We've noted how McDonald's, as one of the TOP sponsors of the London 2012 Olympics, is promoting its new lower-calorie menu and Team USA contest in the US, and encouraging kids (and adults) in the UK to get active and check out its revamped Happy Meal, among other local marketing efforts ahead of the games.

The company brought its top executives to London for the Games opening last week, where the big message was "McDonald's Takes Olympic Stage to Announce Advances in Children's Well-Being, Menu Innovation and Access to Nutrition Information."

Now the Summer Games have started, the fast-food giant is rolling out digital and social content that aims to "match the fun, competitive spirit of the Olympics," according to a spokesperson.Continue reading...

Just because Chobani has opened up a huge lead in the Greek-style category it invented — and that is reshaping the U.S. yogurt business — doesn't mean that others can't try to chip away. Dannon has grabbed a significant share after sensing the opportunity with Chobani's rapid rise.

Other players, big and small, also are attempting to make more noise and get their stakes of a Greek-style market that has been calculated at about $1.5 billion a year now and still growing by strong double-digits — even coming up in discussions of Greece's Eurozone crisis. Yoplait, Hain Celestial and the Pinkberry chain are among the brands that are making their own plays. Ben & Jerry's just revamped its frozen yogurt line to make Greek Yogurt the basis of the line. Fage and Chobani have a friend in U.S. senator Chuck Schumer.

The most closely watched Greek yogurt brand is Yoplait. The General Mills line, which has shared the top of the U.S. yogurt market with Dannon for many years, got a particularly late start in the Greek segment. But now it's launching 40 new yogurt products, and Greek yogurt will be the centerpiece of that rollout this summer.Continue reading...

As an official sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic (that part, sadly, often gets left out), McDonald’s has already invested a lot of money to support the event, from building the world's biggest restaurant and to encouraging youths to get in the spirit and get moving. The next phase in this McOlympics: a £10 million responsive advertising campaign called “We All Make The Games.”

Leveraging multiple media channels, the plan is to document, replay and celebrate the people, moments, and emotions of the games in three phases:Continue reading...

Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg continually stresses the rationale for organic eating and frequently mentions that avoiding diseases caused by pesticides and other factors in the diet is a huge part of it. But it's a strong message that isn't digested easily by American consumers who aren't true believers in organic, so the brand must continually develop more palatable ways to spread the gospel of organic eating.

The brand's new "Be a Food Superhero" campaign attempts to make that message more fun. The Londonderry, N.H.-based leader of the U.S. organic-yogurt market — majority-owned by Groupe Danone — is pitching the light-hearted campaign on Facebook to draw folks to a microsite.

Once there, they can virtually assume the identity of a "superhero" and use that persona to explore baby steps that they can take to improve their diet and the sustainability of organic agriculture. Along the way, the brand will kick in a contribution by Stonyfield to FoodCorps, which builds "healhty school food environments in high-obesity, limited-resource communities," as Stonyfield put it in a statement.Continue reading...

While they suffer from even more ignominy under a new glare induced by the HBO documentary series The Weight of the Nation, the roundly condemned purveyors of "junk" salt, sugar and calories aren't exactly lying low and saying their mea culpas. McDonald's, Coca-Cola and 7-Eleven are each fighting back in their own way.

Coca-Cola has launched a test of its own new "mid-calorie" sodas to join PepsiCo in trying once again the concept of a "hybrid" diet/non-diet drink even though other attempts by both companies to mine a moderately-minded market have failed. Coke plans to test Sprite Select and Fanta Select products this summer — with only half the calories, 70 of regular drinks per 12-ounce can — in test markets in Atlanta, Detroit, Louisville and Memphis.

Interestingly, Coke's new toe in the mid-calorie water will depend on a blend of sugar: Cargill's Truvia brand of natural sweetener stevia plus erythritol, a "sugar alcohol" (unlike the ingredients in PepsiCo's new, nationally available mid-cal, Pepsi Next, which includes sucralose and high-fructose corn syrup). That gives Coke a leg up on an "more natural" claim it might want to make for select beverages against Next.Continue reading...

While there's plenty of attention given to getting children not to eat junk food, as a countermeasure to childhood obesity many brands are putting substantial efforts into persuading kids to eat healthier. This week two companies — one a veteran of "better-for-you" foods, the other not heralded for nutritious fare — have stepped forward to promote childhood consumption of fruit and vegetables.

McDonald's is the unlikelier player here. McDonald's UK is getting ready to launch a fizzy drink for children as an option with its Happy Meal packs on May 16th that claims to provide one of the recommended five-a-day portions of fruits and vegetables.Continue reading...

McDonald's has come a long way in its menu variety from variations on burgers, its iconic fries, the Fillet-O-Fish and Coke. And now the chain has incorporated its accelerated menu diversification as a main driver of sales and profits around the world.

In particular, McDonald's is relying on more "limited-time" offerings. The latest examples are a seasonal banana nut oatmeal, which will be available nationwide in the middle of May, and Cherry Berry Chiller, an iced drink that already is available everywhere. McDonald's began focusing on limited-time offers on a national scale last year after research showed that variety was a top priority for consumers, Wendy Cook, vice president of U.S. marketing, told USA Today.Continue reading...

McDonald’s is doing all right in building up a diverse employee base, as incoming CEO Don Thompson commented in January 2011 (above). But this week he told the Chicago Urban League that the company has a lot more it could be doing to keep the company’s diversity numbers going up.

"Diversity fuels innovation, and innovation fuels success," Thompson said, according to the Chicago Tribune. He also noted that the company’s work on diversity as well as inclusion "was the reason we were the No. 1 company on the Dow last year."Continue reading...