Lipton Ice Tea signed on X-Men and Australia movie star Hugh Jackman as a global brand ambassador in January. His first tv spot efforts are now launching and he’s getting a kick out of his first brand partnership.
 
In the "Tokyo Dancing Hotel" spot, Jackman is transformed after taking a sip of Lipton Ice Tea, causing him to put on a campy dance routine in a hotel. “Hard Day’s Work” features Jackman in a kissing scene with Mexican actress Ana de la Reguera. They break from the movie set for a cool sip of tea.Continue reading...

Aliph is to Bluetooth as the hipbone is to the Jawbone… well-connected.  Each year they come to market with a cooler, better designed earpiece. This year it’s the Jawbone ICON for $85. Not only does it come with rubber rings adjustable to any ear size, the packaging is recyclable.

The cool factor has been pushed to borderline as so many of us walk the streets seemingly talking to ourselves. Now you can do it in iconic digerati style.

Inserted directly into the auditory canal, and rotated 60 degrees mouth ward, Jawbone ICON delivers better quality sound consistently, than the more arduous task of actually carrying the phone at head-level. Originally developed for use in tanks and helicopters, the technology cancels out ambient sounds with NoiseAssassin 2.5 technology.Continue reading...

Sometimes it’s difficult for brands to know exactly how to react when they’re targeted by aggressive environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs). You’d think that a major CPG brand like Nestle, which is a marketing powerhouse, might be better at guerrilla warfare with such groups – but Greenpeace just one-upped Nestlé.

Seems that the famously radical green group pulled one its patented stunts on Nestlé by posting a video on YouTube whose purpose was to draw attention to Greenpeace’s opposition to the company’s practices for obtaining palm oil that goes into Kit Kat and other Nestlé candy bars.

Greenpeace says that Nestlé disrupts rainforests in Indonesia in order to plant oil palms. Felling such “old-growth” forests is a common green-NGO complaint against pulp, paper and food companies.Continue reading...

Clothing line Benetton will reorganize internally to keep up with competitors. [WSJ]

Casual Male is expanding its stores to include a big-and-tall warehouse. [Boston Herald]

Adidas capitalizes on its relationship with celebrities in a new commercial. [BrandFreak]

The NCAA basketball tournament is expected to bring in solid advertisers. [CNN Money]

Raquel Welch reprises her role as a Foster Grant spokeswoman. [LA Times]

Apple computers were given permission to use Amazon's Kindle application. [Reuters]Continue reading...

Advertisers are using brain scans to analyze what consumers want. [CNN Money]

Hertz appeals to emotions with a new campaign of personal stories. [Brandweek]

Virgin American is growing: it will add planes and routes in the coming months. [WSJ]

Viacom is claiming that YouTube deliberately overlooked video copyrights. [NY Times]

When brandchannel reported last month that Lady Gaga had signed a deal with Polaroid, we had to wonder what was going on. After all, why would one of the hottest young performers on the scene today connect herself with an old brand whose heyday was decades ago?

Now we know the answer. Lady Gaga not only agreed to become Polaroid's "creative director" and lend her name to a line products – she is also getting a significant piece of Polaroid's profits, according to the New York Post.Continue reading...

With Vancouver's 2010 winter events concluded, sports fans are looking forward to the London summer Olympics. However, a paradox has popped up in the attempt to promote the 2012 Games: The very rules put in place to protect the Olympic brand are preventing travel agents from promoting the Olympic brand.

In an effort to protect the reputation of the games, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and the Metropolitan Police are cooperating to warn travel agents about the consequences of breaking trademark and copyright laws. Several agents have already been reprimanded. “It will be tricky for travel firms to benefit from the games if they can’t say 'Go to London for the Olympics,'" said the chairman of the Prevention of Fraud in Travel Group. No kidding Continue reading...

Put Swiss watches on the list of products hurt by the global recession. Exports of Swiss watches dropped 22 percent last year, "the biggest drop since the Great Depression," says BusinessWeek. The United States had the biggest decline of any importing country.

The sub-text to the story might be even more interesting. Rolex, long considered the gold standard in Swiss watches, depends on the US for about one-third of its sales, so it was particularly battered.

