Starting last Thursday, bigwigs from the NFL’s 32 teams gathered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall to select young players in the hopes that they would become the next John Elway, Gale Sayers, or O.J. Simpson. (Well, OK, maybe not O.J.)

Since 1980, the Draft has been televised and it audience has grown exponentially, with an expected viewership of 50 million for this past weekend's broadcast, Ad Age reports. With that kind of captive audience, sponsorships and advertisers have grown as well. There were 19 official sponsors of the event this year, up from 16 last year. The list included Anheuser-Busch, Nike, Verizon, Pepsi, GMC, Visa, EA Sports, Under Armour, Gatorade and Castrol. It's no doubt that the big names spent more than the $15 million spent across ESPN and the NFL Network last year and the $11.9 million spent the year before.

"To the credit of the NFL, it's the most robust league," Ernest Lupinacci, founder of branding consultancy Ernest Industries, told Ad Age. "They announced the [2013 regular season] schedule and people went crazy. It was as if they let us know they were bringing the McRib sandwich back."Continue reading...

PepsiCo continues to ramp up marketing investments for its core brands including Pepsi, Gatorade, Lay's and Quaker. And so while first-quarter earnings showed a drop of 5 percent from a year earlier, the increased advertising outlays may be the harbinger of future top- and bottom-line payoffs from brands that critics say were underexposed for years.

Besides, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said this week, the additional marketing investments—which she promised for last year to the tune of an additional half-billion in global expenditures on core brands—are being offset by the fruits of the company's $3-billion productivity program.

"With the productivity we're unlocking, we're able to invest in growth drivers like advertising and new-product launches to simultaneously drive margin improvement," she told analysts on a conference call, according to Advertising Age. But, she cautioned, "Any growth we achieve in one area takes from another area where we compete."Continue reading...

Winning takes care of everything. Or so says Nike. 

The sporting goods giant posted a quickly contentious image on its Nike Golf Facebook and Twitter accounts this week in the wake of Tiger Woods’ record-tying eighth victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational showing the newly-(re)crowned world No. 1-ranked golfer sizing up a putt. The slogan, “Winning takes care of everything,” a favorite saying of Woods since 2009, is front and center. At the bottom, of course, is Nike’s famous swoosh—alongside the word, “Victory.”

Nike says the statement references Woods’ perseverance to return to the top of his sport and is a salute to his athletic performance. But everything? Please. Sports fans weren’t the only ones who devoured every titillating detail of Woods’ personal life when it was exposed following his late 2009 admission of multiple extra-marital affairs.Continue reading...

Indra Nooyi may be starting to get comeuppance on her constant critics of the last few years. Today PepsiCo posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings and forecasted continued better times in 2013 as the once-embattled CEO continues to fight back from the low ebb of a couple years ago, when many investors were so disappointed with PepsiCo's performance that there were calls to split up the company a la Kraft.

"We enhanced the equity of our global brand," Nooyi said on a conference call Thursday morning. "We stepped up our game-in innovation by bringing to market more balanced offerings, from line extensions that bring additional locations to our existing products, and to new-product platforms that are truly transformational."

She cited, for instance, Quaker Real Medleys, a high-quality oatmeal with real fruits and nuts that was just named breakfast product of the year for 2012. Nooyi also was high on Pepsi Next, Starbucks Refreshers and Gatorade Energy Chews as examples of products and brands that are leveraging strong existing franchises with fresh approaches. Continue reading...

Nicer bras for masectomy survivors. Healthier ingredients in soft drinks. Halting gender stereotypes in toys.

All are among the causes and quests that have gained momentum — and in many cases, acquired success — through Change.org, which has quickly become a major force to be reckoned with among brands. While activist organizations such as Greenpeace lobby companies and others around a particular set of issues, Change.org is an open platform to agitate for action.

PepsiCo, for instance, recently announced the removal of brominated vegetable oil, which is used as a flame retardant, from its Gatorade drink after 16-year old Sarah Kavanagh’s Change.org petition garnered more than 200,000 digital signatures. (The company is continuing to use it in Mountain Dew.)

"When I went to Change.org to start my petition, I thought it might get a lot of support because no one wants to gulp down flame retardant, especially from a drink they associate with being healthy," Kavanagh said on The Dr. Oz Show. "With Gatorade being as big as they are, sometimes it was hard to know if we'd ever win.”Continue reading...

Consumer activists and trial lawyers have been feeling their oats in recent years as food and beverage companies have found themselves responding to several challenges by regulators. Increasingly, the public seems skeptical of the claims and motives of brands — and eager to take them on.

Two recent cases have nicked brands owned by PepsiCo and the Dr Pepper-Snapple Group — so far, with different outcomes.

PepsiCo announced last week that it would remove an emulsifier from Gatorade that also has applications as a flame retardant, prompting Sarah Kavanagh, a teenager who waged an online campaign against brominated vegetable oil (BVO), to claim victory. Meanwhile, Mott's, owned by Dr Pepper Snapple, is the subject of a recently filed class-action suit that claims "deceptive labeling" of its Mott's for Tots Immune Support Fruit Punch.Continue reading...

Airbus and Boeing aim at each other in advertising spat.

CNN prospects weighed under Jeff Zucker.

Canadian Club launches "Join the Club" red-meat campaign.

Carnival apologizes to gay passengers after forbidding drag dress on cruise.

Chevrolet sees Volt ranked as best-loved car by Consumer Reports.

Costco to spend $3 billion on special dividend ahead of fiscal cliff.

Exxon faces short-term shortage of oil supplies.Continue reading...

Apple flirts with first trillion-dollar valuation for a company as iPhone 5 first weekend sales top five million and Apple tops YouTube and Aston Martin as "coolest UK brand." Apple also halted production at Foxconn factory after mass brawl, and seen hogging new iPhone for its own stores. Its legal team has also asked CA judge to boost award from Samsung.

Alfa Romeo plots return to USA, with Chrysler helping Fiat.

American Airlines racks up flight delays and cancellations.

Applebee's reboots its marketing with inflatable dolls.

Boeing struggles with makeover of 777.

Conde Nast launches French Vanity Fair into economic headwinds and skepticism.Continue reading...