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...

The annual San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) kicks off today, and as ever, it's a massive promotional platform for brands.

Founded as the "Golden State Comic Book Convention" in 1970 by a group of San Diegan comic book fans, the annual fanfest has evolved to include video games, toys and other forms of genre entertainment. That's why Hollywood beats a path south to the show every year — to generate buzz among the estimated 250,000 comic book, sci-fi, fantasy, anime, and video game fans hitting town for the four day pop-culture fix.

One of the biggest movies being touted this year: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, which marks the cast's last appearance as Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner hyping the Nov. 16th final bow with a 1pm ET (above) panel. Also red-hot: Iron Man 3, with Robert Downey Jr. and co-stars on hand to promote the movie scheduled for May 3rd of next year.Continue reading...

Coming soon, but not to TV or a cinema near you: YouTube-exclusive series “H+ The Digital Series,” premiering Aug. 8th with new episodes on subsequent Wednesdays, which takes viewers on a futuristic journey where technology has gone horrifically awry and the human race is hardwired to the Internet.

The plot: in a not-too-distant future, the world's population has retired its cell phones and laptops in favor of stunning new device by Hplus Nano Teoranta, an innovative technology company that has found a way to connect the Internet to the human mind 24 hours a day. A morality tale about the limits and ethics of technology, when a virus is released, a third of the world’s population die instantly and the series delves into the political and human mayhem that ensues.Continue reading...