In living rooms across the country, consumers are not watching just one screen, nor are they engaging with content in just one way as marketers and brands create increasingly innovative campaigns to keep consumers' eyes and ears on products.

Social media is now the acknowledged ‘elephant in the room’ as consumers increasingly engage in social activities while tuning into more traditional forms of content. According to Nielson's 2012 State of the Media report, nearly 41 percent of tablet owners and 38 percent of smartphone owners use the devices while watching television. 

While some broadcasts like the Oscars and ABC's The Bachelor benefit from such a social tie-in, most brands and advertisers are trying to figure out how to better leverage multiple media channels to build viewership and engagement without losing ground elsewhere. This season, The Bachelor incorporated live Twitter feeds into its broadcast. "I think it is fair to say that the integration of social media into live broadcasting is still in its infancy," Tim Bock, VP of production, alternative series and specials ABC told Mashable. "There are other entities utilizing these technologies on a show by show basis. But we at ABC are looking at the bigger picture of large scale implementation of audience interaction capabilities.”Continue reading...

When an ad for a cookie contains a "Do Not Attempt" disclaimer, you know you've got marketing gold. 

As the Super Bowl went dark for nearly half an hour, the Oreo employees tasked with handling the brand’s social media during the game went quickly to work and came out with a tweet that won the company major kudos. “Power out?” it asked. “No problem. You can dunk in the dark.”

Oreo has since been showing its social strength, launching a “Cookie vs. Crème” debate on Instagram that encourages consumers to post images that lets the world know which side they fall on. That battle also raged on its Twitter and Facebook pages and is now being followed up on the brand’s YouTube page with a series featuring four inventors who have created “high-tech, robotic-like machines that divides the two for maximum cookie enjoyment,” Mashable reports.

The first inventor to be featured is physicist David Neevel, who explains his position in a monotone while his Rube Goldberg-esque machine gets the separating done. The following three inventors will each be introduced to the world in the next two weeks. The hope is to not only create a hunger for the cookie but for the brand to add some YouTube followers as well. "We are continuously looking at YouTube as a means to share Oreo video content to keep our fans engaged and excited," Janda Lukin, Brand Director for Oreo at Mondelez, told Mashable.

The YouTube channel, which has about 9,500 followers, has got some catching up to do. Oreo’s Facebook page has 32 million likes and its Twitter page has more than 77,000 followers. Of course the YouTube numbers could follow what happened to Oreo’s Instagram followers, which went from 2,200 before the Super Bowl to 87,000 after the game ended. Touchdown! Continue reading...

Super Bowl XLVII may be unique in that one of the biggest potential branding opportunities has suddenly materialized less than two weeks before the Big Game. And the opportunity is called the Brothers Harbaugh.

It seems unlikely that even the biggest brands would be able to land a deal with Jim or John Harbaugh, or both, this close to the Super Bowl, given that each is now consumed with how to beat the other's team -- and that, for the winner at least, there should be plenty of endorsement opportunities after the game.

But some marketers may be able to figure out how to tie themselves tangentially at least, maybe even convincingly, to what already has become the most intriguing Super Bowl story line perhaps in decades: the mutual success and striving of two accomplished opposing coaches, less than two years apart in age, who happen to be siblings. They're also young for their profession, telegenic, well-spoken and smart.

So we await news on Brother International or some other less obvious brand figuring out how to tap into all of that. In the meantime, there are plenty of other brands gearing up for a Super Bowl lift ahead of Game Day, including Mercedes-Benz.Continue reading...

Hostess brands reportedly attract bids from Walmart and Kroger.

LinkedIn gains job-recruiting edge over Monster, reveals most-liked brands of 2012.

Nissan begins turning out Leaf batteries at new U.S. plant.

Apple dominates tablet-purchase intent, survey says, but loses patent case to licensing firm.

Build-A-Bear considers change at top.

Fox News leads cable segment while CNN dips.

GM revamps MyLink system.

Jaguar drops plan to build supercar.Continue reading...

When one thinks of Target, it's certainly fitting to imagine the retailer as an outlet for the teenage girls that form the bulk of The Hunger Games' most dedicated fan base. What may not be so fitting to the Target brand and clientele are the terms like "14-carat gold replicas" and "$999 each." Yet, this is what Target is dangling as one of the marquee features of its exclusive Hunger Games DVD release event.Continue reading...

Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock dropped by The Colbert Report to hype The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, opening next week. We'll have a review in a couple weeks as well as an interview with the director.

Nothing Spurlock said about advertising was as shocking as this billboard for AMC's zombie series The Walking Dead — on the side of a building housing a funeral parlor.

As for this weekend in product placement, we begin with Keanu Reeves in a hit — literally — by a Prius.Continue reading...