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Sodexho, the food service giant known for supplying hotel chains around the world, has recently gone native. Sodexho—which supplies breakfast and lunch for more than a dozen school districts in Rhode Island—will now purchase a larger percentage of its produce from local farms.

In conjunction with nonprofit group Kids First, Sodexho worked on this project for three years—making sure local farms met their certification needs and negotiating fair prices for produce.

Still full from lunch? Not hungry for dinner yet? Then go grab a free taco from Taco Bell during the inconvenient hours of 2-5pm on October 30th. While you’re there, feel free to drink a soda, or order a gordita…or six. Taco Bell found a PR goldmine in its advertising “gamble” to give away free tacos to America if any player stole a base in any game of the World Series. In Game 2 on October 25th, everyone’s wishes came true when Red Sox rookie Jacoby Ellsbury stole second, and consequently Taco Bell stole the stage.

The Ventura County Star is reporting that their local congresswoman is taking aim at women's mags. Capp's wrote an editorial on Friday, denouncing a number of women's magazines with young female readership for carrying ads (pictured here) for Camel No.

For the first time in 14 years, QVC is redesigning its image. The television shopping network recently launched a new logo as part of atotal integrated marketing campaign (the first of its 21 years) that aims tooverhaul QVC’s identity from the ground up.

According to Mediapost Publications one in five households enjoys “bloop blooping” through television commercials, cackling with the power magically granted to them by Tivo and other DVRs. Consequently, ad spending on broadcast TV is experiencing significant half-year declines-- decreases from 3.6% to $11.84 billion worth of expenditures on the networks even more on syndicated TV.

What's growing faster than Internet ad spend (and way faster than tv, print and radio)? AdvertisingAge reports that Shopper Marketing has doubled since 2004 and is on pace foran annual growth rate of 21% through 2010, making it faster than even theInternet juggernaut (which is rising 15% annually).

As Brand New noted recently, the NFL is updating its logo. After more than 60 years, it’s probably about time.

Everyone around here is abuzz about the new Stella Artois billboards in RI and MA: just a glamour shot of the product with the old tagline “Perfection has its price.” The campaign’s been in use for at least six years, since this humorous ad came out in 2001. In some contexts (like on Boston’s Newbury St.) it could almost make sense. But next to a discount store in a low-income neighborhood? That’s inauspicious media placement at best.

While hot internet properties such as Facebook and Youtube undeniably get eyeballs, marketers have been struggling with how to commoditize that traffic. Just throwing up banner ads hasn’t been working out that well, according to a study from Forrester that recommends moving past run-of-site placements to engage users.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported on a recent JupiterResearch study naming Google as the America’s favorite Internet brand. The search-engine-turned-media-company beat out Yahoo, Amazon, eBay, MySpace, Microsoft and AOL, with 35% of the vote.