Television shows generally launch in one country and, if they find success, another country might license the shows from the get-go. Or it might even be totally rethought and remade the way The Office was after it was decided that the UK hit was too good to not have a version of it in the States, but needed an American setting.

Fox is planning on a whole new way of doing things when it launches the debut season of Touch, starring Kiefer Sutherland, in March (with a sneak peek on Wednesday night). With the help of Unilever’s marketing dollars, Fox will launch the new show in more than one hundred countries.

Focused on a man and his emotionally challenged 11-year-old son, who happens to be able to predict world events, the show will feature scenes and characters from around the globe who will speak in their native languages, according to Marketing Week.

And while the show sounds like it will be a little unpredictable, there is one thing viewers can bank on: There will be commercials for Unilever products on the opening episodes. According to Marketing Week, Unilever is looking to have “one culturally relevant content platform” and Touch should serve that need worldwide.Continue reading...

In the months leading up to this fall’s Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, there was much ado about the unauthorized piggyback practice of ambush marketing by non-sponsors.

New regulations and practices were put in place to be sure that any brand that hadn’t paid a massive chunk to sponsor the matches found even the teensiest way to affiliate itself with the event. The preparation for such a possible catastrophe seemed to put ambush marketing on par with terrorism.

Other than a bunch of scantily clad gals in stilettos handing out flyers for a strip club after one particular match, the RWC went ambush-free.

Now a much bigger event is coming, next year’s Summer Olympics in London (which organizers refuse to identify with its XXX Roman numerals, for some reason), and nobody wants any big-spending sponsors to be outdone by some fancy bit of ambush marketing.Continue reading...

Johnson & Johnson used to be a top-tier sponsor of the International Olympic Committee. When renewal time came up in 2008, though, the health-care corporation didn’t sign on. Now it appears those dollars are going to a different international sporting event.

The world governing body of soccer, FIFA, has announced that Johnson & Johnson has filled its final sponsorship slot for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, according to the Associated Press. J&J is now the eighth second-tier worldwide sponsor of the next World Cup.

J&J joins Budweiser, Castrol, Continental, McDonald's, OI, Seara, and Yingli Solar as the global sponsors of the next Cup, according to SportBusiness.com. The top-tier partners are Adidas, Coca-Cola, Hyundai-Kia, Emirates, Sony and Visa.Continue reading...

When the Pope visited Britain last year, it was estimated to cost taxpayers around 10 million pounds ($16 million).

So Spain is taking a different tack. The Pope is supposed to visit the country in late August for World Youth Day 2011 and the organizers have sold a number of sponsorships to such companies as Coca-Cola, Telefonica, Santander and Iberia, according to Reuters.

The news agency notes that there are number of priests, who have sworn themselves to poverty, who are not happy about the sponsorship situation.

Reuters notes that 120 priests signed their names to “a rare joint letter” to Archbishop of Madrid Cardinal Antonio Maria Rouco Varela to let him know that they objected to the sponsorship deals.Continue reading...

A year after dropping Marlboro's barcode from its racing cars, Ferrari has extended its collaboration with the Philip Morris-owned cigarette brand through the end of 2015, "despite cigarette advertising being banned in the sport," as ESPN reports. The partnership dates back to 1984, while Marlboro has been Ferrari's title sponsor since 1997. The Marlboro logo, meanwhile, has not appeared on the Formula 1 team's cars since 2007.

Not surprisingly, General Motors has confirmed that Chevrolet will be its brand occupying the major sponsorship slot with Fox’s new show, The X Factor, when the heavily anticipated new Simon Cowell property debuts this fall.

And while Chevy has had a hard time one-upping Ford in a lot of areas lately — such as infotainment technology and social-media marketing — X Factor actually may give Chevrolet a chance to steal a march on its main rival in the crucial arena of integrated brand marketing.Continue reading...

You might recall how we reported that Justin Timberlake's fashion brand, William Rast, had won the Indianapolis 500. We were mistaken. As with all things American, Ronald Reagan won the Indy 500.Continue reading...

In one of the most dramatic Indianapolis 500 race finishes in recent memory, "part time" driver Dan Wheldon zipped by rookie JR Hildebrand when the latter, leading the race, crashed in the final turn.

Wheldon commemorated his win by going above and beyond for his car's sponsors, especially William Rast, the brand co-owned by Justin Timberlake and sold at Target. But Wheldon wasn't the only race car driver throwing around the Wiliam Rast brand name on Memorial Day weekend, even if he was the only winning one.Continue reading...