In its latest collaboration with BuzzFeed, GE’s Wonderground allows users to explore five US cities via virtual tours, offering up bites of interesting trivia along the way. The multi-platform game avaialble via iOS or online makes use of the media site's photo content pages in order to immerse users in an eye-opening look through science, design and industrial technology. 

The game lets users explore New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in which fun facts like "LAX is the 3rd busiest airport in the United States,” and “the Getty Museum hires goats each spring to eat away at brush around the hills of the building,” which are featured in the L.A. video, voiced by BuzzFeed’s EVP Video, Ze Frank, with the headline, "See what others miss."Continue reading...

As Kermit the Frog taught an entire generation, “It's not easy being green.”

Clorox’s Green Works is a case study in the steep learning curve of green branding. The line of environmentally friendly housecleaning products launched in 2008 with an endorsement from the Sierra Club, which helped boost its market penetration and credibility. 

That $1.3 million contract ends in December and the brand chose Earth Day to announce a strategic marketing revamp, including a new tone of voice (embodied by its new manifesto, posted on Facebook and its website) and the removal of the Sierra Club logo from all Green Works packaging, a clear sign of the times as green cleaning products have been forced to reduce their premium prices and re-position the sell to deflect declining sales.Continue reading...

How appropriate is it that Jaguar has finally released its much anticipated branded short film Desire at the very same time that a fictional Jag representative on the hit show Mad Men is arguing for foregoing a "national ad campaign in favor of hard driving sales ads at the local dealer level?"

The Desire film is absolutely a national brand-making campaign and by no means a "hard driving" sales push of any kind. It is not meant, in the Mad Men dealer's words, "to move metal." It's too bad then that Jaguar's real-life branded film is so poorly targeted since Mad Men set the brand up with such a meatball opportunity.

For months, the auto-watching world has wondered about the Jaguar mini-film. When the music video tie-in from Jaguar music partner Lana Del Rey was released on Valentine's Day, it sucked up attention. The video has since logged over 300,000 views.

The full, quarter-hour mini movie is now here and it's hard to argue that Jaguar's Desire isn't a rather naked attempt to recreate the themes of BMW's decade-old iconic branded film series The Hire.Continue reading...

In what seems like a desperate bid for brand extension, the GEICO gecko has published a book. Yes, the fictitious, talking lizard not only convinces people to buy insurance, but his accented charm apparently works on publishers, too. 

The GEICO Gecko has "penned" a book titled You're Only Human: A Guide to Life, a 164-page, breezy, robustly illustrated, reader-friendly tome that covers topics of interest to the renowned, slimy little insurance mascot, ranging from "friending" hawks to Twitter, from tattoos to flossing.

Why you may ask? Well, the Gecko has always been one of the most reflective mascots in TV and print advertising. It's clear that there's a lot more going on in that tiny, tiny brain than mere shilling for his commercial sponsor.Continue reading...

The upcoming re-imagined Great Gatsby 3D has a slew of roaring '20s brands going along for the ride. Moet & Chandon and MAC Cosmetics are listed among the film's partners in its official "Guide to Style." As is New York's Plaza Hotel, which will "celebrate the Roaring `20s with period-inspired affairs throughout the spring," while Brooks Brothers has released a special Gatsby collection. While not listed in the film's official style guide, Prada has its own major partnership and Gatsby-inpired line. Tiffany & Co. has embraced its tie-in as well.

But one needn't be at entertainment's high-end to grab a fashion line tie-in. Clothing brand Opening Ceremony partnered with Spring Breakers to release a line based on the exploitation film: "Accessories include unicorn bandanas, mesh backpacks, lighters, cotton beach towels, 'HARMONY' friendship bracelets, and 'SPRING BREAK 4EVER BITCHES' wristbands."

It's all part of a booming product placement business that grew 11.7 percent in 2012 and promises to get bigger this year.Continue reading...

Syfy and Dodge are taking TV and gaming to new bandwidth with an exclusive dual-screen brand partnership. The branded entertainment will tie together Syfy's new series Defiance and Dodge's auto lineup.

Dodge’s Charger and Dart are featured in the television show debuting April 15 while the Dodge Challenger stars in the online video game which launched April 2 on PS3, Xbox and PCs. 

Two Dodge Chargers, with exterior modifications befitting a futuristic storyline, are the hero vehicles driven by main character Nolan (Grant Bowler), Defiance’s "law-keeper," and by the sixth episode, they become main characters in the story. "While 'Defiance' is set in the year 2046, the featured Dodge Charger stays true to its DNA,” said Tim Kuniskis, President and CEO Dodge Brand in a press release. “It has timeless performance and technological capabilities needed to survive in a futuristic world, while the Challenger video game integration allows enthusiasts to interact with the iconic muscle car in ways they might not have imagined possible."Continue reading...

Paying it forward and even Random Acts of Fusion are such five-minutes-ago concepts. Now Toyota, on behalf of its Prius Plug-in hybrid, has launched what it calls the Positive movement in the UK—the "movement brightening Britain with a car that runs on electricity, fuel and positivity," as a press release puts it.

Star of the "movement" is fashion blogger Caroline Burke, an expert in body art, fashion and beauty who's known as Burkatron. In a new film that Toyota has debuted as part of the campaign, Burkatron is seen outfitting random passers-by with fashion accessories and vintage finds in the Boxpark in East London.

"Caroline's blog is about sharing things, all to do with fashion," Mark Norcutt and Laurnce Quinn, Toyota creative directors at Saatchi & Saatchi, said in the release. "For her positive idea she used her contacts to donate clothes, then was able to go around and collect them all in the Prius"—all while, in another act of positivity, taking advantage of the car's zero emissions in the all-electric mode that has a range of up to 15.5 miles.Continue reading...

Pepsi took YouTube by storm last month according to Google’s YouTube Ads leaderboard. The brand is benefitting from its latest viral branded content hit "Test Drive", which has over 33 million views. 

The video, which is the brand's second attempt on a spoof video, garnered more plays than any of 2012's leaderboard ads, earning 13 million more views than 2012's top performer, Nike's "My Time Is Now."

Samsung made the chart twice in March with its Galaxy S4 launch, while newcomers EA Sports, Adidas, ConAgra, ESPN, Doritos and the Anti-Defamation League’s "Imagine a World Without Hate" video, (the first non-profit to be so feted) all made it as well.Continue reading...