In the next strange chapter of reality TV, Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony talk candidly about why their marriage failed — and Kohl's will be along for the ride.

In 2010 the middle-market retailer from Wisconsin signed JLo and her then-husband to put their names on his-and-hers clothing and lifestyle collections. But last summer, after Lopez scored big as a new judge on American Idol and was named People magazine's "most beautiful woman in the world," the marriage was falling apart — just as their Kohl's collections were hitting stores.

Kohl's has continued to sell the celebs' clothing lines, sweetening the partnership as the exclusive retail sponsor for their new Spanish-language television series in the vein of Idol.Continue reading...

Yahoo! is trying to define its brand, with newly appointed CEO, former PayPal president Scott Thompson, and a visible position one of the official sponsors of the Short Film Program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, aspiring to be the go-to online hub for this event and positioned as a media company.

Even if you're not lucky enough to be in Park City, Utah, this week, the general public will have free streaming access to nine short independent films via a co-branded microsite, sundance.yahoo.com, providing the first ever opportunity for non-attendees to vote for their favorite, as well as exclusive behind-the-scenes access including news updates and coverage of celebrities in attendance.Continue reading...

The Single Life, a humorous web series about online dating, debuted last year with sponsorship by Dentyne. Apparently it was a success, as it's attracted the interest of “New Girl” and It Girl, actress and singer Zooey Deschanel, and her BFF’s Sophia Rossi, a producer, and Molly McAleer, a writer, to sign on as creative consultants.

The trio are co-founders of HelloGiggles.com, founded last year to be “the ultimate entertainment destination for smart, independent and creative females. Everything hosted on the site will be lady-friendly, so visitors need not worry about finding the standard Boys Club content that makes many entertainment sites unappealing to so many of us.” As gag-inducing as the phrase "lady-friendly" might be, think of it as code for "branded entertainment" for women in the 18-34 demographic.

As a result of the deal, The Single Life will be based at HelloGiggle and syndicated to Digital Broadcasting Group’s video ad network of 2,600 websites targeted toward the 18-34 demo. "As we head into season 2, we wanted to reinvigorate the show and give it some new life and we felt that getting the HelloGiggles staff's input into the actual program would give the webisodic series a new zip or vigor," said DBG Chief Creative Officer Joseph Gomes to the Hollywood Reporter, adding that Deschanel and company will be "creative voices to the program."Continue reading...

For the first time ever, a full-length feature film, titled Olive, was shot solely using a smartphone camera — specifically, the Nokia N8. The director, Hooman Khalili, had to hack the phone by turning off its auto-zoom and auto-focus as well as attaching a special lens to capture depth of field.

Besides the technology and manner of shooting, the film production was fairly typical for a low-budget ($500,000) indie film, including location scouts, make-up artists, a casting director, and even a big name actress in two time Oscar nominee Gena Rowlands, whose late husband, John Cassavetes, would no doubt be intrigued by this project. The film was funded by the former privacy officer of Facebook, Chris Kelly. It took five weeks to film and only nine days to edit.

The Nokia N8 was previously used in a groundbreaking fashion, shooting the world's smallest stop-motion film, and setting a Guinness World Record.Continue reading...

Product placement in movies, TV, music videos and even video/online games is commonplace these days, but paid product placement for a web series? Meet Wainy Days, directed by David Wain on My Damn Channel which premiered its fifth season this week, making it the longest-running, most-watched (and awarded, says its publicist) comedy series online.

What makes season five so interesting is that it's the first season to integrate a brand into it. Which brand? FIAT, which has been having just a bit of trouble in US marketing of late, ousting its North America head and getting flack for its JLo overkill. To quote David Wain from the show, "I mean, yeah, I have a terrific new car — FIAT." It won't win any awards, but it gets the point across.Continue reading...

A 24-hour theater production has just wrapped — on Facebook, of all places. Stuff Theatre, a digital branded experience strictly for Facebook, was a first of its kind live, global event where performers took over Facebook for 24 hours straight. The curtain went up at 9 a.m. on Wednesday and wrapped 24 hours later.

The brand behind the stunt: Norton Securities, owned by Symantec, whose mission in life is to grab people's attention to what's happening online. Consider Stuff Theatre a mini-marathon of branded entertainment, a sponsored social campaign that can't be zapped (like TV commercials) and offers fresh original content in a space where consumers are likely to pay attention.Continue reading...

It's a commercial, but it's a show. It's a show, but it's actually a commercial. However you want to categorize it, one thing is for sure: the annual televised Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is about as big a branding success as can be hoped for.

An angelic display of commerce (un)dressed up as entertainment, this year's show airs tonight on CBS as a one-hour special, and it's bigger than ever. What once cost $120,000 to pull off now runs closer to $12 million to produce.Continue reading...

Leading British actor Joseph Fiennes, renowned for his rendering of Shakespearean language, recently teamed up with rising grime scene rapper Devlin to orchestrate Sonnet 129, the Bard’s most famous, as seen above (high volume recommended!).

The challenge: find common ground between Shakespearian poetry and modern street language. The result, to be featured on Devlin's next album, is part of the New Thinkers Index, an interactive digital campaign from Hyundai, resonant of their brand positioning, "New thinking, new possibilities."Continue reading...