Film: Ice Age: Continental Drift (20th Century Fox)
Total Products Spotted: 0
Standout Placement: N/A
Most Memorable Placement (positive): N/A
Most Memorable Placement (negative): N/A
Overall Product Placement Integration Grade (1-10): N/A
Comments: It's a real challenge to justify brand-based references and jokes in a film that's mean to take place tens of thousands of years ago. It's even harder to legitimately place a product on the screen. That's why product placement in animated features set in Ye Olde Pre-Marketing Times is scarce and left to contemporary kid pics like Madagascar 3 while, like ancient Scotland-set Brave, the Ice Age franchise — the new #1 movie at the box office following the weekend opening of Ice Age: Continental Drift — is left to drift product placement-less. Offscreen, however, the film put together a wooly mammoth's worth of tie-ins and marketing muscle, well beyond augmented reality and a Dark Knight Rises spoof. Continue reading...

In bygone days, kids gathered around in small groups to trade baseball cards of much-beloved star players. But today's kids are playing baseball video games on smartphones -- a fact of digital life that hasn't escaped Topps, the top manufacturer of baseball cards. To mark the beginning of baseball's 2012 season, Topps is venturing into the digital world in hopes of reinventing its legacy brand.

While the company began making bubble gum in 1938, Topps' claim to fame was the introduction of baseball cards in 1952. These wondrous little pieces of cardboard carried color photos of players on the front and thumbnail bios on the back. Packs of cards, which included a stick of bubble gum until 1992, became cherished possessions. Eventually, as baseball fans grew up, they recognized the value of the cards, particularly rare ones, as collectibles. Now "trophy cards," some with original autographs, have become hot items with adult collectors.

But what about those kids of today? In an effort to entice Gen Z, Topps has brought two baseball apps to the iPhone/iPad market, Topps Pennant ($2.99) and Topps Bunt (free). Android versions are also planned. Continue reading...

AOL sells patents to Microsoft.

AT&T spends big to support launch of Numia smartphone by Nokia as it staves off a walkout by its workers.

Augusta National leaves unsettled the question of membership of IBM CEO Virginia Rometty; Bubba Watson wins its Masters tournament in dramatic fashion.

Avon names new CEO from Johnson & Johnson.

CDC says anti-smoking ads prompt lots more "quit attempts."

Cotton launches new look.

Google plots web-domain buying spree.

Great Wolf Resorts sees sweetened offer to buy company.

Kia keeps brand humming in non-launch year. Continue reading...

Universal opens its new Harry Potter attraction in Orlando today.

Airbus A380, the world's biggest aircraft, is a hot ticket for Air France, Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Qantas and other airlines.

BP CEO Tony Hayward's performance on the hot seat yesterday drew mixed reviews at home in the U.K. as Moody's cuts its rating again.

Marlboro's color-coded cigarette packs investigated by FDA.Continue reading...