Its competitor Omega, however, gets over one-third of its sales from China and only about 10 percent from the US. This fact, combined with the widely held perception that Omega is trendier, "helped Swatch Group AG's Omega snatch market share from Rolex..." This is a reversal of the trend in 2008, when Rolex "gained market share faster than Swatch Group," according to one analyst.Continue reading...

Question: What do you get when you pair New Orleans Saints superstar, Reggie Bush, with Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie” and “Twilight” film star, Peter Facinelli, in the kitchen?

Answer: “Kitchen Aphrodisiac."

Tupperware, hosting this New York City event today, March 18th, is betting that sexy men in the kitchen, cooking, will give a significant sales spike to the 64-year-old brand, best known for in-home parties and casserole freezer storage.

Rick Goings, Tupperware’s CEO, will enroll Bush and Facinelli in a meal preparation demonstration using only few ingredients, a microwave – and Tupperware products. “Someone said to me years ago, to catch a moose, you have to first catch moose bait. And if you want to target women, the best way is to also go after men,” explains Goings.Continue reading...

As rumors swirl that Google will pull up its Google.cn stakes in China by the end of March, it’s far from the end of the line for the company here. Google is still confident about the expansion of many of its other products, with Google CFO Patrick Pichette commenting that he expected sales of Android, the company’s handset platform, to “flourish.”

China Unicom, one of the country’s largest telecom service providers, has already agreed to sell Android handsets, according to Mike Harvey in The Times Online.Continue reading...

With beer industry revenues at an all-time low, MillerCoors LLC is resurrecting a legendary recipe. Named “Batch 19” after the year prior to Prohibition – the period in which all alcohol was banned for 13 years – the brewery hopes that its back-story will attract consumers and stop the sales slump.

Alcoholic beverage brands typically vie for the attention of the lucrative male, ages 18 - 34 demographic; this brand of brew, however, is tailored to a more sophisticated group within that coveted grouping: Those searching for “a true, authentic, original beer,” according to Peter Swinburn, chief executive of Molson Coors Brewing Co., MillerCoors' parent company. Swinburn is confident that its new beverage will outlast failed products such as Miller Chill, a beer flavored with lime and salt. Consumers in Chicago, Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Washington can expect to see Batch 19 in eateries starting next month. Continue reading...

It has recently been established that Facebook is the most popular online brand in the world. If a new study is to be believed, Facebook's popularity also rubs off on brands. Which ones? Well, all of them.

The results of research on social media and brands by iModerate and Chadwick Martin Bailey show that nearly 20 percent of respondents were more likely to buy or recommend "many" brands since becoming a "fan" or "follower" of those brands on Facebook or Twitter. The responses were just as encouraging in other areas.

When it came to at least "a few brands," more than 30 percent of respondents said they would buy a few of the brands they followed on Facebook, while over 40 percent said they would recommend at least a few of those brands to friends. Such positive results for brands followed on Twitter were even higher. Reasons for "friending" the brands were studied as well. The most common reason for Facebooking a brand was to receive discounts. The second most common was being a customer of the brand. The third was just to show support.Continue reading...

The numbers are in. Facebook has overtaken Google’s popularity among internet users in the US. Industry data shows that the social networking site has scored more visits on itshome page than the search engine.
 
Research firm Experian Hitwise noted that the two sites accounted for 14 percent of all US internet visits last week, each grabbing about half of that number with Facebook at 7.07 and Google at 7.03. Just a year ago, Facebook clocked in at 2 percent. Facebook reached the #1 ranking on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day as well as the weekend of March 6th and 7th. Now we know what family members were really doing over the holidays.Continue reading...

Pepsi will pull its full-calorie beverages from national school cafeterias. [Wallet Pop]

Kraft plans to cut 10% of its products' salt content in North America. [AP]

Tod's hopes that the addition of Karl Lagerfeld's celebrity can help Hogan. [NY Times]

YouTube offers to share ad sales with independent musicians hoping for a boost. [LA Times]

Liam Gallagher of the band Oasis will add womenswear to his clothing line. [Vogue UK]

With the economy recovering, will inflation cause problems for consumers? [WWD]Continue reading...

MillerCoors will resurrect a pre-Prohibition recipe for a new beer. [WSJ]

Facebook wants to give its users faster results when searching. [LA Times]

'American Idol' contestants have created their own Ford models. [BrandFreak]

Film studios are teaming up to promote video-on-demand. [NY Times]