NYSportsJournalism.com
Clayton Kershaw earns about $3 million in endorsements, and analysts say he could easily double that during the off-season. The three-time Cy Young winner and 2014 National League MVP signed with Subway as a Famous Fan endorser on a roster that includes 2014 AL MVP Mike Trout. Both appear in ads that tout their awards and favorite sandwiches. He also got kudos for the MVP from Under Armour, Muscle Milk and Wilson.
Automotive News
Cadillac has leased the top two floors of the 467,000-square-foot building at 330 Hudson St. in New York. The brand, which is moving out of Detroit to get more Big Apple hip/urban mojo, will have offices with 14-foot ceilings surrounded by 10-foot glass panel windows. All told, the GM luxury division has leased 34,000 square feet in the Hudson Square neighborhood three blocks below Houston. Cadillac will begin using the offices in the spring. The company did not share details of the lease.
Advertising Age
Fitness-wearables company Fitbit is launching its first global campaign. The seven-year-old brand has dominant share in the activity-tracker category and is in 40,000 locations in 48 countries. The new effort, via San Francisco-based Argonaut, will include marketing across all media, including TV, with buys on network and cable channels, as well as internationally in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Consumerist
It's kinda gross, but really entertaining. We mean the stories about weird, Frankensteinian experiments QSR's do for global markets. Remember Pizza Hut's pie ringed with cheeseburgers for the Middle East? Or the pizza with hotdogs for the UK? Here are a couple of new ones for the New Zealand market: "Mexican Flavour Fiesta," consisting of pizzas topped with nachos, with burrito toppings; and what is essentially a giant quesadilla stuffed with beef, onions, mozzarella cheese, "burrito sauce," jalapeno peppers and chili pepper flakes.
USA Today
Taco Bell's trying a new take on tacos: dipping. One is the Rolled Chicken Taco, the other is the Crunchy Taco. Both are the first from the chain meant to be dipped in a sauce, which is obviously provided. Really, they're more like burritos than tacos. Younger consumers want new products, forcing companies like Taco Bell to come up with sacrilegious, er, innovative takes on traditional foods.
Gizmodo
Samsung Electronics, as part of its mobile video strategy, is looking to short-form video content as a mobile revenue source. The Korean device maker is betting tens of millions of dollars on a media services platform for a new mobile product. The new video service's code name: Volt. Users would pay a small monthly fee. John Pleasants, who managed Disney's mobile services and gaming business and is EVP of media solutions at Samsung is overseeing.
Automotive News
European brands are on top of J.D. Power's latest sales satisfaction study, with Mercedes-Benz number one among luxury brands; for the fifth consecutive year, Mini ranks highest among mass-market brands. In luxury, Infiniti was second place, up from fourth last year. Jaguar, which topped the list of luxury brands last year, slipped to third place, followed by Lexus and Porsche. Buick had the best improvement among the mass-market brands.
Supermarket News
Wal-Mart Stores on Thursday reported its first quarterly U.S. comparable-store sales gain in nearly two years. Unfortunately, the increases came with customer attrition and higher sticker prices. The company's Neighborhood Market stores showed comp growth of 5.5%. Greg Foran, U.S. CEO, said the company was moving on execution of markdowns in produce which he said was improving freshness in stores. Overall U.S. sales improved by 3.4% to $70 billion for the quarter.
China Daily
Merck Serono SA plans to make its Chinese division a world leader in oncology treatment in the next decade, per Belen Garijo, CEO of the German pharma giant. "We have a clear vision in China - by 2020, we will achieve $1 billion in sales and during this process we will keep bringing new medicines to the country." China is bearing the brunt of the global surge in cancer cases, particularly for liver, esophagus, stomach and lung. Half the new esophageal cancer cases worldwide are in China.
Nation's Restaurant News
Low-cost loans are fueling restaurant deals, which will continue into 2015, per the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference. The number of restaurant industry deals, including large franchisees and restaurant brands, has increased 8% year-to-date, per Jeb Ball, managing director at the investment banking firm Brookwood Associates.