Barnes & Noble losses continue on Nook as e-reader competition intensifies.

Bridgestone surrenders Super Bowl halftime show.

Coca-Cola creates global TV series for Summer Olympics.

Facebook gains support for advertising from Ford and Coca-Cola.

FedEx CEO predicts industry shifts as airport-to-airport business stalls.

Ford uses big data to inform marketing and design decisions at Silicon Valley lab.

GM unifies global design strategy.

Kimberly-Clark enlists Mexican TV star for Huggies campaign.

J.C. Penney to tweak message but not strategy in wake of president's ouster this week.Continue reading...

When Comcast formally acquired NBC Universal back in January of 2011, it was only a matter of time before the two sports powerhouses combined their national, regional, and cable efforts to create a single sports media juggernaut.

Following a complete overhaul from brand strategy through to creative execution that included the rebrand of Comcast's Versus channel to NBC Sports Network on January 2nd, 2012, NBC Sports Group is showing off its new face in 2012.

The NBC Sports Group’s new identity launched in January with the rebrand of Versus to NBC Sports Network, and has rolled out across their coverage of the Super Bowl and Triple Crown. The new brand is set to further roll out during NBC Sports Group’s Olympic coverage in July, and will be featured on NBC, NBC Sports Network, the Group’s RSNs (regional sports networks), and digital and web properties.Continue reading...

Panasonic's tagline is "ideas for life," but its motto could read, "sustainable ideas for life." The brand is showcasing its sustainable energy solutions in a booth at the Japan Pavilion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the main venue of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, which kicks off Monday.

The Panasonic exhibition is part of Japan's joint public-private-sector initiative to show the world its potential and contributions towards sustainable development, a main theme of the conference — the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.Continue reading...

With such brands as Tide, Charmin, and Bounty in its massive brand family of consumer packaged goods, Procter & Gamble has long focused its marketing push toward the mothers of the world. Even now, in a world where the stay-at-home-dad population is growing and U.S. women are heading toward out-earning their husbands, P&G still pays tribute to mom in much of its marketing.

Its current global campaign, called "Thank You Mom," celebrates the mothers of Olympic athletes, and P&G will take some of those women to the Games in London this summer. While we can all agree that moms rock, P&G is smartly taking a break so it can focus on dads, even for a bit. With Father’s Day coming up this weekend, P&G’s Gillette brand launched dad-centric TV ads during the England-France Euro 2012 tie game on Monday.

Gillette's pre-Father's Day U.S. campaign pitch for the spot at top:

Gillette is searching for the greatest fatherly advice ever. Visit us on Facebook, or use #HeresToDad on Twitter between June 7 and 17 to share your dad's words of wisdom. This commercial celebrates Dads everywhere, by recognizing the man behind the athlete...the man behind all of us. "Here's to Dad. The Best a Man Can Get."Continue reading...

There are 50 days left until the Summer Olympics gets underway in London and organizers are promoting the fact with a hashtag on Twitter (#50DaystoGo) and a list of 50 ways for the public to engage with the Games.Continue reading...

Are you a tennis fan? Then we don't have to tell you to watch the French Open. Are you a hardcore tennis fan? Then you might consider not only watching the French Open but getting behind the wheel of a French Open special edition Peugeot.

The tie-up between the venerable French brands to create the time-limited Peugeot 207 CC and 308 CC Roland Garros editions makes sense, and celebrates one of the most important tennis tournaments in the sport of tennis. Luxury (and less luxurious) lifestyle brands have a longstanding relationship with automakers, with varying degrees of success (and excess).Continue reading...

London Heathrow is the third-busiest airport in the world, moving close to 70 million people down its two runways each year. It can feel a bit cramped there and anybody who has walked its floors might tell you that all 70 million of those folks were in the place the day they were there. 

The government has threatened to scuttle a proposed third runway, which has Heathrow operator BAA threatening to sue as it's eager to expand capacity. And from the "you can't please all the people all the time" dept., one group of Brits would love the 83-year-old airport to be leveled and converted into landscaped gardens, a residential area, and a university. Yet customer surveys indicate that over 70% of passengers at the airport rate their experience as 'Excellent' or 'Very Good.'

As it looks to become more efficient and truly "make every journey better" in order to bump those customer survey results even higher, Heathrow's retail partners and shoppers are certainly happy. According to an airport spokesperson, “Heathrow has the highest retail sales of any airport in the world ahead of Incheon airport in South Korea in second place.”Continue reading...

British businesses are no doubt excited that the Olympics are coming to their fair land. Even if they're not official sponsors of the London 2012 Summer Games, it's reasonable to exect that the influx of tourists would boost the local economy, not only frequenting businesses but wanting to take home a few pieces of England to share with those who weren’t lucky enough to join them in viewing the world’s premier athletes in competition.

But some of that glee has turned to heartache in the days leading up to the Games. The International Olympic Committee and the London Organizing Committee (LOCOG) have been coming down hard on any business that comes anywhere close to aligning themselves with the Games if they haven’t shelled out the mega-millions it takes to be an official partner of the event. You may recall the story of the "Lympic" cafe, so-renamed after being asked by officials to drop its O. Now comes the case of the tissue-paper Olympic rings.

“A florist has been ordered to take down a tissue paper Olympic rings display from her shop window because it breaches trademark rules,” according to The Daily Mail. The small flower shop in question, La Rose Florists in Stoke-on-Trent, were apparently told they may be sued by such megacorporations as Coca-Cola for their creativity.Continue reading...