Global shipping company DHL is backing soccer giant Manchester United for its friendly tour of the U.S. next month. DHL has secured rights that include player and club legend appearances, tickets, hospitality, branding and advertising opportunities. DHL will also "deliver" the team to each game in a DHL-branded bus. The tour includes three games against Major League Soccer clubs, and matches against the MLS All-Star Team and soccer powerhouse Barcelona. Manchester United has a 13-year, $470 million deal with Nike; a four-year $132 million jersey-front sponsorship deal with Aon; and deals with other global sponsors including DHL, Audi, Kumho …

Suarez Manufacturing Industries is moving production to the United States from China - a reflection of the new lower-paying profile of the U.S. manufacturing sector that is looking more and more like that of Mexico, or China for that matter. The Canton, Ohio factory will make portable heaters in a 200,000-square-foot building that was once a Hoover vacuum factory. The company expects to hire as many as 2,500 workers in the next 18 months, with just 110 positions are available now. But the jobs will pay as little as $7.50 an hour. The Dispatch includes a Q&A with …

The chocolate maker Cadbury has apologized for an advertisement that named -- and offended -- supermodel Naomi Campbell. The print ad paired Cadbury's Bliss chocolate bar with "Move over, Naomi, there's a new diva in town." That instantly drew fire from Campbell, who is from London. She threatened to sue after the ad appeared in U.K. newspapers last month. "I am shocked," she said, according to the U.K.'s Independent. "It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humour …

A German-language video for the 2012 Audi A6 Avant has drawn a lawsuit from Eminem's publishing company, which says the music in the video was taken without permission from Em's "Lose Yourself," which is also the soundtrack to the ad Eminen did for the Chrysler 200, which debuted during the Super Bowl His company Eight Mile Style filed a civil action last week in a Hamburg Regional Court in Germany, seeking a "cease-and-desist" against Audi. According to Yahoo! Music, a U.S. spokesman for Audi responded to the lawsuit saying the video that has sparked the debate is not …

Brand guru Al Ries uses Starbucks as an example of a company that no longer advertises its coffee shops and whose logo no longer says "Starbucks." He says that evolution is typical of a brand that stands for something that becomes a hat stand for a range of products of services far from its core offering. He also says the same for a certain famous P&G oral brand. "There is no such thing as a Crest advertising program," he writes, pointing out that Crest is no longer a cavity-prevention toothpaste but a toothpaste, toothbrush, mouthwash, dental floss and tooth whitener. …

Even Justin Bieber is (for what it's worth) addicted to the Finnish game maker Rovio Mobile Ltd.'s game, Angry Birds. It has been downloaded more than 200 million times and spoofed on SNL. But rather than make more games from it, the company has instead gone into merchandise like plush toys, T-shirts, and phone cases, which is making the game a real-world brand. Now Mattel has revealed an Angry Birds game, the old fashioned kind. "We had the prototype, got in contact with Rovio, and got a deal going pretty quickly," said Mattel marketing manager Ray Adler.

The game may be on hold but adidas has added two NFL rookies -- the Washington Redskins Leonard Hankerson and Edmond Gates of the Miami Dolphins -- to its list of gridiron endorsers.

General Motors' Chevrolet division will be the presenting sponsor of the Woodward Dream Cruise, Detroit's premier automotive prom party. The company has signed on for a three-year sponsorship deal for a $1 million, the funds going to cover facilities, and support services. The event has suffered in recent years along with the city's fortunes. In May, the MotorCity Casino Hotel ended its $80,000 annual sponsorship.

That awful clamshell packaging, which requires a Dremel and a jackhammer to open, may finally be exiting. Don't slam the door on the way out. High oil prices (and plastics come from crude) are making manufacturers and retailers take a hard look at how they package little things behind Maginot Lines of hard plastic. "With the instability in petroleum-based materials, people said we need an alternative to the clamshell," said Jeff Kellogg, VP for consumer electronics and security packaging at packaging company MeadWestvaco. Target has redesigned a lot of its packing and Wal-Mart Stores has pushed suppliers to make concentrates …

WPP has seen a 6% revenue rise as it has bought the largest independent digital agency in Brazil, F.biz. The holding company said it looks for strong profits going forward because of events next year. The group saw U.S. revenues rise 8%.