HP board shakeup and chairman exit gives CEO Meg Whitman a chance to shake off troubles.

BP faults Deepwater Horizon claims overseer, launches first brand-wide fuel loyalty program.

BMW prepares X4 crossover for U.S. market, makes vehicles greener with fewer cylinders, less gasoline.

Al Jazeera America hires CNN's Ali Velshi as anchor.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos leads $5 million investment round in Henry Blodget's Business Insider.

Apple reportedly signs music labels for streaming service as Google's YouTube clinches deal with Universal Music.

Best Buy may have turned the tide on showrooming Amazon.Continue reading...

NASCAR brand refresh thwarted by P.R. crisis and YouTube takedowns after Saturday's fan-injuring accident during Nationwide race, while Danica Patrick is poised to make history as first female driver in pole position at Daytona 500. Dish Network, meanwhile, released "Memoriam" Daytona 500 campaign yesterday for its Hopper ad-skipping feature, a campaign that Fox has refused to run and Dish is trying to circumvent.

Microsoft joins list of hacked brands as Internet Explorer 11 rumored and Toyota Racing creates trackside app for Microsoft Windows 8.

Huawei unveils "Make it Possible" global branding campaign for Ascend P2 at Mobile World Congress, where Orange unveils own-brand 4G smartphone.

Coca-Cola forms major co-branding partnership in the Middle East.

Donald Trump tells the Financial Times his brand is worth $8 billion.

Dunkin' Donuts tops Brand Keys loyalty index for seventh straight year.Continue reading...

Nationwide Insurance doesn't think it gets enough credit from customers and other consumers for being "on your side" in auto-insurance matters. Cue a new branding campaign tied to the biggest sports event on the calendar and to one of America's best-liked actresses to make the point.

On Friday July 27th, during the prime-time telecast of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics on NBC, Nationwide will debut new TV campaign featuring the distinctive voice of actress Julia Roberts, whose Lancôme campaign for L'Oréal was banned in the U.K. last year for airbrushing.

"'Nationwide Is On Your Side' is a familiar tagline and jingle, but not many people understand exactly what it means," Matt Jauchius, Nationwide's chief marketing and strategy officer, said in a press release about the new "Join the Nation" campaign. "Our goal wth this campaign is to tell the story of who we are as a company and what our On Your Side promise truly stands for — doing what's right for our members and protecting the things and the people they hold dear."Continue reading...

This will be the most broadcasted, most publicized, most branded, and most ballyhooed Olympics ever. Just when you don’t think stakes can go higher, they somehow suddenly do.

Athletes Must Now Stop Promoting Themselves

Wednesday marks the day when all self-promotion by Olympic athletes has been ordered to stop. No more gear sold with their names on it. No more ads featuring their faces to run — unless of course it is for a brand that has paid out the big bucks to officially align itself with the Games. The moratorium will last till Aug. 15, three days after the end of the Games. As NPR points out, "To understand what this means, consider Michael Phelps: Subway has long sponsored the Olympic swimmer, but it's not an Olympic sponsor. That means no Subway ads featuring Phelps can air between July 18 and Aug. 15. But this Head & Shoulders commercial of Phelps washing his hair is fine — Head & Shoulders is owned by Procter & Gamble, which is an Olympic sponsor." Blame the IOC and London 2012 organizing committee's drive to protect official sponsors from non-sponsors piggybacking on their efforts. “Ambush marketing seems to be an issue that continues to rear its head in every Games,” said Lisa Baird, the USOC’s chief marketing officer, according to the Washington Post. “There are ambush marketers out there that want to imply an association with the Olympics. They’ll take terminology; imagery, and they will get very close or crossing the line to really imply that they are a sponsor. That hurts us.” That hurts all of us, Lisa.Continue reading...

U.S. auto insurance brands spent $5.7 billion on marketing last year in the U.S., nearly double what they spent just five years earlier. But they're not getting as much bang for their buck as they did a couple of years ago.

Allstate, State Farm, Nationwide, Esurance, Farmers Insurance, Progressive and Geico are among the many car insurance brands that have mounted notable marketing campaigns over the last few years, almost all of them emphasizing the availability of deep discounts as an integral part of their positioning.

But except for Progressive and the charismatic Flo, and Geiko and its geeky gekko, which have picked up market share, car-insurance brands are becoming jaded entities to American consumers, according to J.D. Power & Associates.

"We didn't see a commensurate increase in [market] churn" to match the industry's advertising expenses last year, said JPD senior director Jeremy Bowler.Continue reading...

Product placement in the US has never been bigger. Meanwhile, in the UK, product placement is exploding… in 2013.

Since the UK authorities opened up the media market to product placement in February 2011, little action has been taken. A flood of product choking British screens, the very thing critics warned about, has not happened. In fact, nothing remotely close has occurred. Fewer than 20 paid placements have been arranged in the last year. But don't despair!Continue reading...

AIG reports a profit.

Apple CEO Tim Cook says company has more money than it needs and moves to appease shareholders as Proview brings China iPad trademark spat to US.

Best Western launches Facebook hotel reservations.

BP Gulf spill settlement looms.

Burger King eyes India's fast food market.

Cadbury Dairy Milk promotes fair trade chocolate in UK campaign.

Chevy-Ford rivalry heats up via NASCAR.

Chrysler and Carhartt discuss clothing collaboration.

Clorox CEO targets healthcare brands for acquisition.Continue reading...

It’s taken more than six months since the rules of British television changed for it to happen, but product placement is finally coming to prime-time television there. The Guardian reports that the nearly 51-year-old evening soap, Coronation Street, will be the first British program to feature product placement in primetime.

With a pub and a store prominent settings for the longrunning ITV series' characters to convene, it seems fitting that its first deal is a Nationwide-branded cash machine, as product placement is expected to eventually bring in some big bucks for British TV companies.Continue reading...