Leonardo DiCaprio will take to the silver screen as Jay Gatsby on May 10 when the latest adaptation of the famed F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, The Great Gatsby, makes its debut in movie theaters in the US, but there are more than a few brands looking to ride the publicity for some consumer love of their own.

Hotels.com is aiming to help one couple “live like Gatsby” for a weekend (though one hopes it doesn’t include the man’s incredible loneliness, insensitivity to others, painful death, or nearly empty funeral as part of the proceedings). Wannabe Gatsby-ites can tweet @Hotelsdotcom between May 6 and May 9 about their favorite luxuries while traveling and include the hashtag #GreatGiveaway. The grand prize: a two-night stay at Boston’s Langham Hotel, which was originally built in 1922 as the Federal Reserve Bank.

For those who don’t win, Hotels.com is showcasing getaways on its site that would be fit for a luxurious Gatsby-like vacation, such as the art deco murals of The Inn at Great Neck on Long Island to the live jazz and themed cocktails of South Carolina’s The Willcox, among other swanky locales.Continue reading...

Marvel Entertainment may have brought a lot of joy to a lot of folks over the years with the creation of such characters as Spider-Man, Captain America and the Hulk, among tons of others, but one group isn’t exactly feeling the love these days: American musicians.

The unhappiness stems from the fact that Marvel, which is owned by Disney, has been using European musicians that come cheaper than their American counterparts to score its many successful films in recent years, the Los Angeles Times reports. 

The American Federation of Musicians is drawing attention to their discontent with protests at Marvel Entertainment’s L.A. locations as well as nearby stops where the newest installment of Captain America is currently being shot and outside the El Capitan Theatre, which will host the world premiere of Iron Man 3 Wednesday.Continue reading...

"I cried three times through the entire movie and when Allison finally 'sees' Frank in the mirror, I completely lost it!… I want to go to Seattle, and then to New York!"

That reaction of a Weibo user to seeing the new blockbuster Chinese rom-com Finding Mr. Right is not uncommon. It's the kind of reaction that led Chinese tourism site tuniu.com to find in a recent survey that inquiries about Seattle by Chinese tourists jumped 120 percent in the last week of March, when the film debuted.

Seattle isn't letting the opportunity go to waste either, with its China-side marketing team leveraging the film's huge popularity to drive interest from a group that has become the world's most lucrative tourism demographic. A demographic that is increasingly taking its cues from popular movies, but only those that can emotionally connect.Continue reading...

BlackBerry's new global creative director for the revamped company is featured in the first video for her part of the "Keep Moving Projects" cultural influencer project. The Grammy Award-winning musician is asking fans to use the video-editing feature on the new BlackBerry Z10 to contribute to local crowdsourced videos showcasing her current global tour.

Watch BlackBerry's video pitch to Keys fans, along with the first two episodes of author Neil Gaiman's BlackBerry project, below:Continue reading...

Nominated for several Academy Awards, Silver Linings Playbook has been critically acclaimed for its directing, story and performances. But what about its product placement?

The feel-good love story features some product placement as complex as its themes. For starters, there is the question of whether or not pharmaceutical companies like AstraZeneca had anything to do with drug mentions. (They did not.) There are Raisin Bran, Budweiser, and Apple products. ("Gimme' an iPod. Who doesn't have an iPod?")

And then comes the conspicuous jar of Hellmann's mayonnaise. Continue reading...

To most of the world, Brooklyn is a place that once was home to Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers. For all time, it’s been mostly envisioned culturally as a working-class, ethnic-rich borough filled with (depending on the era) plenty of kids playing stickball, unbelievable street basketball, Mafioso, or young toughs. Like Saturday Night Fever’s Tony Manero, everybody in Brooklyn is supposedly looking to get across the Bridge into a supposedly bigger, better, brighter life.

Throughout time, though, there are plenty that have been perfectly happy staying in Brooklyn. You can tell from some of the street signs welcoming motorists there: “Believe the Hype!” “Welcome to Brooklyn – Home to Everyone From Everywhere!” “Name It…We Got It!” Not to mention the ones that some motorists see as they leave the borough: “Oy Vey!” or “Fuhgeddaboudit.”

These are likely the work of work of Borough President/Head Cheerleader Marty Markowitz, but there is another man who is also working to help showcase the borough’s brand: filmmaker Dustin Cohen, who is paying tribute to Brooklyn's artisans and heritage through a series of short films.Continue reading...

Yahoo! is trying to define its brand, with newly appointed CEO, former PayPal president Scott Thompson, and a visible position one of the official sponsors of the Short Film Program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, aspiring to be the go-to online hub for this event and positioned as a media company.

Even if you're not lucky enough to be in Park City, Utah, this week, the general public will have free streaming access to nine short independent films via a co-branded microsite, sundance.yahoo.com, providing the first ever opportunity for non-attendees to vote for their favorite, as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes access including news updates and coverage of celebrities in attendance.Continue reading...

The annual indie-film extravaganza known as the Sundance Film Festival got underway Thursday night in Park City, Utah, and the New York Times noticed something there that had been missing at recent fests: many corporate sponsors.

Eight brands are officially sponsoring this year's festival, which launched as an offshoot of Robert Redford's Sundance Institute in 1978: Adobe, GE, Sprint, Yahoo!, Bertolli, Grey Goose, Time Warner, and Hilton. Last year, the festival had two — Honda and Trident — and neither of them are back.Continue reading...