USA Today
Pizza Hut is offering a limited-time, $5.55 large pizza with one topping as a promotion around its 55th anniversary. Analysts say competition in fast-food and the chain pizza business in particular is what's really behind it. The Pizza Hut promo takes place for 10 days from June 5 to June 15. It's good only on carry-out pizzas. All 6,300 Pizza Hut locations in the U.S. will offer the promo.
NYSportsJournalism.com
The original version of the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League featured such superstars as Pel, Giorgio Chinaglia, Franz Beckenbauer and Shep Messing. Twenty years later, the new version has brought back Pel and Messing as spokespersons and signed a marketing deal with Emirates Air to help kick-start the team and the second coming of the fledgling NASL.
San Francisco Chronicle
This week, Twitter chairman and co-founder Jack Dorsey, along with a Caltrans escort, climbed to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and tweeted a series of six-second Vine videos showing what it's like from 526 feet high. The company just release an Android version of the Vine app, so it was a good time to promote it.
Seattle Times
"Rental Equipment Inc." no more. REI is killing its no-limit return policy. Starting this week customers will be allowed to take back store items only within one year after purchase. The deadline for returning outlet merchandise bought on REI.com will be 30 days. Kent, Wash.-based REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) made the change after noticing a sharp uptick in returns of merchandise more than a year old, said Senior Vice President of Retail Tim Spangler.
Mobile Commerce Daily
Victoria's Secret has launched a mobile game across its Victoria's Secret's Pink Nation iPad app. It blends prizes and commerce elements into one experience for consumers. The initiative also helps Victoria's Secret build up its loyalty program.
Adweek
Whole Foods Market is normally an epicurean enclave for the upscale. But a new store in Detroit that opens this week is a switch. It's part of the company's repositioning as a purveyor of staples for shoppers on any budget. The chain will launch pilot stores in Detroit, New Orleans and on Chicago's South Side in 2013 and 2014. There will be fewer staffers, lower prices, and more frozen and prewrapped food. The company has been offering classes in community centers about how to shop frugally at its store.
Detroit Bureau
In an unusual move, Chrysler LLC is nixing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's request that its Jeep brand recall 2.7 million vehicles. The agency said 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokees and the 2002-2007 Jeep Liberty are can catch fire when hit from the rear. Chrysler's analysis shows the incidents occur "less than once for every million years of vehicle operation. This rate is similar to comparable vehicles produced and sold during the time in question."
Chain Store Age
7-Eleven's Japan-based parent Seven & I Holdings Co. is reportedly planning more acquisitions in its home country and may more than double the number of c-store stores it operates in North America. The company "could increase our store number to 20,000 or even 30,000 [in North America]," chairman Toshifumi Suzuki told Bloomberg in an interview. 7-Eleven currently has more than 8,000 convenience stores in North America.
USA Today
General Mills' Cheerios brand could use some buzz, and it has gotten it in an unlikely (though probably brilliant if it was on purpose) way: the company's now-famous ad, featuring a bi-racial couple and their daughter, has gotten some 1.7 million views on YouTube as of midday Monday. The company disabled the comments section late last week. "We are a family brand and not all of the comments were family-friendly," says Camille Gibson, vice president of marketing for Cheerios, in an e-mailed comment.
NYSportsJournalism.com
No. 1 overall pick Brittney Griner last week become the first woman to record two dunks in a WNBA game, but fellow rookie Elena Delle Donne, drafted No. 2 overall by the Chicago Sky, has already led her team to three wins (including one over Griner's Phoenix Mercury) while nabbing a bevy of endorsement deals.