Consumer

Tommy Bahama has chosen Burson-Marsteller as its international AOR, raising awareness for the company as it expands across Asia in 2012 and 2013. Stores are planned in Macau, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with an additional store/restaurant planned for Tokyo.

B-M regional MD Jackie Prince, based in Hong Kong, is leading the account in Asia. MD Danny Phan is a senior rep in Singapore. B-M has been beefing up its consumer roster recently.

Tommy Bahama has 96 locations in the U.S., but these are the first abroad. The company is working with DKC for the launch of its new New York location, which also includes a restaurant and a bar. And Los Angeles-based Orsi PR has been the company’s domestic AOR for14 years.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

It looks like green is the new color of parental guilt.

According to a new survey by iVillage and Today.com, a huge number of parents admit they could do more to help the environment, but don’t have enough money to go greener, inducing “green guilt.”

The survey found 94 percent of parents want to do more to help the environment, but almost half (43 percent) say lack of money keeps them from being their greener selves.  For the record, we would buy everything organic at Whole Foods if we could, right? It’s just that all those sweet peas and pesticide-free artichokes really add up.

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This tear-jerker is part of Proctor & Gamble’s “Thank you, Mom by P&G” push for the 2012 London Olympics. Launching 100 days before the Games, the clip, called “Best Job,” is available on a Facebook page dedicated entirely to the campaign. In addition to the video, there’s a scrolling page containing “Thank you, Mom” messages from visitors, an app, and a website dedicated to the campaign. The company is also raising $5 million for youth sports groups around the world and is donating more than $50,000 to KidSport Canada.

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PepsiCo’s North American beverage arm is no longer working with Porter Novelli, one of many ties that the company has cut. PepsiCo‘s beverage division has stopped working with about 100 agencies, or about 65 percent of its firm partners, most of them small firms. PepsiCo simply didn’t renew many contracts with these firms.

Ruder Finn will continue to work with the company’s corporate recycling program, but it too has been trimmed from the beverage work.

Weber Shandwick and Olson PR are among the firms (advertising, PR, etc.) that has added business or joined PepsiCo’s list of firm partners. The company hasn’t named those firms that it has cut all together. The beverage group now works with about 50 firms.

[via Ad Age]

As our lives have become more infused with technology, so have our homes. Consumer electronics company LG, has partnered with Janna Robinson, a lifestyle technology guru and host of the DIY Network program Hi-Tech Hollywood, and ESPN’s Stuart Scott to promote the fine art of “techorating,” the term trademarked by LG Electronics USA defined as the “blending of modern technology with the art of decorating to create a functional, yet stylish environment.”

The three have launched a competition, the “Sport of Techorating,” that puts two dad bloggers against each other to create the “best technorated living room” using LG products (of course). The rooms have been presented on Facebook for a public vote, giving fans the chance to win LG products.

According to Robinson, the idea of techorating is something she’s been into for years.

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A sharp-eyed tipster saw this story on the Bloomberg site in which a spokesperson from Hill + Knowlton Strategies, Claire Koeneman, the firm’s EVP and head of the financial comms practice, responded to questions about the abrupt resignation of Best Buy’s CEO Brian Dunn. Koeneman was named H+K’s financial practice lead back in June.

We contacted H+K about the story and while the agency confirmed that it is working with the troubled consumer electronics retailer following the CEO’s departure, it wouldn’t give any further detail.

When Dunn’s resignation was first announced, the company said it was due to the need for new leadership. However, now the media is reporting that there’s an investigation into his “personal conduct.”

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Smoyz, an Israeli ad agency, has executed a Pinterest-based campaign (the firm says it’s the first-ever) on behalf of its client Kotex. The firm selected 50 women who posted pictures of things that inspire them — a foodie posting pictures about cooking, for example. Smoyz then hired an artist to paint objects related to those interests in the new Kotex design. The items and a box of Kotex were sent to the Pinterest users as a gift.

According to the campaign clip above, the promo was a success because the women shared details with their followers about the gift they received, resulting in more than 2,000 impressions.

Adrants says the promo is an example of what will surely be a marketing trend — using the “interest graph.” We wondered if the campaign broke too far from the Kotex product.

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Today on Essence.com, there’s a “Street Style” photo gallery from the “Celebrate Black HERstory” event.

On Clutch, they pose this question: “Do we still need Black leaders?”

On The Root, they’re talking about Bobby and Whitney.

And on HuffPost Black Voices, there’s a story about an organization, the Black and Missing Foundation that’s focused on locating “missing people of color.”

As Michelle Flowers Welch, CEO and founder of Flowers Communications Group said in our Women Leaders profile yesterday, there’s been a dramatic increase in outreach to multicultural audiences, including African-American consumers. The examples above show the wide variety of issues that outlets targeting African Americans are tackling. We talked with a few experts to find out about some of the other trends and hot topics that are of interest.

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So often these days, we hear stories about people taking to the Internet against this or that issue and exacting change. In that regard, it’s a “man bites dog” story when that script doesn’t play out.

A group called One Million Moms tried to mobilize supporters against JC Penney and its decision to hire openly gay and very popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. Despite numerous appeals from the group, JC Penney decided to stick with DeGeneres. Moreover, people actually went online to congratulate JC Penney and speak against the group, calling them “bullies” and “haters.” This the same week that California struck down its ban on gay marriage and Washington made same-sex marriage legal. We like this a lot.

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After cutting the amount it has spent promoting its beverages, media reports say PepsiCo is preparing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars on beverage marketing this year and into the future.

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