Ford may want to consider getting back to infotainment basics: two tin cans and a string. That may at least please Consumer Reports. The Dearborn automaker's efforts to improve MyFord Touch again don't make Consumer Reports happy. The magazine, which panned MyFord Touch version one says in a blog that even with updates to make it less distracting, the system "still frustrates us like few other control systems in any other brand's automobiles." In the piece, whose headline says the new version stinks, CR argues that there aren't any knobs or buttons, as on old-fashioned radios in cars. Instead, it …

Ira Kalb, professor of marketing at USC, and head of Kalb & Associates points out that while Neil Armstrong hadn't the slightest interest in self aggrandizement, he would have had a great platform had he been interested in marketing himself. "Why was he given so much of the credit? Brand marketers will tell you that it was because of one of the most powerful forces in branding-being first to a new position," he writes. "Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the moon. He was also the first human to take a step on any physical world beyond the …

The fresh coconut water brand has signed its first NFL endorsers - Vernon Davis, Larry Fitzgerald, Eric Decker and Devin Hester - for a multi-media campaign, who joins such athletes as Josh Hamilton, Dustin Pedroia and Joakim Noah as Vita Coco seeks to ride the category's wave of popularity.

For the second time this year, General Motors will halt production of the Chevrolet Volt for several weeks - but company sources insist the move does not signal problems with the plug-in hybrid which got off to a slow start after its introduction in December 2010. In fact, GM expects to report that demand has surged to a record for the Volt this month, more than doubling year ago levels. Depending on what happens the rest of this week, August sales could near 2,500, TheDetroitBureau.com has learned.

The No. 1 seeded woman in the world entering the 2012 U.S. Open is the new global ambassador for Citizen, which already has a roster that includes Eli Manning, Paula Creamer, Matt Kenseth and Kim Clijsters. Marketing with TV, print and digital featuring Azarenka will hit this fall.

The Association of National Advertisers applauded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which vacated, or set aside, the Food and Drug Administration rule requiring the graphic warnings on all tobacco products or ads. "We're not ventriloquist dummies through which the government speaks," Dan Jaffe, ANA's group exec VP for government relations, told Ad Age. He pointed out that the First Amendment "doesn't stop the government from speaking on its own and using whatever images they want [but] it stops them from making [a marketer] say what it want [them] to say."

The proliferation of nuevo burger joints like Five Guys, Bareburger and Brgr has led to a renaissance of burger joint logos. Here is a collection of the top 20, per BurgerBusiness.com. A couple of memorable ones: burger bar/bakery combo Buku (a mix of burger and cupcake?) has a logo that is half burger, half cupcake. Weird. And then there's the old-school logo for Chicago based "The Butcher and the Burger," which kind of sums it up.

In India, if you visit a restroom in a multiplex you might see ads exhorting you to "Aim and shoot," or explaining that "size doesn't matter', and instructing, "do not give in to pressure." Moviegoers who took a bathroom break at PVR Cinemas during the screening of 'Ek Tha Tiger' found themselves staring into ads for Dixcy Scott, an innerwear brand the film's hero endorses. Others doing likewise: Whisper, Stayfree, Dettol, Lakme, and L'Oreal to Lux, Axe, Diesel, Sony Pix and Zee TV.

Several experts claim gasoline should reach its highest-ever price on Labor Day. And, according to fuel experts, consumers will need to wait longer than usual to see prices decline. The average price was about $3.72 per gallon, per AAA. It was $3.572 at the same time last year and $3.477 just one month ago. "Barring any significant market-moving developments, we would expect gas prices for Labor Day 2012 to be slightly higher or nearly the same as today," said Michael Green, a spokesman for AAA.

Mazda6 won't build cars in the U.S. The last Mazda6 sedan has rolled off the AutoAlliance International assembly line in Flat Rock, Michigan. Mazda has been building cars at the facility in suburban Detroit for the last quarter century, having set up AAI as a joint venture with long-time partner Ford Motor Co. It will return to Japan for the next version of the car.