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Background: Volvo Cars (owned by Ford Motor Company) claims their all new Volvo XC 60 to be the world's safest car. The consequence: The Toyota people have worked themselves into a rage and now take legal actions. (The following is a translation of a Swedish article. My English isn't perfect, but I hope what follows at least is comprehensible:) "Toyota disapproves of Volvo's claims of the new XC60 to be the world's safest car. Toyota now sues Volvo in the Swedish Market Court (Marknadsdomstolen). In their application to the court, Toyota argues that there indeed are cars around the Globe...

Despite a near collapse that required $45 billion in federal taxpayer bailout funds, Bank of America sponsored a five day carnival-like affair just outside the Super Bowl stadium this past week as President Obama decried wasteful spending on Wall St. Brian Ross investigates the bankers who sponsored Super Bowl festivities.The event – known as the NFL Experience – was 850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions for football fans and was blanketed in Bank of America logos and marketing calls to sign up for football-themed banking products. The bank staunchly defended its sponsorship, saying it was a...

During the 2008 Presidential campaign for empty-suit Obama image and advertising was everything; remember the hour-long infomercials he saturated the TV airwaves with? However, since he became President, Obama realized capitalism is bad and advertising must have government imposed limits. Read on

"Yes we can,'' the Obama campaign proclaimed. "No you can't,'' says the Obama White House of the varied attempts to cash in on the brand Obama built. Or maybe they can, or can't. The lawyers are looking into it, Bloomberg News reports" ### President-elect Barack Obama has created his own brand - represented both by the iconic images of the candidate who campaigned for "change'' and by the "Yes we can'' and "Change We Can Believe in" slogans generated by that campaign. Now the Obama White House, mindful of the "worldwide fascination'' about his election, First Amendment free-speech rights and...

Barack Obama’s popularity makes him a marketer’s dream. Now, the honeymoon may be over for those trying to profit from his appeal. White House lawyers want to control the use of the president’s image, recognizing the worldwide fascination about Obama’s election, First Amendment free-speech rights and easy access to videos and photos on the Web. “Our lawyers are working on developing a policy that will protect the presidential image while being careful not to squelch the overwhelming enthusiasm that the public has for the president,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Obama’s calls for change and his “Yes We Can”...

The nation's best-selling beer is giving its cans and bottles a makeover next year, with a focus on the color blue and the brand's new emphasis on refreshment and what the brewer calls "drinkability." The change comes as analysts say more people are buying beer instead of higher-priced wine and spirits. Anheuser-Busch, the St. Louis-based U.S. unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev, introduced the concept of drinkability with a series of ads in early October telling drinkers the Bud Light brand has flavor and won't fill them up. Next, Anheuser-Busch, bumped up the release of the second wave of its $50 million...

Finding An Honest SEO International Internet Marketing Company In London By Joel Leyden United Kingdom News Agency Tel Aviv -----October 14, 2006......One of the greatest challenges facing any international export or import business in London today is being found on the Internet. The Internet has changed the fundamental means for how we conduct international business. It provides instant, real time answers to many of our daily commercial and personal questions. But now that you have a Website, can your site be found when one performs a search on Google, Yahoo, Live.com or AOL for your company's product or service? Chances...

Great article describing what I noticed very early in Obama's campaign. Obama ran as a brand rather than a traditional candidate. I think this explains the early loyalty, particularly by young or new voters, to a man with very little experience and a track record, what little he had, which clearly did not match his rhetoric. Obama is the proverbial empty suit, but due to precise and effective branding he is perceived as the more preferable candidate to his target audience, the youth and persuadable voter.

Win or lose, many marketing experts agree that Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency will provide the blueprint for political campaigns to come. There is the message and design discipline, the embrace of social media, and—most importantly—an openness to the idea that candidates, like brands, are built from the bottom up rather than the top down. As Scott Goodson, founder of agency StrawberryFrog says, "He is not a brand in the traditional sense, he is a cultural movement." Call it Politics 2.0. Headed by chief strategist David Axelrod and manager David Plouffe, and with help from new media director Joe...

A Hemline Index, Updated By TAMAR LEWIN More suicides? Fewer male births? Less back pain? More laxative sales? Data points litter the landscape as economists, sociologists, psychologists and marketers examine the societal changes, big and small, trivial and traumatic, that accompany a bad economy. And with this particular version of a troubled economy — a stock market that goes into convulsions at 3 p.m., a looming global recession, a $700 billion bailout plan that may or may not work, and a jittery public wondering what is coming next — changes should flow as freely as profits in good times. It’s...

