What products would you make smarter? That's the question General Electric is asking in its bid to create consumer-facing products with GE patents. 

No stranger to the Internet of Things, GE has once again partnered with Quirky, a type of social network for inventors to license thousands of its patents to Quirky community members for development.

“There are a host of consumer applications that we haven’t had the ability to focus on,” Beth Comstock, CMO GE told the The New York Times. “That just isn’t our core business.”Continue reading...

As many as 25,000 people died in India back in 1984 due to the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, and residents are still understandably upset about the experience that left many without family members, spouses, or friends.

In 1999, Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical, a purchase that Dow execs are likely muttering about to one another these days. The lasting unhappiness with Union is now being manifested in what seems to be a growing protest against Dow having anything to do with this summer’s Olympic Games in London.

Dow has forked over big bucks to be a top-tier IOC sponsor and was all set to “wrap” the main London 2012 Olympic stadium in a massive banner as part of its deal. However, the company responded to activists last month by scrapping to scraps its plans for the stadium wrap. That, apparently, has not been enough.Continue reading...

UBS warns of big losses (up to $2 billion) on rogue trades, leading to employee arrest in London.

Esprit divests North American business as profit drops 98%.

Fast Retailing, parent of Uniqlo, sets big expansion plans (opening up to 300 stores/year) as brand that "represents" Japan.

Groupon plans to put IPO back on track.

Al Gore's 24-hour Climate Reality webcast irks some.

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves insists that TV ad market is holding up.

Crocs banned for nurses in Wales.

DuPont wins nearly $1 billion in damages in Kevlar-secrets case.Continue reading...

Anheuser-Busch InBev goes back to the drawing board with Bud Light account.

Apple cracks down on U.S. brand counterfeiters; shuns user-tracking tool in new software.

AutoNation dealership staffs to get tablets.

Burger King exiles the King in new commercials.

Ford uses Twitter to engage youth market.

Gatorade grapples with getting its complete lineup on store shelves.

General Electric raises nuclear-proliferation fears by seeking to build uranium-enrichment plant in North Carolina.

General Motors CMO publicly knocks ad work for Chevrolet by new agency Goodby Silversein.Continue reading...

With no apologies to Jeff Immelt, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is joining the General Electric CEO's offensive against fellow CEOs who aren't confident enough in the economy and in their own companies to begin hiring more people. The iconic coffee brand's co-founder also has issued a warning to politicians.

Specifically, Schultz is calling on fellow business leaders -- and all Americans -- to stop donating to political campaigns until the solons in Washington, D.C., show the wherewithal to agree on substantive improvement of the nation's fiscal situation, not just papering things over, as with the short-term debt agreement earlier this month. Schultz believes that cutting off the "lifeblood" of politicians will get their attention.

The voluble Schultz is urging fellow CEOs to do what they can to grow their companies, including hiring more workers who are now part of the nation's 9.2% unemployed. But Schultz is taking a different tack from Immelt, who recently chided fellow CEOs for whining about Washington and also called for increased hiring. Schultz's twist is to suggest fellow business leaders "stop waiting for Washington," a message that is subtly -- but, perhaps, effectively -- different.Continue reading...

I spent over 25 years of my life in the Boston area, so I wasn't surprised to learn that a new ranking of New England's top brands shows a sports brand taking the top spot.

This region, after all, is home to professional sports teams the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Celtics, the Boston Bruins, and the New England Patriots -- not to mention collegiate basketball's renowned UConn Huskies. Needless to say, New England fans are among the most knowledgeable, rabid, and vocal fanatics known to the sports world.

Number 1 in New Englanders' hearts is ESPN. Headquartered in Connecticut and with over $16 billion in 2009 revenue, ESPN, with its various media spin-offs, is all sports, all the time, and that clearly plays well with the New England crowd. It doesn't hurt, of course, that ESPN televises numerous Red Sox-Yankees games.Continue reading...

If you want to get people’s attention in China, bring up children.

GE China’s latest ad campaign, created by BBDO's Shanghai office, uses the cute-as-a-button offspring of the company’s executives in an effort to give consumers the warm fuzzies when they think of the global titan’s China operations.

Though using children in ad campaigns is hardly a new phenomenon, nor is it exclusive to China, it has a special resonance here that is worth considering as a micro example of a macro issue – how to market successfully to cultures other than your own.Continue reading...

No one has even seen a glimpse of the Olympic torch, yet NBC is already waving a financial white flag over next month's 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The next question is: Will these Games hurt NBC’s brand as well as its pocketbook?

The slumping network recently agreed to concede $45 million to Conan O’Brien over the Tonight Show debacle. Now, as if it couldn't get any worse, NBC Universal Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol explained to the New York Times how the network ended up way overbidding for the global rights to telecast the events in Vancouver.

“Our luck had been good,” Ebersol said, in regard to NBC's previous Olympic telecasts when, in 2003, NBC bid about $2 billion for the rights to the Vancouver games and to the 2012 Summer Olympics scheduled for London. “But we didn’t foresee what would happen to the economy in 2008. The rabbit’s foot that was mine, or ours, got lost.”Continue reading...