Heritage for a brand like London Fog is golden, but one either adapts it or abandons it. Would the famous '60's campaign featuring a duck in a London Fog coat "fly" now? Of London Fog's 2013 ad (featuring a beautiful nude model instead of a duck), Peter Dixon, creative director of brand consultancy Prophet, says the brand has gone with the "abandon" route."

Now in its second year as a corporate partner of the NCAA, insurance firm Northwestern said it would expand its role during March Madness, including TV presence across all broadcasts, sponsorship of events in Atlanta at Final Four weekend and activation via Internet, mobile and social media.

Nearly two-thirds of full-time workers own smartphones, up from 48% just two years ago, according to the Pew Research Center. One-third own a tablet, up from 12%. The exploding use of these devices has created a workplace domino effect: If one person answers the boss's e-mail after hours, others feel compelled to as well. "There's an arms-race component to this," says Lee Rainie, who directs the Pew Research Center's ongoing study of technology's social impact.

Walmart will open as many as 115 small-format stores this year, according to Bill Simon, president and CEO of Walmart U.S. He said Walmart's smaller-format stores (less than 60,000-square-foot stores under the Walmart Express and Walmart Neighborhood Market banners) are grabbing share from dollar stores, supermarkets and drug stores. He said these "hybrid format" stores will play a key role in retail strategy.

With the 2014 Winter Games less than a year away, the U.S. Olympic Committee has added The J.M. Smucker Co. to its squad of partners, and the company said it would activate for the upcoming Olympics and the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil behind four key brands: Smucker's, Folgers, Jif and Smucker's Uncrustables Sandwiches.

Popular consumer technology trends are influencing Adobe's Marketing Cloud. At the 2013 Adobe Summit in Utah, the company showed the Marketing Cloud's visual-heavy design intended to inspire as well as encourage collaboration among teams and agencies.

During Apple's recent annual shareholder meeting, Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook told attendees that the company's new headquarters won't be ready by 2015, and that now it is looking at 2016 to occupy it. "It is taking a little longer," Cook said, in response to a question from a shareholder.

BMW's Mini unit is on a global tour with interiors and design magazine "Dezeen." The automaker and design book will visit eight of the world's most influential design events starting with Design Indaba in Cape Town. South Africa. From there, it's on to Milan's Salone Mobile get-together in April, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York, Berlin's DMY Festival, London's Design Festival, Beijing's Design Week, the World Architecture Festival in Singapore and Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.

Kia has touched off an unanticipated firestorm with the debut of its Provo concept vehicle at this year's Geneva Motor Show. Finding a suitable name for a vehicle is never easy, usually because the best ones are already taken, but occasionally because they might carry some inadvertently negative meaning. In the case of the Provo, a British lawmaker has gotten fired up because Provo was the street name for a violent arm of the IRA blamed for nearly 2,000 deaths during the period locals often refer to as "the troubles."

Between 2003 and 2012, the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament generated more than $5.9 billion in national TV ad spending from 266 different marketers. In 2012, ad revenue surpassed the $1-billion mark for the first time. Those are just some of the figures in a new study from marketing and research firm Kantar Media, N.Y.