The White House is celebrating the third anniversary of the Let's Move healthy kids challenge with an old friend: Big Bird.

The beloved Sesame Street character became a talking point during the last presidential election debates regarding PBS funding. Now he's been a VIP at the White House to help First Lady Michelle Obama engage kids in her national anti-obesity program with a new PSA above (see another spot here).

Another powerhouse kids entertainment franchise is lending one of its stars to a government effort. Disney is leveraging its Princess power by hiring out Cinderella for a new spot for the Ad Council, promoting safer car seats in a new public awareness campaign you can watch below.Continue reading...

President Obama lobbied a group of big business leaders in Washington this week with his views about the looming fiscal cliff. But at least one of the most important heads of a major American business, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, was taking no guff either from Obama or from the leaders of the Senate and House with whom the president is deadlocked — and apparently willing to push to the edge, if not over it, in a political stand-off.

"It's a concern to all of us, because this is a very, very fragile recovery," Mulally said on MSNBC this week. "It's just so important that we come together on a plan to deal with both the revenue side, but also the expense side, because really what we're talking about is keeping the economic development going. That's the most important thing about this issue."

And while so far the U.S. auto industry has more than carried its weight in the nation's sluggish economic recovery, Mulally said that he couldn't guarantee that it would be able to post continued sales increases if Obama and Congress don't deal quickly and decisively with the fiscal cliff.Continue reading...

What does $2,000 mean to you? Tell us with #My2k twitter.com/whitehouse/sta…

— The White House (@whitehouse) November 28, 2012

"Call your members of Congress. Write them an email. Tweet it using the hashtag #My2K." —President Obama

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 28, 2012

In July 2011, President Obama warned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that he would pressure Republicans to compromise and make a deal by "going to the American people" in order to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, and he's doing just that.

The White House (with more than 3 million Twitter followers) and Obama (with 23.9 million followers) created a trending topic on Twitter today by promoting the #My2K hashtag to rally support for the president's call for legislation before the year-end fiscal cliff deadline for former president George W. Bush's tax cuts package.

Obama is stepping up his effort to get Americans to lobby their elected representatives to pass the middle class tax cuts, personalizing the message with "My 2K" as a reference to the $2,000 (well, $2,200) that may be coming out of their pockets: "If Congress fails to act before the end of the year, every American family’s taxes will automatically go up. A typical middle-class family of four would see its taxes rise by $2,200 starting in 2013."Continue reading...

The White House today was the scene of the annual pre-Thanksgiving turkey pardon, with Cobbler and Gobbler getting a reprieve — along with a shout-out to New York Times stats-cruncher Nate Silver ("once again, Nate Silver completely nailed it") and Facebook, the platform on which (in a first this year) the turkey pardon was opened to public voting. Portlandia-ready infographics (below) gave more details on each turkey's background to help voters decide. The First Family then went to Martha's Table, a food pantry in Washington, D.C., to help assemble Thanksgiving meals to be distributed to the less fortunate this holiday.Continue reading...

Interbrand's 2012 Best Global Brands report sees Coca-Cola on top, Apple and Samsung make gains, Disney and HP decline, and BlackBerry lose 39 percent of brand value.

Samsung files to add iPhone 5 to Apple patent lawsuit as US court lifts injunction against Galaxy Tab sales and Galaxy S3 outsells iPhone 5 in UK.

Amazon plans to hire 10,000 British temp employees for the holidays.

American Airlines accuses pilots of sabotage as loose seats embarrass execs.

American Express ordered to refund $85 million to customers and pay $27.5 million in penalties.

Apple's iPad Mini rumored for Oct. 17 unveiling.

Cadbury wins exclusive right to its signature purple color in legal battle.

Disney unveils new homepage with entertainment focus.

Facebook sells more access to members as part of ad analytics push; Wall Street approves.

Google's stock market value passes Microsoft's for the first time.

Guinness launches "cloud TV" campaign.Continue reading...

The first televised U.S. presidential candidates' debate, the 1960 between Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA) and Vice President Richard Nixon (R-CA), illustrated the power and sway of the media in American politics. As the lore goes, TV viewers gave the debate to Kennedy while radio listeners gave it to Nixon.

In the midst of the Great Depression, March 12, 1933, the nation was held spellbound as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt assured his countrymen that their country would recover during Fireside Chats where Roosevelt shared his hopes and plans and invited the American people to "tell me your troubles."

Fast forward to 2012, and President Barack Obama and the White House will make digital history (again) as he plans to make himself available in a 45-minute live video chat room (dubbed a Hangout) on Google+ on Jan. 30 to answer questions arising from his State of the Union address delivered Tuesday night.Continue reading...

As UPS prepares to deliver a whopping 300 packages per second on its busiest holiday day (Dec. 22nd), the transportation giant is closed in the U.S. on Nov. 24/25th. Still, Thanksgiving makes us think of an earlier holiday this month, Veterans Day, and a UPS special delivery that struck us as an admirable way of giving back to those who serve.

That's when UPS announced that “it will award 10 franchises next year to qualified veterans and waive the franchise fee of nearly $30,000.” The UPS Store commitment is part of Operation Enduring Opportunity, a federal effort announced by First Lady Michelle Obama that has commitments from various companies to hire 100,000 vets or their spouses by 2014.Continue reading...

The first cracks are appearing in the US federal governent's regulatory edifice regarding the tough new restrictions it is considering on marketing food to kids. And while CPG manufacturers aren't popping corks, they are encouraged that the government's Interagency Working Group (IWG) finally appears to be listening to their concerns — and those of several dozen congressmen and senators who have been pushing back as well.

In response to a letter from Rep. Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, heads of three of the four agencies in the group — which consist of the FDA and other relevant regulators involved in the public effort — said that they anticipate "making significant changes to both the marketing and nutrition principles as [the IWG] develops final recommendations."

That is music to the ears of Dan Jaffe, executive vice president of the Association of National Advertisers, which has been heavily involved in the resistance to the regulators' proposed "voluntary" guidelines. As is, they would require food, beverage and restaurant brands to either modify products or cut out all marketing aimed at children under 18 for products that don't meet new nutrition standards.

The industry has been trying to get the Obama administration (and its recently intensified efforts) to let them attack the childhood-obesity problem on a self-regulatory basis, without imposing what they see as draconian government regulations.Continue reading...