Coke announced today that it has entered into a two-year sponsorship agreement with on-demand fitness network, Exercise TV. The agreement takes effect on the first of the year.

As part of its agreement with Exercise TV, Coke’s Enviga green tea and brand images will appear on some of the channel’s 200 workout shows. The two will also create original Enviga programming, USA Today reports. Other elements of the agreement include exclusive content for MyCokeRewards.com. Some of the company’s non-cola product lines are Minute Maid, Powerade, Enviga and Dasani.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Coke, like many other companies who get knocked by health and wellness advocates, has been looking to expand its portfolio to include products that will appeal to the health-conscious consumer and did so earlier this year with its purchase of Glaceau, which own Vitaminwater.

After another stellar year you’d think Apple might ease up a bit during the last few days of the year and take some time off from brokering new deals to bask in the glory of selling God only knows how many iPods and iPhones during the holidays. Think again.

During the last week of the year not only did the company’s stock manage to hit a new high of more than $200 a share, but it has also into an agreement with 20th Century Fox for digital movie rentals.

And rumor has it that there will be more than one major movie studio will be on stage with Steve Jobs at at the company’s Macworld Exhibition in mid-January to promote the new Apple movie rental service. Companies like Amazon and Movielink have managed to maintain a dominant position over Apple in the area of digital movie rental service. But it now appears that Apple is poised to make a major move in the space. If Amazon and Movielink want to keep the upper hand they would be wise to follow Apple’s example of not resting.

Unilever has agreed to sell its Lawry’s and Adolph’s seasoning brands in the U.S. and Canada to McCormick for $605 million in cash, Bloomberg.com reports. The world’s second-largest consumer-products company is selling the brands as part of its plan to divest its assets with sales of nearly $2.9 billion. Unilever did say that it would be keeping its seasonings factory in Independence, MI due to the fact that it makes various other products there.

Lawry’s and Adolph’s generated $150 million is sales last year.

We recently covered McCormick’s decision to name Weber Shandwick AOR for its US consumer products division through 2008.

Despite the fact that a recent Maritz Poll shows that 53% of US consumers said they will purchase toys this holiday season, more than three quarters (77%) said the recalls will affect their holiday shopping. The poll shows that among this 77%, “nearly four in 10 (38%) said they will check the label and country of origin of the toy; 22% said they will not buy toys from China; 9% stated they will only buy American-made toys; however only 8 percent said they will check the recall list.

“Retailers should be very concerned about 60 percent of shoppers saying they will check the label or avoid toys from China, since most toys – especially at big box retailers – are made in China,” said Gloria Park Bartolone, vice president of Maritz Research’s retail group. “It’s possible for shoppers to change their minds and simply buy a toy from China, but many could become frustrated and look to alternative gifts or retailers.”

Maritz is a sales and marketing services company.

Yesterday General Motors’ streak of three consecutive profitable quarters was brought to an abrupt and ugly end when the country’s largest automaker announced it had posted an astonishing $39 billion loss in the third quarter. The automaker said the loss, which is also one of the largest quarterly corporate deficits ever posted, was due to a charge involving unused tax credits. The largest charges and losses in corporate history was posted by Time Warner, then known as AOL Time Warner, which lost $98.7 billion in 2002.

GM also took a $1.6 billion operating loss in the third quarter.

The is reporting that GM said the third-quarter loss is more specifically attributable to “a $38.6 billion noncash charge largely related to establishing a valuation allowance against accumulated deferred tax credits in the U.S., Canada and Germany, as well as mortgage losses at GM’s former financial arm, GMAC Financial Services.”

Rick Wagoner, GM’s chairman and chief executive knew the charge would be hard for many to comprehend and doesn’t want people overreacting to the dollar figure.

“I think you’d have to have a Ph.D. in accounting to understand it,” Wagoner said during an interview on “The Paul W. Smith Show” on WJR-AM. “It doesn’t have any impact at all. I would encourage people not to overreact in a negative way to it.”

This comes on the heels of GM’s announcement last week that October was the third consecutive month it saw an increase in sales.

