• Appeals Court Puts Paid To Soda Ban Plan
    Nearly five months after a last-minute ruling by a NY State Supreme Court judge stopped New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's plan to ban the sale of large sodas in city-regulated stores and restaurants, the ban has once again been dealt a blow, as an appeals court panel agreed that the city overstepped its authority. The ban would have forbidden the sale of full-calorie sodas (and other, but not all, sugary drinks) larger than 16 oz. in restaurants, delis and other businesses regulated by the city's Board of Health.
  • Sales Of Craft Beer Rise
    American craft beer sales were on a double digit climb during the first half of 2013 with dollar sales up 15% and unit sales 13%, according to the Brewers Association trade group. During the first six months of 2013, about 7.3 million barrels of beer were sold by small and independent craft brewers, up from 6.4 million barrels over the first half of 2012. There were more than 2,500 breweries operating in the U.S. as of June 30, 2013, indicating an increase of 446 since June 2012. An additional 1,605 breweries are in the planning stages.
  • Xbox Launches Comedy Central And Nick Apps
    Xbox Live Gold customers can get Comedy Central and Nickelodeon now, via apps for the platform. The Comedy Central app focuses on stand-up offerings, evinced by the app's name, "CC: Stand-up." The app claims over 6,000 videos of routines from around 700 comedians.
  • Chrysler Puts Brakes On Cherokee Launch
    Chrysler Group is delaying the introduction of the 2014 Jeep Cherokee by a month to make last-minute software changes to the crossover's powertrain. Late Monday, the company took the unusual step of postponing a planned global-media drive in Seattle of the all-new Cherokee scheduled for early next month but vowed that "vehicles will still be in showrooms in September."
  • Publix Supermarkets To Sponsor NFL's Jax Jags
    Florida supermarket chain Publix has agreed to a five-year sponsorship of the Jacksonville Jaguars, the National Football League team said on Saturday. The Lakeland, Fla.-based supermarket chain will be the "Official Supermarket of the Jaguars" and will be one of the team's top-level sponsors. Winn-Dixie Stores, headquartered in Jacksonville, previously had been a supermarket sponsor of the Jaguars. A main element will be a tailgating platform tying tailgating parties with in-store promotions.
  • Industry Reshaped By Digital
    The ad world is a digital world as convergence has almost eliminated the idea of traditional channels. The big merger of Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe shows how traditional ad firms are evolving to better compete in this increasingly digital landscape. At the jump, a list of how digital is also changing how consumers act, how creative is changing to adapt, and how media marketplaces are morphing.
  • In UK, Brands Big On Bands
    In Great Britain, brands spent a record GBP104.8 million on music use in festivals, online and in artistic endorsements in 2012, an increase of 6% on the previous year's total, according to PRS for Music and Frukt. Live music sponsorship accounted for 35% of the market at over GBP33 million, with high-profile campaigns including Coca-Cola's Olympics Torch Relay with 66 live music shows across the UK and BlackBerry's Summer Daze which featured eight UK festivals and was broadcast on Channel 4.
  • C-Stores Could Reach $1 Billion In E-Cigs
    New Nielsen convenience store data indicates that electronic cigarette sales could hit $1 billion this year, with that figure jumping to $1.7 billion when factoring in online sales. Leading e-cigarette sales at c-stores is Lorillard Inc.'s blu eCigs brand, according to Bonnie Herzog, managing director of tobacco, beverage and consumer research at Wells Fargo Securities LLC. She cited Nielsen numbers showing that blu captured 39 percent of the dollar share in the convenience channel during the most recent four-week period ended July 6, followed by NJOY with a 30.1% share.
  • Toyota One-Ups Segway, Kind Of
    Here's a personal mobility version of a Japanese company taking making an invention from elsewhere smaller, less expensive and more efficient. Toyota is expanding into personal mobility devices with its own take on the Segway. It's version? The Winglet, 22 pounds versus Segway's 100 pounds, a top speed of about 3.5 miles per hour, which is akin to a brisk walking speed, and takes about an hour to charge and will run for about two hours, according to the company.
  • Overstock.com Chief Buys Ad Mocking Hedge Funds
    Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne explains why he took out a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal mocking SAC Capital's Steve Cohen Saturday. "Cohen's life work is being destroyed," he wrote in a note to Business Insider, "I feel good. Shooting SAC Capital dead and throwing all of its employees into the streets is simply civilization scraping some dog--- off its shoe. I felt it was time I spent $100k on a derisive ad in order to say that." A Federal Grand Jury indicted SAC Capital on charges of insider trading this week after years of investigation.
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