One year post-introduction, Coca-Cola Enterprises — one of the world’s largest Coca-Cola bottlers, operating locally in eight territories in Western Europe — highlights its progress on its sustainability plan.

CCE’s sustainability plan commits it to setting the standard for sustainable packaging, achieving zero waste in its own operations and recycling more packaging than it uses.

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...

Domino's new US ad campaign promotes the chain's new handmade pan pizzas, and takes a swipe at competitor Pizza Hut for using frozen dough.

While the Boy Scouts brand has been rocked by the organization's mishandling of pedophilia charges, the century-old Girl Scouts have gone from strength to strength in their centennial year. The latest change: the iconic Girl Scout Cookies are getting a redesign for the first time since 1999, honoring the significance and continued growth of the $790-million girl-led business. 

The iconic packaging highlights five financial, literacy and entrepreneurship skills that the Girl Scout Cookie Program teaches: goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, and business ethics and the redesign matches the embodiment of Girl Scouting in 2012, part of the brand’s 100th anniversary celebrated in March. 

“We have more than 50 million cookie customers across the country, and the cookie box is the most tangible and powerful way for us to communicate directly with consumers,” stated Girl Scouts USA CEO Anna Maria Cháve about the new cookie box packaging, which features "stories of what Girl Scouts do today."Continue reading...

Americans purchased 636.5 billion cigarettes way back in 1981. A good chunk of them were likely sucked in by the slew of air-traffic controllers that President Reagan fired. Or maybe it was all the people coming out of the year’s fifth most-popular film, “Cheech and Chong’s Nice Dreams.” Or those taking a break after getting down to Kool & the Gang’s “Celebration.” 

It’s hard to know just where all those cigarettes were going, but that year found Americans purchasing more of the so-called cancer sticks than any other. Since then, of course, there has been a long battle to help people ditch tobacco products in the hopes of bringing down the numbers of death from cancer. 

It appears that the anti-tobacco movement is working, just as the FDA is ready to ramp up a massive new five-year, anti-smoking campaign in the U.S. According to a new report from the Federal Trade Commission, cigarette purchases in America fell to an all-time low of 281.6 billion in 2010.Continue reading...

Back in 1794, Philip Wigle was sentenced to hang for committing high treason during the Whiskey Rebellion. His crime? Wigle beat up a tax collector to prevent him from collecting taxes on farmers in Western Pennsylvania who made their living by turning grain into whiskey. Over 200 years later, Wigle's memory is honored by a young distillery in Pittsburgh called Wigle Whiskey.

On a recent trip to Pittsburgh, brandchannel dispatched a grateful scribe to catch up with Mark Meyer, a lawyer with a dream (inspired by a trip north of the border, as the Wall Street Journal found out) who founded Wigle Whiskey, to chat about launching an artisanal brand and sample his craft.

brandchannel: How important is branding in the whiskey business?

Mark Meyer: Branding is extremely important. Unlike wine, people seem to develop a loyalty to certain brands of whiskey. One of the reasons we decided to start our distillery is because Western Pennsylvania was once the home of American Whiskey. Whiskey is very much a part of the history and culture of Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania.Continue reading...

Domino's CEO Patrick Doyle certainly can't be accused of just watching the grass grow — or the cheese melt — on his watch. Already, he's led the brand through a marketing makeover focusing on transparency and self-effacement, formulation of new basic recipes for Domino's crust, greater reliance on digital sales, ushered in a new logo, and many other changes as Doyle has relentlessly shaken things up in what actually was a pretty sleepy industry.

Now, Doyle is unveiling Domino's latest big gambit: The debut of Domino's Handmade Pan Pizza, its biggest product launch since improving its core hand-tossed recipe a couple of years ago. After three years of development, Domino's notes that its new pizza is fresh dough that is hand-stretched into the pan — not frozen, "like many pan products out there," as the company's press release puts it.Continue reading...

Pepsi’s marketing gurus have been appealing to consumers through music seemingly for eons. Much of that perception is due to the success the soda maker has had in tying its name to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Even after the guy’s been laid to rest for more than three years, and earning more than ever, Pepsi is still celebrating its legendary association with the performer.

Back in May, Pepsi announced its deal with the Michael Jackson estate and Sony Music to an exclusive global marketing partnership that included featuring the Gloved One on a billion limited edition Pepsi cans released around the world, starting in China.

As part of its music-based global "Live for Now" platform, the Pepsi brand is reminding consumers that it's been 25 years since Jackson's iconic Bad album was released — an anniversary that director Spike Lee is marking with a documentary, and which Pepsi celebrated in late August in a concert with Billboard and singer Ne-Yo, who performed such hits as Closer from the album, which was released on Aug. 31, 1987.Continue reading...