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...

Film: The Avengers
Brands/Products Spotted: 18
Standout Placement: Acura's NSX concept car
Most Memorable Placement (positive): Acura
Most Memorable Placement (negative): Oracle
Overall Product Placement Integration Grade (1-10): 6
Comments: Acura is the big winner in Hollywood's new record-smashing #1 movie, produced by Marvel Studios with Paramount Pictures. In one scene, the heroic team runs off camera and the audience is left, for a moment, with the camera lingering, close up, on the backside of an Acura SUV (a militarized MDX). The big question is, will Iron Man 3 go back to his Audi A8? (Or maybe something more.... Chinese?)Continue reading...

Want to get your brand some notice? Start a gender war. That'll get you noticed.

That seems to be the tactic Dr Pepper Snapple Group is taking with its latest product, Dr Pepper Ten. The idea behind the drink, revealed earlier this year, is that men don’t generally like to be seen drinking “diet” sodas so this sugared drink will go over the top to showcase just how manly it is in order to show men that even though it has only 10 calories, that doesn’t mean they have become girly men.

The company has gone so far as to create a Facebook app (dubbed Ten Man'ments) for the soda that invites "men only" to check out content such as a shooting-gallery game in which players aim at lipstick and high heels. It Facebook tab is being promoted with the tagline, "Gendergated, just for guys." You can imagine how that's gone down.Continue reading...

For readers of comic books, 2011 may go down as the year that big business figured out that it might be worth sticking its massive hand into an industry that’s been more aligned with outsiders than the mainstream.

Earlier this year we saw the introduction of big-brand product placement in comics when Nike’s logo appeared on a Marvel character’s T-shirt. Now Marvel has taken another step and struck a licensing deal with the University of Southern California to have its characters appear on gear alongside the university’s mascot and logo.Continue reading...

Ever wonder who brings together Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Widow, the Incredible Hulk, and all the rest together to form the Avengers?  (And don’t say it was the writers at Disney-owned Marvel Comics.)

It was, of course, S.H.I.E.L.D., a secret government organization. And now fans can join.

Marvel will be using S.H.I.E.L.D. at the massive annual Comic-Con comic book convention in San Diego to drum up interest in the film Captain America: The First Avenger, which debuts right smack in the middle of Comic-Con (taking place July 20-24th) as well as The Avengers, which doesn’t come out till 2012.Continue reading...

Not only does X-Men: First Class — the new #1 film in America, taking in an estimated $56 million over the weekend to topple The Hangover's sequel — rewind the Marvel superhero movie franchise's plot back to the 1960s, but it appears to have taken the marketing strategy from that era as well.

No overt product placement. No high-profile marketing tie-ins. No Happy Meals. No Professor X-branded Big Gulps.

It's like the film is some kind of Hollywood mutant.Continue reading...

Before we get into this week's brand cameos on the big screen, we thought we'd share this adorable high concept short, in which "George Lucas" is kidnapped after 1980's Empire Strikes Back and an imposter (a Lucalike?) intent on destroying his legacy takes his place.Continue reading...

The joke in the Farmers Insurance commercial above: the X-Man Beast is an "X-Change" student at the Farmers Insurance university. Get it?

The spot, which has attracted a lot of attention, much of it confused, is surprising for an X-Men: First Class tie-in — not only for its subject (insurance?), but also because it is an ad mutant, a rare anomaly. It didn't have to be this way.Continue reading...