The Zap, Pows, and Kabooms often seen in comic books are about to be drowned out by a distinctly feminine roar. Marvel Comics has just announced that 2010 will be the year of women and will debut a series of “girl comics” which will be written and illustrated entirely by women.

It’s a subtle rebranding effort to help Marvel shake off their boy’s club image. Marvel has been accused of being sexist in the past, particularly in regard to their sexy Marvel Diva publication (video above), and the brand is eager to make itself appear more female friendly.Continue reading...

Given the abundance of brands in Lady Gaga’s videos, it would appear that certain companies have special access to the fame monster. Lady Gaga has always had a bit of a flirtation going with advertisers -- in the past Companies like Campari and Bwin.com have been prominently featured in her videos. However, her latest Bad Romance video indicates that the pop star's dalliances with brands has turned into a full-blown love affair.Continue reading...

Chris Brown’s antics in the past year have not been good to his brand -- at least, not if the brand he is trying to create is one that resonates a calm, cool, and collected inner soul.

Tabloids are speculating once again that he may have anger management issues. However, this time, the target of his ire was megabrand Wal-Mart, who failed to stock Brown's new album, Graffiti, in one of its stores. Brown lashed out via Twitter:

"I'm tired of this s***. Major stores are blackballing my CD. What the f*** do i gotta do... "WTF... yeah i said it and i ain't retracting s***…I'm not biting my tongue about s*** else... the industry can kiss my ass."Continue reading...

The American Family Association appears to be under the impression that the Gap is stealing Christmas. Why? Because the Gap’s holiday ads use terms like "Go Christmas, Go Hanukkah, Go Kwanzaa, Go Solstice!"

The AFA, the organization founded in 1977 as the "National Federation for Decency" by ultra-conservative Rev. Doug Wildmon, called for a two-month boycott of Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy:

Gap has refused to use the word Christmas in its television commercials, newspaper ads and in-store promotions despite tens of thousands of consumer requests to recognize Christmas as well as repeated requests from AFA to do the same.Continue reading...

American Apparel appears resolutely determined to remain top banana in the shock department. Their latest ad – which promotes layering clothing in an image with a model’s nipples exposed – has raised a few eyebrows.

It is shocking that people continue to be surprised by these lapses. American Apparel has made its embrace of the decadent lifestyle central to their brand image, with provocative billboards depicting ambiguous -- but clearly sexual -- scenes in visible locations in New York and Los Angeles.Continue reading...

You would think bread manufacturers had a pretty good brand going. Indeed, some might say the only thing better than bread is sliced bread. After all, bread is delicious. And it’s useful when making a sandwich. However, apparently, the tried-and-true tactic of marketing bread as “something pleasurable to eat” wasn’t working well enough (maybe we can blame Atkins).

Wonder Bread is intent on making bread “fun for the whole family.” Their website notes: “Is a bread tie just that? Maybe. Unless you close your eyes and imagine. Then suddenly, it transforms into a ring for your daughter's hand. Or maybe even the solution to a rainy Sunday afternoon.” (Your daughter is going to have to have an attention span which allows her to mesmerized by her new bread tie ring for a very long time).

But then, Wonderbread has nothing on bread slippers – they’re so much more exciting than that old bread tie ring.Continue reading...

Stalin – he gave woman equal rights in Russia! Admittedly, that also meant the right to be massacred horribly as a portion of the 20 million people he purged. But it would seem the Russian government would have you focus on the former rather than the latter. To that end, they’re holding discussions with PR firms, looking to rebrand Stalin as kind of a good guy, according to EUobserver.

In addition to taking pitches on how to generally improve the image of Russia abroad (clue: this is not the right way to go about it), Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti reportedly met with PR firms in Brussels to hear ideas for a campaign to rehabilitate Stalin. RIA Novosti denies the reports, but acknowledges working with an agency mentioned in the story, RJI Companies: 

RIA Novosti has not launched any new project on Russia's image; the agency conducts its current activities with the aim of holding a variety of news and expert events in foreign countries and the former Soviet Union, as well as in Russia.

