• Kraft Hopes To Attract Hispanics With Kool-Aid
    This year, Kraft will triple its spend against the Hispanic market to double digits. In 2009, the company spent 3.8% of its budget on Hispanic media. The company will put the majority of its Hispanic-directed budget against its Kool-Aid brand. Elements include TV ads via Ogilvy & Mather's Ogilvy Rojo that have already begun airing on Univision and Telemundo. The message: where there's fun, there's Kool-Aid.
  • P&G Business Centered On Billion-Dollar Brands
    Procter & Gamble has nearly two dozen brands worth at least a billion dollars, but the company's next biggie will be one unknown in the U.S.: Prestobarba, a brand of disposable razors in the Asia, Latin America, Europe and Middle East markets. Men's grooming products are where P&G's growth will come from in coming years, especially in BRIC markets.
  • Sharp Tells Men They Need Big TVs
    Sharp's man-cave pitch says real men don't watch little screens. The company is promoting its supersized 70-inch LCD TVs with a TV, print, online, social and in-store push, "Big is too small a word" meant to entice males 35 to 54 with a cast of peers, who appear in the ads with their enlarged heads framed by the mega-TVs. The guys exclaim "Magnormous!" and "Spectacularge!" The effort runs through July 4 and includes Facebook contests and point-of-purchase educational materials meant to counter sentiments that may arise around viewing and furnishing aesthetics. IHS iSuppli reports that 50-inch-and-larger TVs accounted …
  • Heineken Re-ups For 3 More Years Of UEFA Soccer
    Heineken is back for three more years sponsoring UEFA Championship League soccer. The deal extends Heineken's ties to the tournament to over 20 years. The new deal gives the company a larger digital presence and includes broadcast rights in Germany, per chief commercial officer Alexis Nasard, who said the Heineken brand is available in 174 of the 220 counties that watch the match.
  • Renault Taps Tavares For New COO
    Renault is grabbing sibling Nissan America's CEO, Carlos Tavares, to be its new COO. The move follows a shakeup at the automaker that involved the firing of three senior executives who had been accused of spying for the Chinese. After the three were exonerated, Patrick Pelata, the COO of Renault at the time and a confidante of Nissan/Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn, was forced out. Tavares spent 23 years at Renault before being shifted over to Nissan North America in 2004.
  • Harvard Kids Launch Name Tracker
    Two Harvard computer science kids have launched Newsle.com, which is meant to help people track friends and celebrities. The site allows members to compare their and others' online fame. It searches the web for names and uses math to determine if that person is someone you'd want to know about. In the first six weeks, the site has gotten 6,000 users tracking 2 million people.
  • Go Ahead, Take An Ad Risk
    Blogger MP Mueller says trying something new in advertising is the hardest thing to do in business. Mueller, founder of Austin, Tex., boutique ad firm Door Number 3, says when he (she?) makes a pitch that hits the marketer's objectives and is totally different from what the company or the industry has done before, "Minute one, the chief executive's face is euphoric, almost giddy. "Minute two, more of the same as the C.E.O. imagines how far a truly new campaign might take the company. And then we get into the third minute and the rush of possibility recedes, deflated …
  • Hotels Offer Gas Deals To Attract Travelers
    With gasoline at historically high prices -- averaging $3.81 this week -- hotels are offering fuel-related discounts this summer. Deals include gas gift cards and free nights, promotions wherein travelers can submit their gas receipts for reimbursement, and deals rewarding people who carpool or take mass transit. Joe McInerney, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, says the programs aren't new but they are getting a lot more sophisticated.
  • Walmart, Home Depot Each Pledge $1 Million For Joplin, Mo.
    Each company had stores there that were destroyed by a tornado this week, and both had fatalities within.
  • Analyst: Hyundai, Kia On Track To Pass Honda, Toyota This Month
    TrueCar.com says Hyundai and Kia combined will outsell Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. and American Honda in May. The auto shopping site says the Korean duo will sell 115,434 units in May, a 43.4% increase from May last year. That would give the companies combined 10.9% market share and put it at No. 3 behind Ford and General Motors.
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