JCPenney cuts an additional 2,200 jobs and delays stocking Martha Stewart products as judge suggests mediation with Macy's.

McDonald's U.S. sales slip, but less than anticipated.

Disney welcomes new movie-studio chief and big plans for Star Wars franchise.

Adidas is hot on heels of Nike in sportswear in China.

Amazon logs rising revenue from servicing cloud's server needs.

Arby's targets "modern day traditionalists."

Cablevision claims coercion led to deal with Viacom.

Caribou Coffee launches new branding campaign.

Citi passes stress tests.Continue reading...

What does PepsiCo believe in even more than Beyonce? The answer might be crowdsourcing.

Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show served as the main kickoff to its huge investment in the globally popular entertainer with a concert that some felt usurped the game itself. But the walkup to her much-anticipated performance used a highly populist approach that underscored PepsiCo-Frito Lay's faith in the crowd as much as any pop star.

The bulk of the ad, produced by NYC-based Mekanism, featured a lightning-fast succession of Pepsi enthusiasts culled from more than 120,000 photos submitted to the brand via New York-based Olapic and Crowdtwist. Olapic collected and curated the pictures while CrowdTwist rewarded uploads through a point-based platform. Mekanism, as TIME puts it, took that material in a bid to manufacture "viral on demand" for the Pepsi brand.Continue reading...

Ron Howard has wanted to be in the marketing business for decades now, but his wife told him that if he had time to take away from his work as a famous director, producer, and actor, he better fork it over to his wife and kids.

Well, the kids are all grown up now and Howard must have gotten buy-in from his wife because the partnership of Howard and producer Brian Glazer – the duo behind such classic films and TV series as Splash, Apollo 13, 8 Mile, A Beautiful Mind, Friday Night Lights, 24, and Arrested Development – are bringing their storytelling savvy to the marketing world, according to Fortune.

The appeal of working with brands, Howard told Fortune, is that marketers are “wide open” about their how they deliver content, using "long form, short form, live events.” They're also eager for better quality storytelling, and eager to bring Hollywood-honed creativity to their brands. Down the road, Howard says, "We could bring in an Academy Award-winning screenwriter to work on a brand."Continue reading...

Eva Longoria certainly isn't the first actress or actor to yield to the conceit that they've got a great idea for a restaurant. But she may be the first to think she can sell a steakhouse aimed at women. Thus, Longoria's part-owned SHe by Morton's is reportedly all set for launch by New Year's Eve in Las Vegas.

It replaces her old Las Vegas eatery, Beso, a failed restaurant in which she also was a part-owner, on the same site. And while she's no longer busy with Desperate Housewives, she is busy campaigning for Barack Obama, and appeared at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte to pitch her personal story in an outreach to women and Hispanics — two groups she'd no doubt welcome to her relaunched dining concept, too.

With a 1920's theme, SHe aims to be "an updated interpretation of the gilded age when wealth and excessive opulence ruled America's upper-class combined with a modern version of art deco to create a feeling of empowerment, especially for female guests," according to a news release. While set in the era of Prohibition, it won't prohibit men — and may have a successful role model in STK, a Vegas chophouse with a sexy vibe located at the racy Cosmopolitan hotel with the tagline "Not your daddy's steakhouse," which is also aimed at high-rolling, confident women.Continue reading...

There's nothing new about crowdsourcing product varieties anymore, but Frito-Lay is bringing an interesting twist to a promotion that it launched today: offering the winner of a new-flavor contest the option of a prize based on sales of the new potato-chip flavor that he or she inspires.

In its "Do Us a Flavor" campaign headlined by actress and restauranteur Eva Longoria and Food Network Iron Chef Michael Symon, the PepsiCo unit invites fans to submit their potato-chip flavor ideas via a Facebook app for a chance to win $1 million in grand-prize money — or one percent of their flavor's 2013 net sales, whichever is higher.

"We [already] have a lot of flavors that would make the one-percent option a bigger payout than the $1 million," Ram Krishnan, Frito-Lay's vice president of marketing, told brandchannel. "We're opening it up so that consumers can have a winning proposition."Continue reading...

Motown icon Smokey Robinson, social media savvy celeb activist? That's right, the iconic crooner known for hits such as I Heard it Through the Grapevine this week launched Smoke Alarm, described as a “a social media-based emergency broadcast system for causes.” 

Robinson is asking people to “Donate your social media feeds and help sound the alarm when projects need attention.” In partnership with ad agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky and David Clark, the idea is to create "Cause Swarm" as people contribute to specific causes activated by hitting "send" on a "Smoke Alarm" from his Robinson’s already active Twitter account, @Smokey_Robinson.

"I want to promote the basic idea that all people should have equal access to simple things like food, water and medicine. My inspiration comes from icons of equality I have known over the years, like Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.,” said Robinson. "In this digital age, we have the tools to level the playing field for those in need, so I'm calling on my friends and fans to lend their voices to mine, so we can collectively make a difference."Continue reading...

The Barack Obama presidential re-election team today released a new video endorsement by actress Eva Longoria, the national co-chair of Obama for America. In the campaign (click here for the Spanish version), she touches on healthcare, education and immigration to pitch the president (and the American Dream) to the Latino community, and ends by directing voters to Latinos.BarackObama.com for more information.Continue reading...

As it has done for the past three Academy Award ceremonies, jcpenney will hit the Oscars red carpet by promoting its recent "brand refresh," showing off that it's had a little work done (new logo, single-monikered lowercase name) and is making a comeback in true Hollywood fashion.

New brand face Ellen DeGeneres will be featured in five 30-second commercials (watch "Changing Room" above and a sneak peek at others set in the Wild West, Victorian England and ancient Rome, below) that will air in North America during ABC's telecast on Sunday night.

Other brands debuting new campaigns at the 84th annual Academy Awards include Hyundai's new Wes Anderson commercials, and a glamorous spot for the sixth-generation SL roadster by Mercedes-Benz.Continue reading...