Fisher-Price, Mattel’s preschool division, along with the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) announced a recall of 155,000 toys today. This time around though it had nothing to do with lead paint or China. Instead, the cause for the recall is due to small parts on its Laugh & Learn Learning Kitchen toys, manufactured in Mexico, that pose a risk for small children, CNN reports. The CPSC said there have been 48 reports of pieces of the faucet or the clock hands separating from the toys. There have been two reports of children gagging on pieces, one report of a child that started choking on a piece, and one report of a child who choked on a piece.

Read our coverage of the toy industry and its problems here.

Simply put, Thursday was not a good day for Chrysler. Just hours after reporting earlier in the day that it was going to cut 12,000 jobs as part of a cost savings effort the automaker sales in October declined 9% , with car sales up 12% and truck sales down 14%. But Chrysler wasn’t the only one whose sales figures were down in October. The reports that Ford’s US sales fell 9.3% last month as well.

On the flip side, General Motors saw an increase in sales–3.3% for October–for the third consecutive month. While its car sales were flat compared with last October, its truck sales were up 5.8%. And Toyota reported a 4.5% sales increase for last month.

Nissan had a very strong October with an increase in sales of 13% for the month. The automaker said the increase was due largely to strong sales of its new Altima sedan and Versa subcompact. Nissan also said its new Rouge crossover was exceeding expectations, with more than 5,000 sold in its first full month on the market.

In less than a month Toy R Us has recalled 31,000 toys due to lead contamination. Yesterday, the AP reported the retailer recalled 16,000 Chinese-made Elite Operations toys because of lead contamination, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. On October 4 Toy R US recalled 15,000 Totally Me! Funky Room Decor Sets due to surface paints on the back of the decorating kits’ mirrors containing high levels of lead.

This latest recall included four Elite Operations toy sets: the Command Patrol Center, the Barracuda Helicopter, the Super Rigs set and a three-pack of 8-inch figures. The AP reports that no other Elite Operations toys are included in the recall. The toys were sold at Toys R Us stores and on toysrus.com between July and October.

In other China toy manufacturing news the Chinese government today announced the closing of 700 toy factories. The reports the factories have been banned from exporting anything they produce as part of a four-month-long governmental crackdown on poorly made products. The export bans followed inspections of 1,726 toy factories in the Guangdong province, of which 764 had their export licenses revoked or suspended due to “various quality problems,” the Guangdong provincial government said in a statement posted on its official Web site today. It said another 690 were ordered to renovate their plants and improve product quality.

Read our coverage of the toy recall crisis and the protests and backlash it has caused.

Earlier this year Taco Bell, on a few occasions, found itself in the middle of a few PR nightmares. First there was the E.coli breakout in the northeast, and less than three months later there was the infamous rodent video that popped up showing images of rats running around a Manhattan Taco Bell as if it were their own private cafeteria.

But during one of the game’s at this year’s rather boring World Series between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies, Taco Bell and its “Steal a Base, Steal a Taco” promotion was the talk of the night. Not only were the game’s announcers talking about the promotion, but at one point Fox cut to the Red Sox dugout where two players were candidly discussing the particulars of the promotion during the game.

The promotion: after the first stolen base of the series, consumers could walk into any of the 5,800 participating Taco Bells on a designated date and ask for a free taco. Jacoby Ellsbury, who just happened to be one of the players Fox caught discussing the promotion in the dugout, stole the first base in the second game of the series.

Ellsbury also made an appearance at a Boston-area Taco Bell to sign autographs the day of the free taco giveaway. Taco Bell has been running World Series promotions since 2002. Rob Poetsch, director of PR for Taco Bell, said “We’re giving away millions and millions of tacos.”

For the first time in 50 years the Holiday Inn’s famous green logo is changing. InterContinental Hotels Group Plc, which bought the hotel chain back in 1998, today said that Holiday Inn owners and franchisees will increase sales by investing $1 billion on renovations and new bedding, Bloomberg.com reports.

The site also reports that the Windsor, England-based InterContinental will spend $61 million to “speed” the rebranding. The first revamped hotel is scheduled to open in the U.S. next year, with the improvements finished across the chain by 2010.