Starbucks raises outlook after strong second quarter.

Boeing gets clearance for re-launching Dreamliner in Japan and United's planes in May.

Altria Group plans to enter e-cigarette market.

3M cuts outlook as demand sputters.

Amazon outstrips growing profits with growing spending.

Best Buy tries to reduce "pain points" for customers, staff.

Cap'n Crunch launches new YouTube channel for adults.

Exxon Mobil oil output falls again.Continue reading...

Disney and Netflix sign landmark agreement for the web streaming service.

GlaxoSmithKline begins assembling new global branding effort on its impact around the world.

Tesco bails out of Fresh & Easy venture in U.S.

AOL's Advertising.com group acquires Buysight.

Apple upgrades iTunes, secures USPTO patent for "retina."

Beer tax dispute heats up in Europe.

Blu Dot tests Twitter game of musical chairs.

BMW has US luxury auto sales crown in its sights.

Campbell Soup Company donates $500K to Salvation Army.

Citigroup announces 11,000 job cuts and $1B charge.Continue reading...

Progressive is auctioning off the white gown worn on the red carpet in the brand's magazine advertising by Flo (aka comedian Stephanie Courtney) for charity. The custom-made dress, featuring 1,000 hand-placed crystals by designer Candice Held, is being auctioned on eBay to raise money for Dress for Success through October 4.

"Don’t buy insurance from Progressive."

No brand wants to see anyone on the Internet telling others not to buy its product. But as any multimillion dollar brand has come to surely experience, there are a lot of haters in the world and talk on the Internet is cheap. But the case with Progressive Insurance is different and its bungled handling of the criticism has turned what should have been one of those dismal, forgettable cases of the insurance industry being the stupid greedy insurance industry everyone knows it is, into a PR disaster that may do the brand genuine harm.Continue reading...

America is settling in for a long summer of campaigning between the Democratic candidate President Obama and the Grand Old Party’s Mitt Romney. News of minor flubs by candidates and those who work for them will come up at bars, barbecues, and ice-cream joints across the land (or be completely avoided, for everyone’s safety).

Americans will likely hear a constant media drumbeat about red states vs. blue states that will be so loud, it will seem that the country is about to burst into a Civil War.

Just in time for this comes a new study from Buyology that members of the two political parties don’t just disagree on their candidates. They also mostly disagree on the brands they love, though there are three that help bring them together. Next time a president wants to have a bipartisan summit of some sort, he or she might want to involve Coke, Apple, and Visa. Those three names were named by both parties as brands they love.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...

LG must be thrilled it found a such a charismatic guy to pitch its new Thrill 3D 4G phone. Except, he seems kind of familiar.

In fact, Progressive Insurance likes him too, which is confusing American TV viewers, judging by Facebook and Twitter comments.Continue reading...

Much of the appeal of driving these days lies in the potential for mobile connectivity, rather than with handling or performance or heated seats or any other particular attribute of the vehicle, especially for the Millennial generation that has grown up with cocked thumbs. 

It was just a matter of time before major non-automaker brands began jockeying for a piece of the action. State Farm Insurance has just introduced its own aftermarket “telematics” system called In-Drive, by which the auto-insurance giant hopes to compete with the likes of Ford’s Sync, General Motors’ OnStar and other infotainment systems that are hard-wired into vehicles when you buy them.

In a move similar to that just launched by GM as it provides an aftermarket installation kit for OnStar, In-Drive will offer services from the standard telematics menu including one-touch emergency response, roadside assistance, stolen-vehicle location assistance, vehicle-diagnostic alerts and others. For consumers, there's another big incentive: discounts.Continue reading...