In addition to posting photos on her Tumblr, Beyonce's final pre-Game YouTube sneak peek before her highly anticipated, Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl Halftime Show, highlights what New Orleans means to her personally and what today's performance means to her legacy. Check out her new video below and tell us: will Beyonce's halftime performance beat Madonna's halftime show last year?Continue reading...

It's a classic football play: the end around, where the offense skirts the brunt of the defense in search of easy yardage on the perimeter. It's the same kind of approach being used for the Big Game by an increasing number of Super Bowl advertisers.

Well, they're not exactly "Super Bowl" advertisers. These brands avoid having to confront the $4-million pricetag of a full-run, 30-second Super Bowl ad on CBS by assembling regional and even national blocs of time on local TV stations. Because viewership on pretty much every CBS affiliate in America will be at an annual high on Sunday evening, just as on the network as a whole, these brands can be assured of getting great bang for their buck.

Old Spice is launching arguably the strangest end-run for Sunday. The P&G brand could well afford to take out a national ad during the game to promote its new Wild Collection campaign. But instead, Old Spice is running the ad above only on the CBS affiliate in Juneau, Alaska, promoting the brand's new premium line of guy scents including Wolfthorn. Alaska, you see, has America's biggest wolf population.Continue reading...

The Old Spice Man is no longer on a horse, but he's got a few other creatures at his back.

The latest W+K effort by director Tom Kuntz for the P&G-owned brand promises unbridled (yet elegant) animal magnetism with The Wild Collection, a trio of manly new scents: Wolfthorn, Hawkridge and Foxcrest. The tagline, naturally, is "Answer the smell of the wild."

Watch the first two spots, featuring tuxedo-clad gents and their wolf and hawk companions, along with their social messaging, below. Update: According to Ad Age, the Wolfthorn spot will run during the Super Bowl — but only in Alaska, home to America's biggest wolf population.Continue reading...

Western retailers have been completely bombarding China with products and sales pitches in recent years. Having more than 1.3 billion consumers living within its borders can make a country’s citizens targets of such things. 

Starbucks is about to go overdrive in its efforts to get the Chinese populace as dependent on their brand as plenty of Americans are, but the sell may not be so coffee-driven, but leverage the brand's tea drinks and food menu. The chain currently has 700 stores in China but that number will more than double in size to 1,500 in the next three years, according to the Wall Street Journal. That growth will also mean the chain’s employees in China will go from 12,000 today to 30,000 in three years. It also offers regional websites for Eastern China and Northern China.

Coffee sales went up 20% in 2011 over the previous year and brought in $995 million, WSJ notes, but China is still a tea-drinking nation. So Starbucks established a research-and-development unit in the country in order to figure out what it could do to attract a larger audience than those looking for a cup of joe. As a result, Starbucks China is not only celebrating Western customs such as Christmas, but serving up localized beverage and food items including a red bean frappaccino, green tea tiramisu, a Hainan chicken and rice wrap, a shredded ginger pork panini, and a Thai-style prawn wrap. And the Starbucks kiosks that work so well in the States don’t have the same effect in the Chinese market where consumers desire more space.Continue reading...

In socially conservative India, consumers can’t actually buy a copy of Playboy magazine even if all they want to do is read the articles. The mag known for its pics of naked women is banned from being sold in the second most populated country in the world, but that doesn’t mean the Playboy brand isn’t strong there. 

It is so strong, in fact, that a Playboy club is set to open in mid-December there, accoding to the Times of India — but don’t get too excited, fellas. The club won’t have any nudity.

“There will be nothing contrary to Indian sensibilities,” said Sanjay Gupta, chief executive officer of Mumbai-based PB Lifestyle Ltd, which has licensed the Playboy name in India and plans to open eight clubs there, the Wall Street Journal reports. “We are in the process of launching a sustained PR campaign starting this month to dissociate Playboy with adult content and nudity.” 

"Bunnies are an integral part of Playboy culture," said Gupta to AP. "We will have bunnies but keeping in mind Indian sensibilities, we are toning down the costume. We are working very closely with Playboy to design a bunny outfit for India." Details of the Indian bunny costume, he added, are "confidential."Continue reading...

Almost a year ago, former Google executive Marissa Mayer struck a deal to purchase the user review-based Zagat brand.

Today, Google confirmed it's expanding its travel content library by acquiring the Frommer's brand of travel guidebooks and related assets from US publisher John Wiley & Sons, while Mayer, of course, has struck a different big deal for herself.

The Frommer's deal will beef up the Google+ Local platform, which now incorporates Zagat restaurant reviews, with Frommers-curated lists such as "Best National Parks of the Pacific Northwest" and other travel resources.

Why buy rather than partner? Zagat, for starters, can't do it all alone — while Google has big plans in the travel space.Continue reading...

Many small businesses steer clear of anything controversial or political so as not to offend any potential customers. After all, the customer is always right, even if they are saying exactly the opposite thing from what the last customer said.

Brooklyn Industries, a 14-store outfit that's based in (where else?) Brooklyn, NY, and sells hipster-licious clothing, bags, and small household goods, is not afraid. Its store windows are provoking conversations about subjects that not everybody wants to talk about, necessarily, when all they want is to grab a t-shirt.

The retailer explained the thinking behind its thought-provoking window displays: "Inspired by Spike Lee's film Jungle Fever, we wanted to take a closer look at race in Brooklyn. We asked local residents about their lives and experiences growing up here."Continue reading...

In its latest social spending salvo, American Express has launched a mobile offer engine, a “spend graph”  for U.S. cardmembers that recommends and ranks local merchant offers real-time based on spending history and location.

“We developed our mobile offer engine with three key points of differentiation in mind: relevance, convenience and value,” stated Josh Silverman, president of the U.S. Consumer Services Group at American Express. 

Piloted via the "My Offers" feature on the American Express iPhone app, local offer recommendations will be concentrated in Los Angeles and New York City with an overlay of nationwide merchants such as Baskin-Robbins and Dunkin' Donuts.  

“My Offers” leverages the Smart Offer technology that powers the company's card sync programs with Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare connecting merchants and Cardmembers.

"In an increasingly crowded marketplace, where consumers are bombarded with daily deals, we saw an opportunity to help our Cardmembers save time as well as money by curating meaningful offers for them," added Silverman.

Users can download or update the iPhone app to see "Offers Available for You," along with a dashboard that shows offers added to their card, expiration dates, and savings delivered via a statement credit within three to five days. The brand has also enhanced its Go Social entry tool for SMB’s.Continue reading...