Business

Madrina’s Multicultural Brands (MMCB) announced a distribution partnership with Prairie Farms Dairy. The partnership will dramatically increase consumer access to the MMCB family of products, including Madrina’s Helado (ice cream), slated to arrive in stores in April of this year.

GroupM Internet advertising hit $84.8 billion in 2011, representing a 16 percent increase over the previous year and accounting for more than 17 percent of all global measured advertising expenditures, according to a new report from GroupM.

2011 continued to be a challenging year for the global economy, which was impacted by natural disasters, political uprisings, and the ripple effects of financial crises in both the U.S. and Western Europe. After a boost in advertising spending in Q3 2011, many of the world’s biggest advertisers exercised more caution in Q4, but 2011 still showed an overall 7.3 percent increase in spending vs. 2010.

J. C. Penney Company, Inc. (“jcpenney”) announced that it has begun to dramatically simplify its business model in order to align operations with the changes it is making to become America’s favorite store. The Company’s new approach to pricing, promotion, merchandising and the customer experience requires a more competitive operational structure, with fewer layers of management, wider spans of control and greater accountability throughout the organization.

After a year where two 1990s Internet darlings took home the top places in Reputation Institute studies–Amazon in the U.S. and Google, globally–food & beverage and consumer product companies roared back to the top of the reputation heap. Reputation Institute in partnership with Forbes Media, released findings from their 2012 U.S. RepTrak™ Pulse; a study that measures the 150 largest U.S. public companies. General Mills ranked number one in the study with a Pulse score of 83 after just missing the top 10 in 2010 and 2011. The company scored strongest in three key drivers of reputation, namely Products & Services, Governance and Leadership–and was also #1 in Citizenship.

Doremus and the Financial Times, have annually partnered to survey senior executives around the globe to learn their views on a range of business topics.

The accelerating pace of smartphone adoption and data usage, increasing capital expenditure driven by the transition to 4G networks, and declining mobile voice usage is creating significant pressures on existing revenue models and profitability for wireless carriers, according to respondents to a survey conducted by PwC US titled: No wires attached: 2011 North American wireless industry survey. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

A mounting body of evidence finds that the spread of mobile technology is adding to news consumption, strengthening the appeal of traditional news brands and even boosting reading of long-form journalism. But the evidence also shows that technology companies are strengthening their grip on who profits, according to the 2012 State of the News Media report by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. View Report Here.

ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad expenditure will grow 4.8% in 2012, reaching US$489 billion by the end of the year. This is a slight upgrade of the 4.7% growth we forecast back in December. We now expect ad expenditure to grow 5.3% in 2013 (up from 5.2%) and 6.1% in 2014 (previously 5.8%).

Thirteen percent of marketing and advertising executives plan to add full-time staff in the next three months, according to The Creative Group Hiring Index for Marketing and Advertising Professionals , and 3 percent forecast reductions in personnel. Most respondents, 80 percent, expect to make no changes to the size of their teams.

Univision Communications Inc. announced the formation of its Innovation Marketing Team (IMT), a new integrated consumer engagement group designed to further the company’s ability to develop multi-platform, integrated marketing programs.

Total advertising expenditures increased 0.8 percent in 2011 and finished the year at $144.0 billion, according to data released by Kantar Media. Ad spending during the fourth quarter of 2011 dropped 1.0 percent versus the year ago period, the first quarterly decline since the end of 2009. Since reaching a post-recession peak in Q3 2010, advertising growth rates have slowed sequentially for five consecutive quarters. Spanish language TV ad spending surged 19.1 percent in fourth quarter, paced by higher sell-out levels at over-the-air networks. For all of 2011, the segment increased 8.3 percent.

Latinum Network today announced the official launch of VozLatinum, a new online community leveraged by marketers who want to get to know the U.S. Hispanic consumer.