"Brotherhood," Budweiser's 2013 Super Bowl ad, was among those which stood out among rather routine fare.

Super Bowl ads (the complete list) this year provided few gems, according to an emerging consensus of industry professionals.

Many were deemed lame or even confusing, and generally considered ineffective and off-brand. Several brands seemed to suffer rather than benefit from the frenzy of sneak peeks and full-commercial reveals in this year's rush for pre-Game exposure and social buzz.

Kia names first non-Korean as president and integrates Google Maps.

Avis to acquires Zipcar brand for $500 million.

Nivea woos investors as CEO admits Rihanna was the wrong brand ambassador and brand returns to NYC's Times Square as New Year's Eve event sponsor.

Amazon apologizes for Christmas Eve outage.

American Girl's 2013 Girl of the Year doll addresses U.S. arts education cuts.

Apple sees its store in Paris robbed.

BBC Worldwide appoints chief brands officer.Continue reading...

Google’s Android mobile operating system is #1 on the top 20 brands favored by the LGBT community, according to the researchers at YouGov BrandIndex. Last year, Google's YouTube topped the annual LGBT ranking.

The 2012 LGBT buzz list includes four Apple-related and several other tech and social media brands, and looks quite different from last year’s ranking, with 12 new brands making the top 20: Android, iPad, Target, Samsung, Aleve, Kindle, Advil, PBS, LG, Starbucks, Comedy Central, and Skype. Disneyland and Disney World share fourth spot, reflect the parks' annual LGBT days and outreach to the gay community.

“Gay consumers number 15 million and counting, spending $743 billion annually” in the U.S., according to LGBT marketing agency Prime Access. Falling out of the top 20 this year: Google, Amazon, Whole Foods, Claritin, HBO, Lowe's, Cheerios, Food Network, M&Ms, Nike, Trader Joe's and Bose.Continue reading...

No brand wants to be caught on the wrong side of history, shifting consumer tastes or technological obsolescence. (See: Twinkies, BetaMax.)

So Mars, Inc. is bidding to get ahead of where the entire food industry seems to be going by vowing to stop selling chocolate products with more than 250 calories in them by the end of next year. It’s part of the company's ongoing corporate citizenship effort to improve the nutritional value of its products and to sell them in a responsible way.

Mars produces seven of the world’s 20 best-selling chocolate brands, including Snickers, Mars, Dove/Galaxy, M&M's, and non-chocolatey confections including Skittles and Juicy Fruit gum. Now, by deposing king-size chocolate bars, the 540-calorie king-size Snickers bar, for instance, will be a goner after next year. 

As Mars noted on its Facebook page, the calorie-cutting efforts are part of a bigger responsible marketing commitment the company made five years ago to promote nutrition — and stop buying ad time or space if more than one quarter of the audience was estimated to be under 12 years old.Continue reading...

It's not like using sex to sell is a new idea, but something about the popularity of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit issue keeps inviting brand innovation by the digital marketers at SI and Time Inc. 

For the 2012 edition, arriving in mailboxes, newsstands and tablets to eager readers this week, a couple of automakers are throwing some curves — in the form of promotions with their own bikini-clad models.

Lexus is running a campaign that matches the twists and turns in a depiction of a competitive driving course to the body curves of a swimsuit model. The objective: to spotlight the 2013 GS, the sporty sedan featured in the brand's Super Bowl ad and a key launch for Lexus's hopes of a sales comeback this year after last years's supply-chain woes. Previous swimsuit-issue model Tori Praver is the model in the Lexus campaign.Continue reading...

And the votes are in... This past Super Bowl was one heck of a showdown, and not just involving the teams. The highly anticipated and heavily judged commercials have been hotly debated all week. As rated by ad-trackers including Hulu, USA Today and Nielsen, the outcome of votes have made it clear which ads reign supreme. Check out the winners below.Continue reading...

Nielsen this week released its list of the top advertisements of the year.

“The lists demonstrate that reality and scripted shows continued to find innovative ways to integrate brands into their broadcast primetime programming. The best liked ads reflect the enduring value of traditional ad elements that have withstood the test of time – strong creative, simple and engaging messaging, and a solid emotional connection,” says Nielsen in a blog post.

The commercials must have aired in U.S. primetime on a broadcast channel any time from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, 2011. The Likeability Score is the percentage of TV viewers who report to like “a lot” an ad they were exposed to during the normal course of viewing TV, with these scores indexed against the mean score for all new ads during the period (Likeability Index). (100) equals average.

The #1 best-liked ad is Volkswagen's Star Wars nod of a Super Bowl ad ("The Force," or as many called it, "Little Darth Vader") for its new Passat, at top, which scored 231 on Nielsen's Likeability Index. Read about the rest of the top 10 below.Continue reading...

AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo forge advertising partnership.

Activision and Electronic Arts let bullets fly in video-game holiday-sales war.

Anheuser-Busch gets label approval for higher-alcohol version of Bud Light.

Barnes & Noble has sought U.S. antitrust probe of Microsoft over e-readers.

Facebook sees recommendations on advertisers' use of "like" by Better Business Bureau.

General Motors reports strong but lower profits.

HSBC raises U.S. bad-loan provisions.

Landry's acquires McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants. Continue reading...