(RED) has announced (RED)Music, a place to buy exclusive tickets and packages from top artists and a centerpiece of the organization's inaugural (RED) Rush to Zero campaign, running June 1-10 to raise funding and awareness to deliver an AIDS Free Generation by 2015.

“The virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV is part of the eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS by the target date of 2015,” said the press release.Continue reading...

It's a well known fact that the brand value of dead celebrities lives far beyond the celebrities themselves. Bob Marley may have died in 1981, but his name has made him immortal, at least in terms of earning power. Elvis continues to have perennial brand presence, getting an extra boost from Graceland's year-long celebration of his life in this, the 35th anniversary of his death.

But this past weekend, a whole new form of dead celebrity worship came to life at the Coachella music festival in California. On Sunday night, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog performed "live" on stage with Tupac Shakur, the rapper who was killed in 1996. Of course, Dre and Snoop performed live; Tupac's performance was a holographic video with updated audio tailored to the crowd. Still, the image was so seemingly alive and so stunning that it may prompt a Tupac tour, according to The Wall Street Journal.Continue reading...

Adobe gets more social.

Amazon wrings profit from fulfillment.

AmLactin taps Olympic swimmer Dara Torres as brand ambassador.

Angry Birds to launch retail partnership

Apple iPad users find high video use can crunch data plans as Consumer Reports finds that the new version runs hotter than the old one.

Arby's readies brand relaunch.

Boeing gains 787 Dreamliner clearance by U.S. regulators.Continue reading...

The fight against AIDS is on track to achieve the first AIDS-free generation by 2015.

Tomorrow celebrates the 23rd World AIDS Day. Since its beginning in 1988, 30 million people have died from the disease and 2.5 million children younger than 15 are living with HIV. But in four years, the world can realize the end of HIV transmission from mothers to babies delivering a key milestone for the beginning of the end of AIDS.

Major brands are continuing their support with limited edition (RED) products to help raise funds for the charity.

Apple is selling a (RED) iPad and iPod Nano; Nike a (RED) collection including trainers, a destroyer jacket and backpack; Gap is selling a t-shirt by French fashion designer Isabel Marant; Lauren Bush's FEED project created a tote bag; and Converse made 500 pairs of (RED) Chuck Taylor All Star shoes with the ‘Ephemeral Pitches, and Notes, Rhythm and Phonetics’ print design from José Parlá.

For the third year in a row, Starbucks will make “your handcrafted beverage an agent of change. They will be turning all handcrafted beverages (RED) on World AIDS Day, December 1st, across the US & Canada, making a five cent donation on every handcrafted beverage sold."Continue reading...

LeBron James has become the NBA player that fans love to hate ever since he unceremoniously dumped his home state of Ohio and moved along to the Miami Heat last season to seemingly become part of some sort of freakishly unstoppable winning machine. Unfortunately for the Heat and its fans, the team was stoppable — even though it took until the NBA Finals to get the brakes to completely work. 

And now, everyone in the NBA has been stopped, due to the lockout that owners and agents and players and veterans and league execs and tons of lawyers, among others, are busy trying to get untangled in order for some actual NBA games to be played this season.

Do you think all that dislike and the lack of a season is stopping the James Marketing Juggernaut? Of course not. It’s time for it to go into overdrive. One of his sponsors, Nike, is releasing a line of James off-court apparel featuring a lion logo designed to honor LeBron’s “heart of a lion.”  

The generic-looking logo is “reminiscent of the coat of arms of medieval English monarchs such as King Richard the Lionheart,” according to USA Today.Continue reading...

When Game Three of the NBA Finals tips off Sunday, there will be a very small group of fans that will be waiting for one particular commercial.

The ad (watch it below) is for the 2012 Chrysler 300S, a vehicle Motor Trends called “performance-tuned” and “muscle-bound.” But the main attraction of the ad won’t be the vehicle but the man in it: Dr. Dre. Once known as Andre Romelle Young, Dre is one of the most powerful people in the recording industry.Continue reading...

Hewlett-Packard is touting its audio brand partners in its HP consumer notebooks (Dolby, SRS and the Chrysler-favored Beats by Dr. Dre) in a quirky, retro new video that's one part Loony Toons, one part goofy 1950's educational film, including white-jacketed scientists, a pitch-perfect voiceover and a winking nod to the future — check it out below. Continue reading...

With its Eminem commercial during the Super Bowl for the new 200 sedan, and for the reinvented company, Chrysler brand CMO Olivier Francois put a stake in the ground around a bold new positioning he called “Imported from Detroit.”

It worked. The first of a series of planned new offerings under the Chrysler-brand wing-spread logo, sales of the 200 in April were up 23% over March, and Chrysler reportedly is considering adding a shift at the Michigan plant that assembles the model. Even more important, the Chrysler brand and product line has returned to the national buzz — in a highly positive sense — less than two years after the company took a federal-government bailout and turned itself over to Fiat.

Now, Francois is attempting to move that stake out a bit further with a new campaign for the new 300 sedan that builds on the "Imported from Detroit" positioning.Continue reading...