AIG aims at independence through issuing warrants.

Atkins expands dieter resources and ad campaign. 

Borders talks with restructuring advisers. 

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are well-positioned in India, study says. 

Intel says “hair isn’t on fire” over success of tablets. 

Kraft nabs golden-voiced homeless songster Ted Williams for new spot for Mac & Cheese, as MSNBC and other offers and inquiries pour in.Continue reading...

Polaroid made a splash at CES a year ago by announcing the instant-photography brand was tired of being retro and embracing the future by hiring Lady Gaga as its creative director. It's been a relatively quiet partnership until now.

After a bit of teasing and talk of a Made in Polaroid social collaboration platform, Gaga and Polaroid today revealed the "future forward" results of that collaboration: Grey Label, a line overseen by Gaga and designed by Haus of Gaga, the performer's creative team which styles her tour, videos and costumes. Details after the jump.Continue reading...

As the world's biggest tech retailer, Best Buy is ubiquitous at CES 2011. It's not only an exhibitor but ubiquitous beyond Las Vegas, as its Best Buy On site emerges this week as a communication hub and marketing force to be reckoned with.

BBY is using the site as an opportunity to explain new technologies, such as the connected TVs being talked up at CES, and feature other brands on its retail and virtual shelves.

It's a content-savvy move that the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune calls advertorials, while Ad Age describes the site as evidence the retail giant is becoming a broadcaster, publisher and ad agency in its own right with this multichannel strategy.Continue reading...

Microsoft released this trailer of Steve Ballmer's CES keynote promoting Avatar Kinect for Xbox 360, one of the ways it's goosing Xbox 360 (along with Netflix streaming and Hulu).

Avatar Kinect, which brings a player's avatar to life, will be rolling out as a free add-on for Xbox Live gold-level members this spring. It aims to make entertainment "more active, more social and more fun" as Ballmer notes (and could liven up business videoconferencing, too).

With that in mind, Microsoft also showcased ESPN on Xbox Live with Kinect (after the jump).Continue reading...

Motorola introduced Xoom, which it says will be the world's first Honeycomb (Google Android)-based tablet, at CES today. Take a closer look at its iPad answer (produced with Verizon Wireless), along with Atrix, its new 4G phone coming to AT&T customers in the US and Bell customers in Canada, after the jump.Continue reading...

We knew that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has an irreverent sense of humor — but we didn't realize how wacky until we checked out Chet. That's "Chet Logothestian," a touchy-feely character that Microsoft used to build viral buzz ahead of Ballmer's third annual kick-off keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show, which streamed on Facebook and at Microsoft.com.

The kooky "Creative Presentation Creative Consultant" was played up with a Facebook page and Twitter feed, while on YouTube the viral social marketing effort was mocked by commenters. (Watch Chet chat about CES with execs for Windows Phone, Xbox and Kinect, plus Elvis impersonators, after the jump.)

Ballmer's keynote presentation was nowhere near as kooky, with highlights including a tablet-ready version of Windows (dubbed System on a Chip), and the successful 4th quarter launch of Kinect, which sold 8 million units in its first 60 days.Continue reading...

General Motors has been promoting its OnStar “telematics” brand as a standalone marque for many years — nearly since the pioneering automotive safety-and-security services package became available on GM vehicles in 1996.

Now, in an about-face announced this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, GM is going to make an OnStar package available to anyone on an aftermarket basis at Best Buy stores nationwide, in the form of a technologically enabled rear-view mirror. It will retail for $299 and come with an $18.95 monthly (or $199 yearly) service fee.

GM is showing off OnStar's abilities with a Verizon 4G-integrated concept car at CES, above.Continue reading...

Here's Google's official Consumer Electronics Show promo for Android 3.0. Also known as Honeycomb, it's an object of desire in the tablet frenzy at this CES, and the subject of some pre-CES tweaking by Motorola.Continue reading...