But according to EUobserver, Moscow-based newspapers such as Novaya Gazeta claim that the campaign is already underway in Russia.Continue reading...

“Sexiness for everyone. Everywhere.” It’s a very appropriate tagline for a lingerie company – though one that viewers aren’t often apt to consider the implications of. That may be why the recent advertisement for the German online lingerie store Liaison has caused such controversy.

The ad opens with a beautiful woman putting on underwear and dressing. Rhythmic Middle Eastern music plays, but it all seems like a fairly standard advertisement. Until, in a twist at the end, she puts on her burka.Continue reading...

Real men have touchably smooth skin! At least, the men who use the newly branded Vaseline for Men. The lotion claims to be for the face and body, and comes with an advertising campaign encouraging men to tone up their skin the way they do the rest of their bodies.

Which is great – but is it really going to have men buying lotion in droves?

Branding lotion specifically for men is a tough task, as Nivea proved last year. When they attempted to stock Nivea for men in the Men’s aisles of department stores, sales in the past year totaled a mere $210,000. No wonder Vaseline has chosen the unisex aisle.Continue reading...

The cupcake bust is coming, at least according to Slate. But if you want to catch the tail end of the cupcake phenomenon, how do you get in?

The notion of just baking delicious sweets seems fairly stale at this point. Here are a few niches in the cupcake market that bakers are using to let their brand stand out.Continue reading...

As we saw last week, some cause-related marketing efforts go over better than others. Especially when it comes to breast cancer. Just turning out a product painted pink (we’ve all seen them) seems worse than uninspired: it seems like a mercenary gambit to profit off of others' suffering.

So it’s great to see products who manage to brand themselves to work with a cause, and do so in inventive and interesting ways. One that seems to be doing so effectively is Purple Lab lip gloss’s new Sealed With A Cure line, born out of a partnership with the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation.Continue reading...

Is McDonald's opening at the Louvre a little bit tasteless? Some people seem to think so. It may not be as bad as that Starbucks in the Forbidden City, but it’s not going to be greeted with cheers from many serious art lovers.

That said, is it a bad idea from McDonald’s perspective? Probably not.

McDonalds does seem to have exhausted all the normal places they could pop up. Lately, they are venturing off into some new ones. Bringing McDonald's to unexpectedly high-culture venues -- with espresso drinks as bait -- helps put the "hi" in their daring (and seemingly successful) recent "hi-lo" branding shift that's put pressure on Starbucks.Continue reading...

You know what would look great on your new, beautifully tiled bathroom floor, according to ads from Italian mosaic tile company Bisazza? A bound and gagged geisha, imploring you for mercy with her big soulful eyes.

The UK Advertising Standards Authority begged to differ. They quickly yanked the ad –- though not before it had appeared in high-profile publications such as British Vogue.

Bisazza argued that bondage images are common to the work of respected Japanese photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. The regulators begged to differ, more concerned about the implicit sexual violence than the renowned artist's larger body of work.Continue reading...

Childhood. American history. The danger of tripping over small, overly excited children lost in play. All things that might come to mind when you think of Mattel's American Girl dolls. One thing that probably doesn’t? The glaring specter of homelessness.

This is set to change with Gwen, the brand’s first, highly controversial homeless doll. Like all American Girl dolls, Gwen comes with a storyline, but hers is about how her father walked out on the family, her mother lost her job and they ended up living in a car.Continue reading...

Clorox wants to be loved by moms. The company's website promises tips on how “to create a clean and sanitary environment for their little new one,” keep those first-day-of-school clothes looking fresh, and help freshmen college students with laundry.

But according to a mystifying Clorox ad that seems to pop up every time I watch Mad Men, while mom's doing the laundry, her husband is off smooching his secretary.

The Clorox ad features a man’s white, lipstick-stained dress shirt, and reads: “Clorox. Getting ad guys out of hot water for generations.”Continue reading...