Free Republic

Rooty the Great Root Bear, the mascot of A&W Restaurants for 60 years, will hence forth be wearing denim jeans. In a Twitter post, the company suggested that Rooty’s lack of pants was “polarizing.” “America, let’s talk. Since 1963, Rooty the Great Root Bear has been our beloved spokesbear. We knew people would notice because he’s literally a 6-foot tall bear wearing an orange sweater,” the company said. “But now we get it – even a mascot’s lack of pants can be polarizing.” Moving forward, Rooty will wear be wearing jeans. The company said Rooty will still remain the company’s...

Kellogg's Corn Pops The cereal business is not what is used to be, at least for products that are not considered "healthy." Among those is Kellogg's Corn Pops ready-to-eat cereal. Sales of the brand dropped 18% over the year that ended in April, down to $74 million. That puts it well behind brands like Cheerios and Frosted Flakes, each which have sales of over $200 million a year. Private label sales have also hurt sales of branded cereals. Revenues in this category were $637 million over the same April-end period. There is also profit margin pressure on Corn Pops because...

24/7 Wall St. has created a new list of brands that will disappear, which includes Sears (NASDAQ:SHLD), Sony Pictures (NYSE:SNE), American Apparel (NYSE:APP), Nokia (NYSE:NOK), Saab, A&W All-American Foods Restaurants, Soap Opera Digest, Sony Ericsson, MySpace (NYSE:NWS.A), and Kellogg’s Corn Pops. (NYSE:K).Each year, 24/7 Wall St. regularly compiles a list of brands that are going to disappear in the near-term. Last year’s list proved to be prescient in many instances, predicting the demise of T-Mobile among others. In late May, AT&T (NYSE:T) and Deutsch Telekom announced that AT&T would buy T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. The deal would add 34...