There’s one in Denmark, and there’s one in England. And now there will be one in Carlsbad, California: a Legoland Hotel. Don’t worry, the place won’t be built out of Legos – at least not the whole thing.

The hotel – complete with a dragon-guarded entrance -- is slated to open in early April of next year right outside the Legoland theme park and will feature “interactive Lego features, themed play areas, family pool and kid's entertainment,” according to Lego's website. The 250 rooms at California's Legoland Hotel will all have a theme: Pirate, Kingdom, or Adventure.  

Since the hotel is aimed at housing families who are in town to visit the Legoland theme park (and not to those harboring pirate fantasies of one sort or another), each room has two sleeping areas, one with a queen-sized bed and the other with sleeping spaces for up to three kids. After all, it's hard to beat a brand extension you can sleep in.

No wonder Lego is rolling in dough right now.Continue reading...

Oprah Winfrey devoted two hours last Sunday night on her OWN cable network to Favorite Things, with the items given to ‘deserving military spouses.’ The franchise, an annual brandstravaganza on her former daytime talkshow, this year reverted to the talk show host's personal picks, with one in particular causing a kerfuffle. 

"The Surface, Microsoft's first tablet, feels like a Mercedes-Benz to me, people!" Oprah wrote on her website. "The full-size keyboard built right into the cover makes work easy, the very smart kickstand makes watching a movie or Skyping a friend a delight, the less than a pound-and-a-half weight makes a great alternative to a laptop, and the many other features make it fun for work and play. Now, that's a wowser!"

Unfortunately, it was a follow-up tweet professing her love for the Surface tablet to her 14.8 million followers on Twitter that got her in trouble, as she wrote "Gotta say love that SURFACE! Have bought 12 already for Christmas gifts. #FavoriteThings" from an iPad.

We can only hope that Gandalf won't tout his love for the new Windows Phone from an iPhone. Microsoft is partnering with Warner Bros, the studio behind the highly-anticipated The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the first installment of a trilogy to be released (in the UK) on December 13, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman as Gandalf and Bilbo respectively.Continue reading...

Denny's has partnered with the upcoming The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey for a Hobbit-themed line of menu items. Insert your "second breakfast" joke of choice here.

The partnership has been the source of some jokes. But Denny's has approached the tie-in with some unique, even brave strategies. One of which could easily have blown up in its face.Continue reading...

Air New Zealand has always had a good sense of humor and a willingness to try new things. A few years ago, the airline ran an ad featuring naked employees with uniforms painted onto their bodies. Then the airline introduced a sleazy mascot named Rico that it thankfully killed off (but not without grabbing some attention with the death, of course).

The airline with the social media fairy just announced at the San Diego Comic-Con that it has signed a two-film co-branding deal with New Line Cinema and MGM for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit, which will have it using Hobbit-branded aircraft, according to Marketing Magazine.

New Zealand, of course, is where the majority of principal photography was done for the film. Fans of Peter Jackson's earlier Lord of the Rings trilogy, which also struck a marketing partnership with Air New Zealand, often fly the airline to get over to New Zealand to see where some of their favorite scenes were put on film.Continue reading...

What will be the big win at the 2013 Oscars? If the viral success of the video above is any indication, expect a clean sweep by Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit Part 1.

Trending on YouTube and Facebook, this 10-minute behind-the-scenes video takes fans on the New Zealand set of Jackson's highly anticipated new movie with the director himself.

After he posted this video on his Facebook page, which has more than 219,000 likes, the video has received almost 5,000 comments. Cue the fan frenzy!Continue reading...