Mention espionage and product placement and one name comes to mind: Zero Dark Thirty. Sure, Skyfall's James Bond used a Sony Experia and, in the other 2012 CIA thriller to feature waterboarding, Safe House, the agency man used an iPhone. Yet, in last year's true life tale spygame, the heroes killed Osama Bin Laden with the help of BlackBerry.

It's a placement the brand was involved with. But unlike other product placements—even some inside Zero Dark Thirty—BlackBerry faces a paradox when it comes to capitalizing on its role in Hollywood's definitive account of killing America's most hated enemy.

While there are many obvious details that Zero Dark Thirty suspiciously avoided, such as substituting the fictional Pakistan station chief "Joseph Bradley" for the real life Jonathan Banks, the production is also credited with paying obsessive attention to the smaller details. A precise replica of the bin Laden compound was built for Zero Dark's SEALs to storm. The film's SEALs wore four-prong GPNVG-18s, cutting-edge night-vision goggles favored by current "operators." And then there were the BlackBerry phones.Continue reading...

Nasir al Wuhayshi was the personal secretary of the now-deceased Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden. Now, al Wuhayshi is the leader of Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is based in Yemen.

Like his old boss contemplated before he was killed by Navy SEALs in early May, though, al Wuhayshi is thinking that his organization could use a rebrand, an Arab diplomat tells Fox News. After all, al Qaeda has too much “baggage” attached to it.

The diplomat tells Fox that AQAP “is trying to attract more foreign fighters to its cause” and “is increasingly going by the name ‘Ansar al Sharia,’ which means Army of Islamic Law.”

When bin Laden died, it was discovered in his papers that he had thought about rebranding the entire organization to the catchy "Taifat al-Tawhed Wal-Jihad," which means Monotheism and Jihad Group, or the even snappier "Jama’at I’Adat al-Khilafat al-Rashida," which means Restoration of the Caliphate Group, as possible new names. Now his former underling is following through with the concept.Continue reading...

One of China's most popular massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Fantasy Westward Journey (梦幻西游 Mèng Huàn Xī Yóu) has a unique new ad out suggesting… a whole new Bin Laden conspiracy.Continue reading...

One of the odder items that floated past our transom in recent days goes back to how the original name of Al Qaida (aka Al Qaeda, or "the world's most famous terrorism organization") was al-Qaida al-Jihad, which means The Base of Holy War.

The West’s lopping off of the last part of the name apparently really irked the now-deceased Osama bin Laden so much that he considered renaming the organization, the Associated Press reports.

Among the papers taken from bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan were some letters that suggested bin Laden was annoyed that al-Qaida was losing the battle for everyday Arabs.

The problem with the name al-Qaida, as bin Laden (no marketing genius, as you'll see below) expounded, is that it is missing any reference to religion or, as Forbes blogger Marc Babej puts it, “something to convince Muslims worldwide that they are in a holy war with America.”Continue reading...

On May 26, The L.A. Times quoted a Disney spokesman reasoning that "Out of deference to the Navy's application for these trademarks, we have withdrawn ours." It was the end of the weeks-long outrage over Disney's move to trademark "Seal Team 6" just two days after that unit was reported to have killed Osama Bin Laden. In those weeks, the Navy itself had moved to trademark "Navy Seals."

One positive outcome of Disney's bold move was that it appears to have lit a flame under the butt of the Department of the Navy. On May 25th, the day before Disney's withdrawal, the Navy made its latest application to trademark both "Marine Ops: The Crucible" and "Marine Ops."Continue reading...

The Navy Seals' next mission? Trademark themselves before Disney does.

Last week we reported that NovaLogic, Inc. had attempted to trademark "Seal Team 6" in both 2002 and 2004, years before Disney applied for the same trademark just days after the announcement identifying that specific team as the one that killed Osama bin Laden. Both of NovaLogic's applications were dormant at the time of Disney's application.

They weren't the only ones sensing a branding opportunity. On May 13, ten days after Disney's post-bin Laden application, the U.S. Department of the Navy filed two trademark applications.Continue reading...

Apple reportedly cuts licensing deal with EMI and moves closer to cloud-based music service, as iPad sales impact HP and Dell.

AT&T presses case for T-Mobile merger.

CBS brings Ashton Kutcher and his Two and a Half Men co-stars at advertisers' fall upfront.

Citigroup awards CEO Vikram Pandit with big retention package.

Coca-Cola launches 2012 Olympics promotion a year early.

Delta cuts capacity to Europe with Air France as airline’s executives recount complex merger with Northwest.

Disney reportedly seeks to develop TV series about SEALS team that killed Osama bin Laden.

Facebook gets new scrutiny over kids in social ads.

Gap CEO undertakes urgent revamp of the brand.Continue reading...

Just two days after a team of Navy Seals shot Osama bin Laden in the face, another of the world's most feared special ops teams, Disney's lawyers, sprang into action. On May 3, two days after the Al Qaeda leader's death was announced by President Obama, Disney applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office for ownership of the mark "Seal Team 6."

Online commenters, uncharacteristically, were outraged. One wrote "How low can Disney Corp go? I think the answer is very very exceptionally very low."

The application included designation for Christmas products, which has led to some interesting speculation. As the Seal Team's "bulletproof dog" begins to get more and more attention, it's not hard to imagine Disney developing that avenue.

But what hasn't been mentioned is that somebody beat Disney to trademarking "Seal Team 6." Twice.Continue reading...