the second latest economy in the world, every significant brand's future is impacted by its growth (or collapse!); but who's got the time?!  A weekly potpourri of ten reads that will make you look like a keen China observer during any conversation about China. This week, starting with Angry Birds coming to McDonald's China ... Continue reading...

It's all the rage now for makers of better-for-you beverages, both startups and mainstream CPG companies, to offer a variety of elixirs within an overall product line that are each aimed specifically at some perceived nutritional need or function. "Energy," "Immunity," and "Relaxation" are the typical needs addressed by new products, ranging from enhanced waters to teas.

Now, Coca-Cola is entering this fray in a new way, initially in France. It has entered a 50/50 joint venture with Sanofi, the French pharmaceutical maker, to sell "beauty drinks" at French pharmacies, each of which is aimed at particular beauty concerns of women. The test is meant as a diversification proposition by both Coke and Sanofi, the latter of which is turning increasingly to consumer-health-care products from drugs per se.

The first four drinks under the Beautific brand name of beverages, which will be produced by Sanofi's Oenobiol unit, will be marketed as boosting hair, weight loss, sun exposure and general vitality, according to Bloomberg. Coca-Cola will handle formulation and Sanofi the local distribution.Continue reading...

Daily Beast triumphs as Newsweek announces end of print magazine.

Apple loses tablet copyright appeal against Samsung, makes 14 pt. UK apology, reportedly eyes Color Labs, will never resume US manufacturing.

Amazon pushes Kindle to US kindergarten classes.

AOL aims to make email more social with Alto.

Centrum rises on landmark medical study.

China slowdown appears to bottom out.

Facebook rallies on mobile advertising outlook.

In-N-Out Burger opens London pop-up.Continue reading...

As the Red Bull press release states, "Mission Accomplished."

About 7.3 milion people were watching Sunday as Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner reattempted and nailed the Red Bull Stratos extreme skyjump, freefalling more than 128,000 feet to Earth at 1,342.8 kilometers per hour. He broke the sound barrier but no bones, and garnered congratulatory tweets from NASA and fellow daredevil Richard Branson, and an amusing tribute from Nestle's KitKat. (Update: YouTube reported more than 8 million concurrent livestreams, smashing all previous records, resulting in about 12.6 million viewers including Discovery Channel.)

Red Bull summed up its record-breaking, and latest, extreme sports stunt:Continue reading...

When the color purple comes up in conversation, many automatically think of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel that told the story of 1930s African American women in rural Georgia or the excellent film version that showcased just how underrated as actresses Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg could be. Others think of Donny Osmond’s socks. Parents of preschoolers may associate it with that unwieldy dinosaur Barney.

But to a group of folks in Birmingham, England (and another in Northfield, Illinois), purple is the color of money. And they’ll do everything they have to to hang onto their own particular shade of the color. For years, Cadbury, the candy maker based in Birmingham and owned by Kraft Mondelez, has been doing battle with Nestle over a particular shade of purple that it received trademark rights to back in 2008.

The fight seemed to reach an endpoint late last year when the registrar at the UK Intellectual Property Office decided that Cadbury was within its rights to ask for Pantone 2865c to be exclusively theirs for chocolate products and drinks. After all, Cadbury had been using that particular shade since 1914 in honor of Queen Victoria.Continue reading...