As she accepted the job of setting up a consumer financial protection agency for President Barack Obama today, Elizabeth Warren declared that the time for financial "tricks and traps" was over, writes Jeff Mason. Obama is expected to announce his appointment of Warren, a Harvard University professor and hero to liberal activists, at 1:30 pm ET. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is Warren's brainchild, will have broad powers to write and enforce regulations covering mortgages, credit cards and other financial products. She is reviled by many on Wall Street for her calls to crack down on abusive lending practices …

At a London conference this week, beer giant SABMiller PLC announced a shift away from decentralization in order to increase sales and profits from existing operations. Top managers in its 75 countries were told to focus on sales and marketing, writes David Kesmodel. Executives at SABMiller, which makes Pilsner Urquell, Grolsch and Águila, among other beers, will concentrate on building brands and gaining shelf space. The move reflects few opportunities left to grow through acquisitions after a flurry of mergers and acquisitions that took place in the past several years. SABMiller and other beer giants are trying to …

A major player on the college football scene with its Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year Award, the insurance company is dangling upward of a $1 million charitable donation to two competing teams who complete a game without one penalty being called, Barry Janoff tells us. The reward is being offered to all teams in Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A), Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), Division II and Division III. According to college football analysts, the last time a penalty-free regular season college football game was played at any of these levels was when Army defeated …

The world's largest supplier of stevia sweetener, PureCircle has introduced a campaign to raise awareness of a new labeling system. The system has already been adopted by food and beverage brands, including Silk soymilk and True Lemonade. The label used is a "trust mark," reports Elaine Wong, which indicates to consumers that the product they are buying contains the zero-calorie, natural sweetener. As part of the effort, PureCircle is running ads with the tagline: "We grow joy." One print execution is a co-branded ad with Silk that shows two chocolate soymilk bottles shooting out of a flower. "Taste …

Is Ford grooming Jim Farley to succeed president and CEO Alan Mulally? In an article profiling Ford's global marketing chief, Brent Snavely notes that Farley needed operational experience "so Mulally put him in charge of all Ford business in Canada, Mexico and South America." Ford will soon introduce 10 cars, crossovers and SUVs based on its compact Focus as well as a new global version of its midsize Fusion and will look for small-car sales growth from its new Ford Fiesta. The automaker is also trying to gain sales in India and China. "All of these products are going …

In an obvious jab at the upcoming Kinect for Xbox 360 hands-free gaming solution (out Nov. 4), Marc Saltzman reports, Sony is promoting the fact its new PlayStation Move has buttons on its body for extra control (including the launch of the website, yaybuttons.com, to drive the point home). Sony Computer Entertainment's Move Controller for the PlayStation 3 is a motion-sensing peripheral that lets you interact with games by waving the device in front of the television. If images of the Nintendo Wii are conjured up, that's to be expected. But did you know Sony offered motion-sensing gaming long before …

Toyota expects its redesigned Scion tC coupe to double sales and breathe new life into the struggling youth-focused brand, Mike Colias reports. Scion expects to sell 35,000 to 45,000 of the more-powerful coupes in 2011, vice president Jack Hollis said during a media briefing at Oakland University in suburban Detroit. Scion sold 18,000 tCs in 2009, down 56% from the year before, after peaking at 79,125 in 2006. There's much riding on the rollout of the redesigned tC, which will arrive in showrooms Oct. 1. The tC has accounted for about 41% of Scion's overall sales since its …