When a big brand and a racing company get together, it is usually so they can excitedly announce that the brand’s name is going to be plastered all over the racing company’s uniforms and vehicles and shoelaces and, well, you get the idea.

Drug-manufacturing behemoth GlaxoSmithKline apparently wants a whole lot more form such a partnership. GSK and the F1 racing group McLaren have established a strategic partnership that will last till 2016 and see the McLaren “share its extensive knowledge of innovation and high-tech research with GSK.”

“McLaren will also help to deliver a high class and efficient performance across the global GSK brand, particularly in its Manufacturing, Research and Development and Consumer Healthcare departments, using its aptitude in the areas of engineering, strategy modeling and analytics,” HealthCareGlobal.com reports.

If that weren’t enough, the two are pairing up to build a new facility that “focuses on developing engineering skills and processes” and will open in 2013.

“I am delighted to announce this partnership with McLaren which brings together two British companies whose continued success hinges on the ability to innovate and rapidly respond to change and competitor activity,” stated Andrew Witty, GSK’s CEO. “This partnership is another example of GSK looking outside its sector for inspiration and fresh perspectives on how we can achieve our strategic goals in an ever more challenging and fast changing business environment.”

If none of these other things work out, maybe GSK will at least start manufacturing Paxil shaped like a Formula One car.

[At top, GSK CEO Andrew Witty and Ron Dennis, Executive Chairman of McLaren Group]

It’s generally best for a passionate male sports fan to keep his obsession out of the bedroom when it comes to relations to the opposite sex, but a company in England is helping to change that predicament.

Premier Lingerie has partnered with two Premier League clubs to produce lingerie with the team’s clubs and colors. And this isn’t just so the fellas can live out some sort of Harlequin-style soccer fantasy — it's for the female footie fan.

“Women now make up about 20 percent of football supporters but only three to five percent of club merchandise is aimed at them,” said Paul Robinson, director of Premier Lingerie, to the Daily Mail. “A lot of clubs simply stock pink T-shirts with the club's logo on them. That's not good enough. Not enough clubs are doing anything sassy for their female fans, so that's where we're helping.”

Premier Lingerie recently partnered with Premier League team Newcastle United on the heels of signing a deal with the Wolverhampton Wanderers before the holidays last year. It is in conversations with other teams about producing similar lingerie lines, the brand's website notes.

We may all have Katy Perry to thank for this.Continue reading...

Chasing monsters, ghosts and other costumed villains has paid off for the Mystery Inc. gang.

Despite the constant scarfing down of Scooby Snax, burgers, pizza and chicken wings, Scooby Doo has just been named the "healthiest" cartoon character for British children to watch, along with his mystery-solving sidekicks.

The Scooby crew snagged #1 on the UK Department of Health's new ranking for being the most active (and thus the best role models for kids) based on 200 hours of cartoon-watching by the DoH, which separately is partnering with the LazyTown TV (#3 on the new list) to get kids up and moving.

The new ranking of DoH-approved cartoon characters:Continue reading...

This lovely spot for Twirl Bites is the beloved chocolate’s first commercial in fifteen years, as Cadbury brings some marketing muscle to promoting it in the UK. 

Reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine, visual effects specialists Mattes and Miniatures hand-crafted the self-contained "Twirly gig" spinning structure of fans, propellers and miniature toys on spinning plates, evocative of daily activities made sweeter with an artistic twirl.Continue reading...

Remember when the Olympics were all about international fellowship and goodwill to your fellow man? Those were the days! 

Team Great Britain re-introduced its mascot for the Olympics this week, a lion named Pride, that will find its way onto hundreds of products before the Games kick off next summer.

Of course, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympics Games themselves already have two one-eyed mascots: Wenlock and Mandeville, modeled after two drops of steel, supposedly from the last girder of London’s new Olympic Stadium.

If you don’t think drops of steel are cuddly enough, Pride may be your man. The Guardian reports that the new lion in town who has a Union Jack-colored mane was inspired by the lion mascot of the 1966 World Cup, which was held in (and won by) England, the very cool World Cup Willie.

Pride made his first appearance on the scene, by the way, when British Olympians made their way to Beijing in 2008, though his mane wasn’t quite so colorful then.Continue reading...

Here's an unexpected entrant in the daily deals fray: BP, which has launched a location-based daily deals service to reinvent the brand and dip a toe in the muddied waters of consumer engagement one year after the disastrous Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

The offers, available only to consumers in the UK, are being updated on BP’s corporate website .The tagline for Today’s Offers: ‘Keeping BP’s great offers at your fingertips.’ What a difference a year makes as sales and deals strive to trump a company’s performance track record once again.Continue reading...

Kellogg’s Krave cereal has only been available for a year in the UK, but it’s got a pretty sweet handle on how to gain attention on social and digital platforms.

The brand this week released an iPhone and iPad app — called the Krave Krusader game — in the iTunes store. The goal: "In your relentless pursuit you must run through the Krave world catching as many Choc Chunks while trying to avoid or smash through all the obstacles and jumping the gaps. Collect the many different power-ups as you go to help you along the way to a winning score. Every week one Top Krusader wins a limited edition prize pack!"

Kellogg's UK marketing team is also using the cereal's Facebook page to poll fans on what the next flavor should be that it puts on the market permanently. The goal is to have the page’s more than 145,000 fans vote on two limited edition flavors and then add the winner to the permanent list of Krave flavors in 2012 — and to spur awareness and sales, of course.Continue reading...

Ford is trying to wow European auto consumers with its onboard-technology prowess just as it has impressed American car buyers, in part by demonstrating that its high-tech capabilities are suited for local markets across the continent.

In Germany, for instance, Ford is adapting its SYNC in-car connectivity system to cope with the famously high speeds on German autobahns. To get SYNC ready for its European debut next year, Ford had to make was to make sure that the smart navigation system could give sufficient advance warning of upcoming exits, considering how fast German drivers motor on their highways.

Some reprogramming has done the trick. Ford also had to tweak the technology so that SYNC systems sold on the continent could understand multiple European languages. What Ford has been able to do (so far) with the European version of SYNC is on display at the IFA consumer-electronics trade show in Berlin this week.Continue reading...