Archive for March, 2011

Daily Buzz 3-17-11

AmEx Campaign Positions Rewards Points as Social Currency Now, when you redeem American Express Rewards points, all your friends can know about it. The financial services marketer, finding that many of its members like to brag about their reward redemptions, is making it easier for them to do so by creating a Facebook tab asking, “What’s the [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-16-11

Cable TV on Your Tablet? Time Warner Cable Says Sure Time Warner Cable is pushing the envelope on video and making some TV networks uncomfortable in the process. The cable provider’s new iPad app allows subscribers to watch live shows — much as they do on TV — at no extra charge as long as they [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-15-11

Groupon Envy Clutches SXSW Even in Austin, the Groupon envy is stifling. The entertainment and geek fest South By Southwest Interactive is known for surfacing what’s new and what’s next, but the biggest, boldest ideas are a lot about Groupon — and the local-deals market — and not a lot about much else. Marissa Mayer, Google VP-consumer [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-14-11

Progressive’s Flo Thumbs a Ride With Drivers Starting this week, Progressive’s perky sales clerk will push a new in-car product the company claims will be as transformative for the insurance industry as the iPod was for music — a device that plugs in your car and tracks how and when you drive. “This will signal a game [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-11-11

Why Warner’s Movie Test on Facebook Is Such Serious Business You could argue Warner Bros.’ test to rent, and soon sell, “The Dark Knight” and other films on Facebook is just another promotional deal on the world’s largest social network. But it isn’t, and that’s why it sent shivers through the media industry: not for what [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-10-11

Cap’n Crunch Breathes Easier: Talk of His Demise Untrue No, Cap’n Crunch is not retiring, lost at sea or anything like it. He’s here to stay, says Quaker Oats, responding to rumors that the PepsiCo unit was doing away with the sugary-cereal icon. “Reports of Cap’n Crunch’s demise are greatly exaggerated,” Quaker said in a statement to [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-9-11

Kraft Treats for Tweets About Mac & Cheese Apparently quite a few people on Twitter are talking about mac and cheese, so much so that the favored dish has become a trending topic. (Why might be the question.) But Kraft Foods, ever the opportunist, has seized on the conversation to push its Macaroni & Cheese brand [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-8-11

Social Sampling Scores Big for Kleenex as a Million People Share Packs Samples usually are one-way, unrequested offers from marketers, and online sampling mostly involves signing up to get freebies yourself. But an offer this cold-and-flu season for Kleenex that lets people send free packs of tissues to friends and family has scored big. The Kimberly-Clark Corp. [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-7-11

Sierra Mist Effort a Not-So-Sweet Attack on Sprite “If you’re not fond of fake, try Sierra Mist Natural,” a voice-over says, as a cardboard cutout of a Sprite can falls over. For awhile it seemed directly comparative ads had petered out — think Domino’s CEO burning Subway’s cease-and-desist letter in a spot or Campbell’s and Progresso duking [ READ MORE ]

Daily Buzz 3-4-11

Coca-Cola Launches Global Music Effort to Connect With Teens A year ago, the beverage giant unveiled its 2020 Vision, which calls for the company to more than double system revenue to $200 billion, as well as servings to more than 3 billion per day by the year 2020. To accomplish that, the company will need to [ READ MORE ]