Trouble is brewing between Kraft Foods and Starbucks. The one-time partners have turned courtroom rivals over the $6.6 billion ground coffee category and the former’s advertising claims for its Gevalia Kaffe brand, which Kraft touts as "an exclusively smooth yet rich coffee experience that has been perfected by Swedes since 1853."

In its latest Gevalia campaign, Kraft says a blind third-party taste test “found nearly 60 percent of coffee drinkers preferred Gevalia's House Blend over Starbucks House Blend, versus 34 percent favoring the latter.”

Kraft’s premium coffee brand is leveraging its commissioned survey of U.S. adults to the hilt with its new TV campaign featuring a Swede named Johan, who is seen in the coffee aisle at a grocery store telling shoppers about the taste test while standing next to displays of ready to take home packages of Gevalia and Starbucks coffee.Continue reading...

US auto sales for 2011 face boost by year-end holiday advertising, as global auto sales rise on Chinese demand.

Apple TV rumors generate biggest buzz heading into CES.

Bakon Vodka goes mobile.

Ben & Jerry's slated as first Facebook sponsored stories ad in users' newsfeed.

Benetton takes edgy Unhate campaign to Tripoli.

Bentley sells more cars in China than UK.

Better Business Bureau tops its own scams of the year list.

BlackBerry-maker RIM reportedly identifies replacement for co-chairmen as analysts fear the worst.Continue reading...

AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo forge advertising partnership.

Activision and Electronic Arts let bullets fly in video-game holiday-sales war.

Anheuser-Busch gets label approval for higher-alcohol version of Bud Light.

Barnes & Noble has sought U.S. antitrust probe of Microsoft over e-readers.

Facebook sees recommendations on advertisers' use of "like" by Better Business Bureau.

General Motors reports strong but lower profits.

HSBC raises U.S. bad-loan provisions.

Landry's acquires McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants. Continue reading...

America’s food and beverage makers, in tandem with casual restaurants including Burger King, have stepped up their marketing offensive against federal regulators who are seeking to impose tough new “voluntary” standards about marketing to children.

Industry groups are intensifying their battle on two fronts: extending more effort on self-governing programs to offer more healthy-product options and to soft-pedal their marketing, and punching back harder against the proposal by the Obama administration’s Interagency Working Group (IWG) on marketing food to children.Continue reading...

After grabbing myself a slice at World-Famous Original Ray's Pizza, I wanted to find all the news that was fit to print, and was surprised by a New York Times piece on the sharp increase in brands suing each other over false claims.

So far, 2009 has seen 82 formal complaints over ad claims, according to The National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, on track to exceed last year’s record of 84 challenges, up almost 40% from four years ago.

While the "studies show" tactic of demonstrating one brand's superiority over competitors is an ad cliché, those ads typically have used "other leading brands" as their contrast. Now, increasingly ruthless competition has seen brands outright naming, and denouncing, competitors. These lawsuits include DirectTV's claim about Charter Communication's service. Or AT&T's complaint, after Verizon Wireless attacked their spotty coverage with their mocking tagline, "There's a map for that."Continue reading...