On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks last year, a few brands saw an opportunity to show the world that they will never forget and they’ve got good hearts so next time you want something, think of them. 

Hooters Girls smiled and informed us of their feelings. Best Buy sponsored good deeds in various cities across the land. NASCAR drivers and their fans had a moment of silence from laps 9 to 11 in Richmond, Virginia. Ten years ago, Budweiser had set a very high bar for 9/11 tie-ins. Its reverent 2002 Super Bowl commercial, which aired only once on broadcast television but has been seen more than six million times on YouTube since, certainly got the company a lot of notice at the time.

It can be risky to link your brand to a tragedy, of course. You don’t want to appear self-serving but you still want to show empathy, and for consumers to be left with the idea that what you did was a fitting tribute. And marketers hope the tribute is so fitting that consumers will remember their company’s name the next time the wallet is pulled out.Continue reading...

Pity Porsche. It's not the German automaker's fault that its most iconic model just happens to have the same numerical name as the most famous terrorist attack in history. But these are the cards it's been dealt, and the brand has to play with them.Continue reading...

Over the weekend, all of those 9/11 commemorative campaigns we anticipated a couple of weeks ago came to pass.

One of the ads we noted was State Farm's. As it turns out, State Farm's moody, tear-jerking ad fired on all cylinders and ruled the day. Other brands' tributes? We'll let you decide who won and who lost.Continue reading...

The "scandal" of whether or not NASCAR drivers failed to take advantage of an invite from President Obama for political reasons has largely blown over.

But one event NASCAR is certainly not failing to take advantage of: The 10th anniversary of 9/11.Continue reading...

General Mills' "Coccoon" spot is oddly disturbing, not great at making people want to eat fruit snacks.

Creepy but more effective: Warner Bros. promotes new movie Matt Damon/Gwyneth Paltrow movie Contagion with a "bacteria billboard in Toronto."Continue reading...

Sprint sues AT&T to block T-Mobile USA merger; AT&T replies 'bring it on.'

Groupon delays IPO. 

Yahoo ousts CEO Carol Bartz in surprise shake-up.

Bing and Twitter renew partnership.

BMW signs Big Ten sponsorship deal.

BP's former CEO, Tony Hayward, is staging a comeback.

China to overtake Japan in luxury demand.Continue reading...

Back in June we noted that Lady Gaga had bought a 20% stake in The Backplane, joining Google chairman Eric Schmidt in supporting the nascent developer of social networking tools for groups ranging from "Girl Scout troops to celebrity fanclubs."

Naturally, Gaga's legions of fans (known as Little Monsters) would be the first to get their own social network powered by The Backplane — called, of course, LittleMonsters.com (which is now accepting pre-launch registrations).

It's getting closer to launch, with The Backplane last week tweeting a photo of the performer meeting with Backplane staffers (and posting it on Facebook), showing the site's logo in the background — the universal "paws up" monster claw used by her legions of fans.Continue reading...

The initial jarring element of Palladium Boots' (maybe) exploitative new campaign is the use of "3/11" in the same way "9/11" is used in the US to describe the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. While the earthquake and tsunami that turned much of Japan upside down in March 2011, the moniker "3/11" is hardly a mainstay, making Palladium's use all the more intentionally evocative… and exploitative.

Tokyo Rising, its new video "exploration" of the city hosted by Pharrell, faces "a new reality after the tragedy of 3/11." This makes Palladium, maybe, the first brand to heavily leverage the disaster for a brand campaign. (It is something American brands have already mastered with 9/11.)Continue reading...