Even rock bands like Pearl Jam are turning to UPS for logistics help in sustainability. The brand recently partnered with UPS to devise a carbon-reducing transportation strategy for its 20th anniversary tour. It's all in a day's work for Arnold Barlow, Senior Manager of Sustainability Solutions for UPS’s Customer Solutions group, and his colleagues.

“UPS delivers 16 million packages a day, 3 billion annually,” says Barlow, who spoke about "Innovations in Sustainable Packaging" at last week's Sustainable Brands conference in San Diego (for which brandchannel was a sponsor), about the sheer scope of what UPS faces daily. “About three or four years ago, customers using our test lab in Chicago began asking us about which packaging materials were the most sustainable. We didn’t have the expertise, so we took it upon ourselves to become experts.”

Arnold told us about the company's journey to today’s status as a leader in sustainable packaging and his role as steward of the brand’s Eco Responsible Packaging Program.Continue reading...

Above, watch how eco-minded Pearl Jam crafted a sustainable tour with a helping hand from UPS. The partnership, as described the words of the brand:Continue reading...

This is for marketers who believe that advertising featuring stereotypically petty backbiting between men and women, humor involving nudity, nutshots or passed gas or sarcastic meta-absurdity like the Old Spice Guy is good brand building.

Above is a video put together by the son of a motorcycle owner. It is the greatest brand-building commercial of all time and BMW should buy rights to it immediately and show it all over the world forever.Continue reading...

Pearl Jam signed up with Target. So did Christina Aguilera. U2 and BlackBerry have a closer relationship than Bono and sunglasses. Selling out is the modern rebellious act for rock and pop stars. And it pays well. Very well.

Recording artists are tossing aside rock 'n' roll taboos, and aligning with corporate sponsors such as Bacardi and retail distributors like Wal-Mart. Struggling record labels can’t compete with the allure of mega-brands and retailers dangling behemoth amounts of money and exposure. According to Bloomberg, “Record labels have cut marketing budgets as they contend with dwindling revenue from CD sales and piracy rates as high as 95 percent for downloaded music.”Continue reading...