Ryanair on Friday claimed Sweden's Trade Ethical Council against Sexism in Advertising (ERK) was out of touch with the "Britney Spears generation" after the agency accused the discount airline of running a sexist ad campaign. In defending the advertisement, Ryanair questioned whether the ERK accurately reflected the views of most Swedes. “We are sure that the anti-funsters at the ERK do not speak for the majority of the famously liberal and easy going Swedes,” the company said in a statement. “The ad simply reflects the way a lot of young girls like to dress. We hope the old farts at...

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- John McCain may not know how to use e-mail, but his campaign apparently knows how to use search. It's one technology area where the Republican seems to be besting Barack Obama. In the back and forth on paid Google search ads, voters can find Mr. Obama challenging Sarah Palin's record of reform, Mr. McCain is pointing out Joe Biden's contradictory statements about Mr. Obama and Mr. Obama defending his Christian faith. Mr. McCain appears to be reaping the most benefit from search. He is aggressively buying Obama and Biden's keywords as well as issues such as...

Swedish clothing retailer Hennes & Mauritz has been given the all clear to open an outlet on the swish shopping street Champs-Élysées. H & M beat off the vociferous objections of Paris city council. France's top administrative court, the State Council, rejected an appeal by Paris city council which moved in January to block a store licence granted to the retailer, according to deputy Paris mayor Lyne Cohen-Solal. "We are completely powerless" to stop the spread of big chain stores on what is touted as the most beautiful avenue in the world, she said. The city has now exhausted all...

Two Delaware residents are giving new meaning to the term "pushing" Obama, according to criminal drug charges filed Thursday. Fifty-two bags of heroin in bags stamped both with letters spelling out OBAMA and an image in the likeness of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama were confiscated following a routine car stop on Interstate 95 in Upper Chichester, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

Firm launches bottled water - from the same source as taps Last updated at 23:20pm on 23.08.08  Cambridge Water's new product comes from the same aquifer as its tap supply For years, utility companies have told us that we are wasting our money buying mineral water.But now a firm which makes millions from selling tap water has started marketing bottled mineral water – from the same underground source.The parent company of Cambridge Water has invested £10million in a bottling plant above a chalk aquifer.The new company, Iceni Waters, has already struck deals with stores including Tesco, Morrisons and the...

Say what you will about Rachael Ray, but the jaunty chef-next-door knows how to build a brand. She began winning audiences with catch phrases like "EVOO" (for extra-virgin olive oil) on her first Food Network show, 30 Minute Meals, in 2001. Today, she has four Food Network programs, including Tasty Travels and $40 a Day. Her nationally syndicated, Oprah-backed talk show, Rachael Ray, is averaging 2.6 million viewers this season, and her Every Day With Rachael Ray magazine has 1.5 million readers. She endorses Dunkin' Donuts too--all to the tune of $18 million a year. More established chefs also know...

Barack Obama is the most left-wing candidate the Democrats have nominated since George McGovern. If Obama wins the presidency, I think it is fair to postulate that it will be George McGovern's first term. Like McGovern, Obama staked out his territory as the antiwar candidate at the left end of the field of Democratic presidential candidates. His antiwar position, including his concocted critique of Hillary Clinton's purported "saber rattling" on Iran, was his signature issue through the Democratic primaries. One of the ironies of Obama's (sermon to the Germans) last week was his praise of the 1948 airlift that broke...

Executives from the state highway department are again defending themselves at the Capitol against people who say they are using taxpayer money to advance an agenda in favor of toll roads in Texas. At the heart of the issue are claims that TxDOT has hired lobbyists, using taxpayer dollars, to push in favor of projects like the Trans-Texas Corridor. Part of that is the "Keep Texas Moving" website. "Marketing is undertaken to inform drivers in the Austin area about the opening of new toll roads, toll road locations and incentive periods, and about the benefits of paying with an electronic...

Coffee giant Starbucks Corp. has released its first list of store closures since it announced a major downsizing July 1, and five of the eight California locations to be shuttered are in the Inland area.

In October 2000, at a whole-day conference in New York organized by the Association of Asian American Advertising Agencies (A5), the forerunner of the Asian American Advertising Federation (3AF), "the business case for Asian American marketing" was the focus of discussion. The organizers of the conference wanted to call attention to the importance of Asian Americans as a consumer market and to the fact that this was not reflected in the segment’s share of advertising dollars being spent by corporate America. Ironically, while speaker after speaker spoke in glowing terms about the buying power of Asian Americans, not one touched...