Continuing its full-on assault to gain share in the US retail market, Kraft Foods’ Gevalia coffee is counting on spokesman “Johan” to open the java-gates as the brand tries its best to convince consumers to pick up its coffee over Starbucks.

The brand has launched a new web series, "Cup of Knowledge," as another outlet to help the brand market the results of an independent taste test commissioned by the brand, which reportedly showed that 59.7 percent of coffee drinkers preferred the taste of Gevalia's House Blend over Starbucks Breakfast Blend. This isn't the first time the brands have battled on the taste test front.

Back in February, the U.S. National Advertising Division ordered Kraft Foods to discontinue its marketing claims that Gevalia tastes like Starbucks, with marketing copy like, "New! If you like Starbucks Breakfast Blend, try this!"Continue reading...

A generation of women crowed about Jennifer Aniston’s hair back in the days when she was on NBC’s Friends. Now Aniston is hoping her hair still looks good enough to inspire the buying habits of another generation. "I used to bring a picture of Valerie Bertinelli with me to my hairdresser to get that look,” Aniston told ModernSalon.com. “She had amazing hair, big, beautiful, very Farrah."

Now Aniston, the co-owner of Living Proof hair care products, is starring in a new show all about hair: a three-part web series, “The Good Hair Day,” about women’s stresses about their tresses. "We created this web series to show the very complex—and sometimes comical—relationship women have with their hair," Aniston stated, ModernSalon.com reports. "Having a good hair day shouldn't be so hard."Continue reading...

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...

Ahead of its April 19 release date, the HTC One is making its debut Friday in a series of branded entertainment videos for the "Facebook Phone," which features the fully-integrated Facebook Home app for a social experience like no other.

Seizing the growing value of branded entertainment, Turner Broadcasting and Funny Or Die have partnered with HTC on a short-form comedy sketch featuring James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek and Varsity Blues fame) to promote the HTC One across TBS, Adult Swim and truTV as well as Conan O'Brien's TeamCoco.com beginning the week of April 15.

A riff on The Bachelorette, Van Der Beek hosts a dating show featuring the HTC One and competing bachelor contestants—Smart Phone, Flip Phone, Rotary Phone and ‘90s Phone—all vying for a beautiful HTC One bachelorette.Continue reading...

After a little finagling and creativity, Playboy has managed to relaunch an impressive content-heavy app for the iPhone, all while playing nice with Apple's staunch no-nudity clause. 

The new Playboy for iPhone app positions the brand as digital bespoke of the Playboy lifestyle with articles on travel, clothes, food, cars and girls. "As the on-the-go extension of the Playboy brand, our new app brings the best of Playboy with original, thought-provoking and enticing bite-sized content that captures our design-driven and discernible style," said CEO Scott Flanders in a press release.

The rebuilt app is designed to feed new Gen Y fans the content they crave—and that's not just graphic photos of the lady of the month. The app is targeting younger men who’d "rather consume the content digitally on their device than on their couch in paper form," Altimeter Group’s mobile strategy analyst, Chris Silva told Freep.com. "The way people are consuming and buying their media has totally changed."Continue reading...

“Perrier is the sexiest sparkling water you'll ever taste,” according to the 150-year-old brand, which is trying to woo a younger audience with a sexy and sparkling online gaming experience, Perrier Secret Place. 

“Secret Place is an immersive experience with a surprise at every turn, something that will be highly engaging for our target audience. And at a party that goes on for hours, we like to think of Perrier as the drink that can refresh like no other," according to a press release.

It's being marketed as the most high-profile, crazy party experience ever, dispensing clues through the eyes of 60 different characters along with a sweepstakes to win an invitation to one of five mega-parties taking place at Carnival in Rio, Ibiza in Spain, St. Tropez in France, Art Basel in Miami or New Year’s Eve in Sydney, Australia.Continue reading...

Forget sticky marketing; Clorox is going with icky marketing in its latest effort to get moms to laugh.

As announced in a press release Wednesday, the brand is partnering with Carol Leifer, an award-winning comedian and comedy TV writer (Seinfeld, Modern Family), to launch the Clorox Ick-tionary, a wiki-style dictionary of everyday ick that parents and caregivers contend with on a daily basis.

As Leifer observes in a blog post, "Don't ask, don't smell... Because as I’ve learned from my comedy writing on sitcoms, real life always does seem to present the funniest ideas."Continue reading...

With four billion hours of viewership a month, YouTube’s leaderboard position in the evolving stream of video is more secure than ever, but the web video world has radically changed since YouTube first hit the scene in 2005, which is why the streaming giant is busy evolving its platform and creating new partnerships. 

YouTube today works hand in hand with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to make videos trends like the "Harlem Shake" (with various versions scoring tens of millions of views apiece in weeks) a viral phenomenon.Continue reading...