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In a first for a wireless carrier, AT&T Inc. said Monday that it will use its phones’ location-sensing ability to target text ads with coupons and other offers to participating subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.
Kmart, part of Sears Holdings Corp., is one of the chains that have signed up for ShopAlerts by AT&T. That means AT&T could send discount offers to subscribers who are close to a Kmart store. Get the full story »
Oprah Winfrey talks to reporters about OWN in January. (Reuters)
From the New York Times | Oprah Winfrey’s 2-month-old cable channel, OWN, is attracting fewer viewers than the obscure channel it replaced, Discovery Health. At any given time this month, there have been about 135,000 people watching OWN, according to Nielsen, and only about 45,000 of those people are women ages 25 to 54, the demographic that the channel is focusing on.
Winfrey and her partner, Discovery Communications, have preached patience, especially because she will have a minimal presence on the channel until after “The Oprah Winfrey Show” ends its remarkable run in September. Get the full story >>
Five months after United Airlines and Continental Airlines sealed their legal merger, the combined company said it will introduce an “interim” advertising campaign this week and begin changing the United Web site to comport with the new look, which melds the United name with the well-known globe that Continental used. Get the full story »
While Indiana is gunning for Illinois businesses, the Chicago Convention & Tourism Bureau poached a second key convention and tourism official from Indianapolis.
Warren Wilkinson, 51, has been named senior vice president, marketing and communications, at the bureau, which is restructuring its management staff. Get the full story »
At a time when states are slashing spending to deal with staggering budget shortfalls, there’s one area they’re not cutting: tourism ads.
Think “Virginia is for Lovers,” “Connecticut: Closer than you think” and “Explore Minnesota.” Get the full story »
PepsiCo will sell its Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice in clear bottles, not the familiar coated-paper cartons, as it tries to take back market share from the Coca-Cola Co. brand Simply Orange.
Tropicana, the largest U.S. orange juice brand, said on Wednesday that clear plastic bottles will replace most of the cartons it has long sold bearing a picture of an orange with a straw stuck in it. Get the full story »
Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz USA will take over sales and marketing of the microcar smart USA brand from Penske Automotive Group by the middle of this year, Mercedes-Benz USA and Penske said Monday.
By the end of the transition period around July 1, the number of U.S. Mercedes-Benz dealers selling smart cars will drop to the mid-50sfrom the current 75 at dealerships owned by the Penske group, a Mercedes-Benz spokesman said. Get the full story »
Indiana is cranking up its push to lure Illinois businesses in the wake of tax increases here, rolling out a $250,000 marketing campaign that tries to position the Hoosier state as a lower-tax option.
“Feeling Squeezed by Taxes?” is the tagline on a Northwest Indiana campaign launching Monday in Chicago print and electronic media, and it dovetails with a broader Indiana push rolled out late last month, using the tagline, “Illinnoyed by Higher Taxes?” Get the full story »
Diet Pepsi has introduced a new “skinny” can for Fashion Week, but some critics are giving it a big, fat “no.”
The can is a “taller, sassier” version of the traditional can that the company says was made in “celebration of beautiful, confident women.” Some say Pepsi’s approach only reinforces dangerous stereotypes about women and body image. Get the full story »
Jordan Co., the private equity firm run by Chicago businessman John “Jay” Jordan, already does business in more than 30 countries, but is planning to re-enter India and is looking at investments in Vietnam.
Jordan, who serves on the boards of Lyric Opera and the Art Institute of Chicago and is a trustee of the University of Notre Dame, also told the Kellogg School of Management Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference on Wednesday that he expects 2011 and 2012 to be “extremely active years” for both buying and selling businesses, following a “fairly robust” 2010 but a “very slow” 2009. Get the full story »
An image from Groupon's Tibet ad. (Groupon)
Groupon Inc. is reworking its television commercials in response to the negative reception they received when they aired during Sunday’s Super Bowl.
Chief Executive Andrew Mason said in a Monday blog post that the company is tweaking the end of the ads to draw attention to the philanthropic causes they were intended to support.
“Ads are traditionally about shameless self promotion, and we’ve always strived to have a more honest and respectful conversation with our customers,” Mason wrote. “We would never have run these ads if we thought they trivialized the causes — even if we didn’t take them as seriously as we do, what type of company would go out of their way to be so antagonistic?” Get the full story »
The U.S. Justice Department plans to take the lead in lawsuits accusing Abbott Laboratories of illegally promoting anti-seizure drug Depakote for uses not approved by regulators, including dementia.
The Justice Department filed notices last week in federal court in western Virginia saying it would intervene in at least three lawsuits against Abbott that were previously confidential under laws designed to protect would-be whistleblowers who come forward with information about alleged health-care fraud. The lawsuits were made public as a result of the department’s intervention. Get the full story »
