• Grab Your Skates And Take A Peek At The Jag
    The "Jag" is one of those mythical beasts that, like unicorns, capture some of our fancies even if, deep down, we know we'll never have a close personal relationship with one. And so it is, I'm sure, that I'm not the only one captivated by the president of Jaguar Land Rover North America's telling "USA Today"'s James R. Healey: "We've pressed the reset button on Jaguar. We're trying to dismantle the brand and rebuild it."
  • Grab Your Skates And Take A Peek At The Jag
    The "Jag" is one of those mythical beasts that, like unicorns, capture some of our fancies even if, deep down, we know we'll never have a close personal relationship with one. And so it is, I'm sure, that I'm not the only one captivated by the president of Jaguar Land Rover North America's telling "USA Today"'s James R. Healey: "We've pressed the reset button on Jaguar. We're trying to dismantle the brand and rebuild it."
  • Johnson & Johnson Steps Up On Beauty Care Ingredients
    Johnson & Johnson is indeed walking a "public relations tightrope" in pledging to remove all potentially harmful chemicals from its line of adult consumer products by the end of 2015, as Katie Thomas writes at the end of her report in the "New York Times." It has also launched a website, Our Safety & Care Commitment, that states at the top: "You have our commitment that every beauty and baby care product from the Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies is safe and effective when used as directed."
  • Helen Gurley Brown, 90, Marketer Of That 'Cosmo Girl'
    Helen Gurley Brown, who rose from the secretarial ranks to become a top copywriter at Foote Cone Belding and Kenyon & Eckhardt, wrote a bestseller that proclaimed that -- gasp! -- "Sex and the Single Girl" was not an oxymoron and then redefined the landscape of magazines at Cosmopolitan, died yesterday at 90.
  • Nike Scores With Ambush Products, Ads, PR
    There is just one comment displayed this morning on Bloomberg's "Alternate Olympic Medal Count," which is a tally of the number of medals won by athletes sponsored by a brand or company. "Where is Puma ... and Nike?"
  • Weathering The Storm Of Higher Food Prices
    Nasty weather patterns -- including drought in the U.S. Midwest, too much rain in Brazil and a heat wave in Russia -- caused food prices to jump 6% worldwide in July after three months of decline, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Just how much to pass along rising commodity prices is a delicate balancing act for manufacturers and retailers, made all the more difficult by the just-as-nasty economic picture.
  • Gloves Are Off In Standard Charter PR Battle
    Forget about the stiff upper lip and all that. British bank Standard Charter is responding to charges by a pugnacious New York State regulator that it laundered Iranian funds to the tune of $250 billion by swinging back hard. Sources tell the Financial Times' Kara Scannell and Patrick Jenkins that it is considering "legal redress." CEO Peter Sands had no comment on that tactic, "but he made no secret of his irritation at the damage done to StanChart," they write.
  • Apple's Yanked Ads: Jive Or Genius?
    Many a pizza will spin and hard drives freeze over waiting for Apple to agree, but the nays have evidently had it: controversial spots that make customers look like dolts in the presence of a peripateticyoung man from the Genius Bar have been yanked.
  • Amazon, American Delivering The Goods
    Making sure the goods get to their ultimate destinations surely and swiftly is a hot consumer issue. A program that Amazon.com rolled out a year ago that places "delivery lockers" in major cities has expanded to about 50 grocery, convenience and drugstores, Greg Bensinger reports in the Wall Street Journal this morning, allowing customers to pick up packages in neighborhoods where they might otherwise get pinched from the doorstep. And American Airlines is introducing a new service that will deliver luggage to passengers' offices, hotels or homes for a fee ranging from $29.95 to $49.95, Charisse Jones reports in USA …
  • Southwest Facebook Promo Hits Turbulence
    Some news reports carry words like "fiasco" to describe the computer glitch that resulted in Southwest Airlines booking numerous flights for customers responding to a Facebook promotion. Short term, it was indeed a social media black eye for the airline. But its response may actually prove to be a textbook example of rapid-response crisis management. At worst, it invites comments about what it could have done better, faster.
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