The Quaker Oats Company, a division of PepsiCo, announced a broad new direction for growth focused on products and programs to help people lead healthier lifestyles. The nation’s breakfast authority for more than 130 years will introduce two new hot cereal varieties and improvements for its instant oatmeal nationwide this week and will launch an integrated US marketing and ad to motivate Americans to rethink the question: «Does Your Breakfast Make You Amazing?«

Coca-Cola Great Britain is supporting the training of over 120 new swimming teachers and coaches as part of its commitment to get people active on the road to 2012. The announcement follows on from the success of the company’s “Schweppes Abbey Well’ ‘Schwim Free” campaign, which enables consumers to enjoy a free swim by exchanging promotional Schweppes bottle tops at participating pools in England, Scotland and Wales.

Nestlé is promoting itself as one of the most ‘student-friendly’ brands in Brazil. The food and drink manufacturer teamed up with the JWT agency to target the college and young employees audience with a new campaign, in which it is assuring that Nestlé brands can deal at least with one problem in the beginning of ‘adult’ live—the problem of proper nutrition.

Gatorade’s G Series line of products will make its Canadian debut in spring 2011. During the inaugural G Series Symposium held last week at the MaRS Centre for Innovation in Toronto, the three-step sports nutrition G Series portfolio was unveiled to an audience of athletic trainers, educators, professional athletes and nutritionists gathered to discuss and learn about the hydration and nutrition needs of today’s performance athletes.

Coca-Cola and ParticipACTION, the national voice of physical activity and sport participation in Canada, are providing the tools to empower teens to be active living ambassadors with their peers. Sogo Active, the national physical activity program of Coca-Cola Canada in collaboration with ParticipACTION, has grown to almost 13,000 youth and 1,300 Community Host members in just over a year. This summer the program is reaching out to all Canadians aged 13-19 with more support, resources and incentives designed to get teens active.

Every week the brand and design news seems to feature yet another online campaign, social networking competition or launch of a new hub as brands compete to capture the attention of an exponentially growing virtual audience. But, just as we (consumers) are continually warned of the dangers of identity theft and fraud—with another story this week detailing how successfully phone Apps and their data can now be compromised—are brand owners heeding the very real threat of creative piracy as we become ever more of an e-commerce culture?