Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company is now aware of the power of brand advertising. Schmidt spoke at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity this week. He said Google surprised itself with the success of its Super Bowl commercial last year. "Hell has frozen over. In the decade that I've been at the company, we would never have thought there was value [in a Super Bowl ad]," he said, and that he had "no ability to figure out which ad is going to work better than the other."

Perfetti Van Melle has hired The Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., as the social media agency in the United States for its Mentos line of mints and gums. The effort comes as the confectioner preps introduction of Mentos UP2U, its first stick gum sold in this country. Advertising efforts will be focused in social media. The new gum already has a Facebook fan page, facebook.com/up2u, with 95,900 "likes." The first 1,000 visitors who clicked on the "like" button got free gum in a promotion that began on June 13 and ended on Wednesday.

Each new fan acquired by a retail brand on Facebook will drive an additional 20 visits to a retailer's websites, per Hitwise, which measures website hits from traffic data supplied by ISPs counting eight million UK customers. The firm reached that conclusion by combining data from its Shopping and Classifieds category with data from the social marketing monitor Techlightenment.

Hennes & Mauritz AB posted net income down 18% for the second quarter. The Stockholm, Sweden-based retailer said higher procurement costs and promotional offers are to blame. Still, the company is planning 178 new stores in the second half of the year in China, Britain and the U.S.

So much for the five-day work week. A new American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Americans are spending more weekend time doing household work like cooking and cleaning, and that work-life changes affected women more than men. Women are working more hours overall than they did two years ago, especially on weekends. Men still work 40 minutes more per day, but women are catching up. Thirty-five percent of workers work on weekends.

Public schools, libraries, parks, public facilities of various kinds are closing as governments seek to save money. But it's a good time for luxury brands, and places like Phillips Exeter Academy. The world's millionaires hold $47.3 trillion in wealth, topping $40.7 trillion in 2007, per Capgemini and Merrill Lynch.

General Motors got rid of Pontiac, Saturn and Hummer in 2009 to slim down to four brands. But the company has also lost nearly two-thirds of Pontiac owners and almost three-fourths of Saturn drivers since then, former loyalists who have gone to the enemy when they bought new vehicles last year. Said Jesse Toprak of TrueCar.com, the General "knew by cutting these brands they were going to lose market share and they have." But he adds that "higher sales numbers don't always equal profits," and that GM will be better off in the long run by making its …

Cadbury's ad campaign comparing model Naomi Campbell to a bar of chocolate was not racist, according to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The organization threw out complaints over the print advertisement for Dairy Milk chocolate that said, "Move over, Naomi, there's a new diva in town."

Microsoft is offering up NuAds to advertisers this week. The ad platform allows consumers to use body gestures via computer game console and sensor devices to interact with third-party content including ads. Microsoft showed off the new platform at the Cannes International Ad Festival, saying NuAds are a way to "transform traditional, linear TV advertising into an interactive experience by using the voice-and gesture-control of Kinect for Xbox 360."

Deodorant makers, step carefully in India. The country's Advertising Standards Council has said it will take up the issue of "obscene" and "indecent" ads by such companies at its meeting to be held next week. The move follows directives from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry there to take action. That organization has been receiving complaints about ads depicting women as "objects of desire." Advertisements of brands such as Wild Stone, Addiction Deo, Set Wet Zatak, Denver Deo and Axe are the ones being questioned.