Filed under: Advertising/Marketing

Visit our Filed page for categories. To browse by specific topic, see our Inside page. For a list of companies covered on this site, visit our Companies page.

 

DDB Chicago names interim chief

After a tumultuous three year term, DDB’s Chicago president Rick Carpenter has resigned. During the search for his replacement, Mark O’Brien, DDB’s North America, will serve as Chicago’s interim chief.

DDB Chicago has a number of Fortune 500 clients, including McDonald’s and Anheuser-Busch. DDB is part Omnicom, a global media and communications company. Get the full story »

General Mills cutting sugar in cereal again

General Mills Inc. is lowering the amount of sugar in its children’s breakfast cereals to no more than 10 grams per serving from 11 grams a year ago, the latest move from a U.S. foodmaker to address childhood obesity.

The step-down in sugar by General Mills, the maker of Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Trix cereals, is a move closer to its year-old goal to reduce to single-digit levels the number of grams of sugar per serving in all of its cereals advertised to children under 12. Get the full story »

Abbott, others using iPad in medical sales

Medical-sector companies are passing out thousands of iPad tablet computers to salespeople to spruce up their pitch to doctors, and at the same time giving Apple Inc. a crucial foot in the door to business customers.

Abbott Laboratories, Medtronic Inc. and Boston Scientific Corp. are among the drug and medical-device firms making the move, while others say they are testing out the devices. Get the full story »

Reddish-pink hot color for 2011 products, clothing

A yogurt machine in honeysuckle. (AP)

It may be gray outside when the calendar flips to 2011, but a bright red-pink hue will be in fashion. “Honeysuckle” is the color of 2011 chosen by Pantone Color Institute, the research arm of Pantone Inc., the company that largely sets color standards for the fashion and home industries.

The reddish pink shade lights a fire to your senses and revs you up, says Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. And it’s much livelier than 2010’s color of the year: turquoise. Get the full story »

Mobile firms seeing ads coming to handsets

The long awaited uptake of the potentially lucrative mobile advertising market by advertisers and consumers has actually started to happen, companies from Canada, Egypt and Poland said on Friday. Get the full story »

Congress acts to shush loud TV ads

Here’s a message TV viewers may not want to mute: The days of getting blasted out of the easy chair by blaring TV commercials may soon be over.

The House on Thursday gave final congressional approval to a bill that would prevent advertisers from abruptly raising the volume to catch the attention of viewers wandering off when regular programming is interrupted. Get the full story »

U.S. auto market picks up speed in November

Though still far from robust, the U.S. auto market continued its slow recovery in November as consumers headed for showrooms, enticed by heavy month-end advertising.

General Motors Co. the first of the major automakers to report Wednesday, said that November sales rose 21% from a year earlier, to 168,704 vehicles, after factoring out the Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn and Saab brands it closed or sold as part of its bankruptcy reorganization last year.

Through the first 10 months of this year — prior to the reports of November sales — the industry has been averaging about an 11% gain. Get the full story »

PR firm settles FTC suit over iTunes game reviews

The Federal Trade Commission said Friday that it has settled charges that a California public-relations firm posted fake video game reviews on Apple Inc.’s  iTunes Store.

According to an FTC complaint, employees of California-based Reverb Communications Inc. allegedly engaged in deceptive online advertising by having paid employees and company managers pose as consumers and write glowing video game reviews of clients’ games. Get the full story »

Marketers behind health sites, privacy groups warn

Web sites offering a sense of community to people with diseases or ailments often are created by marketers who fail to disclose that they are sharing data about the users, a complaint filed with U.S. regulators charged on Tuesday.

Four pro-privacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, detailing a number of techniques marketers use to identify potential purchasers of particular medications. Get the full story »

3 Chicagoans Good Riddance Day finalists

As the New Year approaches, most people would like to say “good riddance” to something.

About 200 people nationally even entered a Good Riddance Day contest sponsored by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., sharing the 2010 memories they’d most like to shred. Get the full story »

Internet ad sales reached record $6.4B in 3Q

Internet ad sales reached a record high in the third quarter, rising 17 percent compared with last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau Get the full story »

Phusion to stop Four Loko shipments to New York

The maker of a caffeinated alcoholic drink that has been banned in four states has agreed to stop shipments to New York state.

Gov. David Paterson and the State Liquor Authority announced the agreement Sunday with Chicago-based Phusion Projects, which makes the drink Four Loko, and with the state’s largest beer distributors to stop selling caffeinated alcoholic beverages. Get the full story »

San Francisco mayor vetoes kids’ meal toy ban

San Francisco’s mayor has vetoed legislation that would ban toys from fast-food children’s meals, though it’s still expected to become law. Get the full story »

Busch sues baseball over sponsorship pact

Anheuser-Busch Inc. on Friday sued Major League Baseball, accusing it of reneging on an agreement to renew its lucrative sponsorship pact.

The complaint contends that Major League Baseball in April agreed to renew Anheuser’s exclusive malt beverage sponsorship rights for a number of years. Get the full story »

Kraft pulls four brands from DraftFCB

From Ad Age | Kraft Foods has pulled longtime agency DraftFCB from four key accounts: Jello, Cool Whip, A1 Steaksauce and Bull’s-Eye barbeque sauce.