It’s been more than 1,500 years since Saint Patrick was laid to rest and could no longer use the shamrock to explain to Christians the idea of the Holy Trinity. Thanks to St. Patrick's Day every March 17th, his legacy inspires millions the world over to consume massive amounts of alcohol and shout “Top of the morning to ya!” to anyone who passes. With such a jovial reputation, you can bet that brands, alcoholic or not, take advantage of the built-in marketing ploy—and not just those participating in Pantone's color of the year for 2013.Continue reading...

It's the dance trend that will not die. Watch Lululemon's Harlem Shake (yoga-style) version above, and below, Pepsi's two Harlem Shake videos and other brands shaking their thang worldwide, from Australia to Israel:Continue reading...

Super Bowl XLVII is getting closer, so more heavyweight brands are making the required heavyweight commitment to advertise during the Big Game on CBS on February 3.

The network said today that all of the available spots are sold out at around $4 million per 30 seconds, with the latest returning brands including Chrysler from last year and Taco Bell from three years ago.

Budweiser plans to debut Budweiser Black Crown, an amber lager with higher alcohol content, with a 30-second spot during the game. Anheuser-Busch InBev introduced Bud Light Platinum during last year's game, while Black Crown was developed via last year's Project 12 regional brewmaster challenge.

Taco Bell had a very good year with a snap-back in sales on the strength of new produccts such as Doritos Locos Tacos, and so the Yum!-owned brand has confirmed it's suiting up for the Super Bowl for the first time since 2010. The chain's 60-second spot will "support the brand’s 'LIVE MÁS' tagline and spirit."

Doritos, meanwhile, tapped actress Ali Landry, who rose to fame during her 2008 Super Bowl commercial debut with the brand, to announce the five finalists for its fan-voted "Crash the Super Bowl" creative commercial challenge.Continue reading...

It's been 20 years since Evelyn Lauder created the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign, and brands continue to support the work in a variety of initiatives. Indeed, this year's Delta pink plane is adding Lauder's signature, as seen above, to honor the woman and her brands' contributions to fighting breast cancer.

2012 also marks Ford Motor Company's 18th year of involvement having dedicated more than $115 million to the cause so far, and this year’s Ford Warriors in Pink campaign offers a limited-edition T-shirt inspired by film and television actor James Denton. For every shirt sold, 100% of net proceeds go to the Pink Fund, an organization that provides short-term financial aid to people during treatment. "The last thing someone with breast cancer needs to worry about is how they are going to pay their bills," says Denton.

Go Daddy is ‘driving’ awareness with Danica Patrick donning pink gear for the GoDaddy.com No. 7 Chevrolet in Friday’s NASCAR Nationwide race in Charlotte. “It’s time to kick breast cancer’s butt,” Patrick commented. “So many women and their families have been impacted by breast cancer … if we all work together, we can definitely help find a cure sooner, rather than later.”Continue reading...

"The new campaign is not conservative, it's a wink to the past as we move to talking more about what we do on the INSIDE of Go Daddy." That's the pitch from GoDaddy.com — never a brand to shy away from suggestive marketing. Below, check out the trio of commercials that will be running during NBC's wall-to-wall coverage of the London 2012 Olympics, starting with a "Leave It to Otter"-esque spot:Continue reading...

The mad dash for ICANN-approved generic top-level domain names (also known as gTLDs) is on.

The most popular generic suffixes, .art, .radio, .music, .shop, .food, .bank, and .web are being most aggressively pursued. Google is spending an estimated $10 million to apply for 50 domain name suffixes including .Google, .YouTube, .Docs and .LOL. (Is Google looking to buy a sense of humor?) It's actually one of the biggest brands to jump in, while more than 40 major companies, including Coca-Cola and GE continue to oppose the top-level domain program.

Go Daddy has applied for only two top level domains, .home and .casa. CEO Warren Adelman said the names “were chosen in part because they have multiple meanings with big market opportunities: they can be used in both a real estate context and personal context.” (Of course, the relationship between "Daddy" and "home" in English and Spanish is another lure.) “Dot.com has been getting the lion’s share of branding since the dawn of the internet,” added Adelman. “Any kind of new branding is heavy lifting.”

According to a blog post by Vint Cerf, Google's chief internet evangelist,

We’re just beginning to explore this potential source of innovation on the web, and we are curious to see how these proposed new TLDs will fare in the existing TLD environment. By opening up more choices for Internet domain names, we hope people will find options for more diverse—and perhaps shorter—signposts in cyberspace.Continue reading...

The TV ratings for Super Bowl XLVI enjoyed a bump from last year's game, making it the most-watched telecast ever. Depite a riveting game, most pundits believe the advertising wasn't particularly riveting on Sunday, despite such hits as the Doritos' "Sling Baby" Crash the Super Bowl fan fave. 

Did brand marketers do themselves a disservice by giving away much (if not all) of their TV commercials before the game? This question surely will be examined closely in the days and weeks to come as marketers deliberate on the real value of spending $3.5 million or more for those 30 second ad units during the Big Game. Still, it's also possible that marketers won't care about the size of the ratings increase for the game because they got so much promotional mileage from the attention to their ads beforehand, on mobile, Twitter (witness the profusion of hashtags in commercials) and Facebook during, and ongoing debate and discussion this week.

There are other questions that not only brand marketers but the TV networks and the NFL will be grappling with long before Super Bowl XLVII:Continue reading...

The Big Game doesn't kick off until Sunday, but brand marketers' "reveals" of their Super Bowl campaigns are intensifying this week.

Whether they're "teasing" their actual Super Bowl spots such as Century 21, or letting everything hang out there like Hyundai (which today released all five of its Game Day commercials, and a barrage of video extras) and Honda and others, there's a torrent of Game Day spots like never before.

Will there be anything actually new to watch once the Big Game comes on? Remember when the idea was to save the reveal for during the game and be the talk of the office water cooler on Monday morning?

Here's a look at some of the latest revelations:Continue reading...