Summertime is a great time for sharing soft drinks—and Coca-Cola wants to make the most of it in a very personal way with the "Share a Coke" campaign, launching across Europe this month.

"This month we're swapping our names with yours," proclaims the world's leading soft drink in a concept that has a country's most popular names showing up on Coca-Cola bottle labels. In Great Britain, for example, Coke bottles on shelves this summer will feature 150 of the UK's most popular names. In addition, Share a Coke vending machines will be on tour so Coke fans can personalize their very own Coca-Cola or Coke Zero bottle. The company is also encouraging Facebook users to create a virtual personalized Coke can to share with someone.Continue reading...

It hasn’t been a great couple of years for Johnson & Johnson. Since 2009, “faulty manufacturing” caused J&J to “recall millions of bottles and packages of Tylenol, Benadryl, Motrin and other over-the-counter medicines,” NBC News reports. While that was happening, pharmacies were starting to push their own private labels.

It got so bad that this past winter, CVS didn’t even stock Tylenol at a number of its stores. That isn't all. The company is facing over 10,000 lawsuits regarding the alleged failure of its Depuy metal-on-metal hip transplants, and it just got done paying $181 million in settlements over off-label marketing of its antipsychotic drug, Risperdal, Ad Age notes.

As Mad Men’s Don Draper says, if you don’t like what people are saying, you change the conversation. So J&J is going all-in on a rebrand, putting up to $30 million into a play-to-the-heartstrings Band-Aid of a campaign called “For All You Love.”Continue reading...

The idea of launching the Axe Face Line with a Facebook promotion obviously was too literal. So the Unilever brand is launching its new line of facial-care products instead with a "Facescore" campaign on Tumblr as a social face-off, supported by ads running on various media websites — and, of course, a presence on Facebook too.

In doing so, Axe is entering a segment of the men's care business of the first time — a more challenging territory than when it had a fairly singular focus on helping young guys simply smell great so they could attract hordes of women.

The launch of the Axe Face Line—including a face wash, shave gel, and post-shave hydrator in four variants—also gives the brand a chance to circle back to promoting Unilever's "Astronaut" marketing platform for the Axe brand (and Lynx brand, in certain territories) grand giveaway of 22 trips to space in 2015.

"Research has shown that a majority of guys don't use facial cleanser; they reach for bar soaps or shampoos or other things to wash their face," Mark Link, Axe US brand manager for Unilever, told brandchannel. "We're launching [the Face line] to address their skincare needs."Continue reading...

Since Walmart apparently doesn’t think it has enough shoppers already, it is taking extra steps in 21 states to woo in anybody who is annoyed with the high price of gas by chopping the price of gasoline at its pumps by 15 cents, Reuters reports.

High gas prices are keeping consumers off the road and out of stores, the wire service notes, so Walmart is aiming to bring those consumers back in by giving the 15-cent discount to those paying with a Walmart MoneyCard or credit card until July 7. For those who have Walmart gift cards laying about, this could be the time to use them. Those cards will be worth a 10 cent per gallon discount.

"I am constantly hearing that gas prices are making it tough for our customers to balance their budgets," Gisel Ruiz, COO for Walmart US, told Reuters. "For every cent gas prices climb, consumers have $1 billion less to spend."Continue reading...

AT&T is leveraging the popularity of its "It's not complicated" campaign by switching out children from the TV commercials that broke in November with retired basketball stars such as Larry Bird, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Bill Russell for March Madness.

In partnership with the NCAA and Turner Broadcasting's TBS, TNT and truTV, AT&T is showing its social media muscle, pumping out Promoted Tweets from the NCAA's @MarchMadness Twitter handle during numerous college basketball games, such as Florida Gulf Coast's two-game run to the Sweet 16 round.

"We want to provide behind-the-scenes content so people from their living rooms on their couches can be a part of the on-site game experience," said Blair Klein, social, digital and emerging communications lead at AT&T, to Adweek.

"Engaging fans around the things they are passionate about helps live our core values—connecting with customers and allowing them to engage with each other and the brand. This [Twitter-based] program reflects that, as well as the speed of conversation. It ties in with our 'fastest 4G LTE network' copy."Continue reading...

"Go home American Eagle you're drunk."

That's the most popular YouTube comment on a new "skinny jeans" ad from American Eagle Outfitters. Is it an early April Fool's spoof or a blatant attempt to go viral by spoofing a trend gone too far?Continue reading...

P&G's new "Everyday Effect" campaign may not be quite as inspiring as the company's inspiring "Thank You, Mom" campaign during the London 2012 Summer Olympics, but it comes close with its uplifting language about the power of everyday acts to inspire big changes, a theme expanded on its Facebook page.

The description for the video, above: "As we begin another year, we embrace the notion that the biggest impact in our lives comes not in the grand gestures, but in the everyday acts. We remind ourselves that the greatest changes begin in the simplest moments — the conversation over breakfast with your 10-year old, or your baby's first steps. At P&G we see the power that these everyday acts have in defining our lives, our families' lives and the life of our planet. We call this the power of The Everyday Effect."

Tesco’s first television campaign from newly appointed agency Wieden + Kennedy, as shared on W+K London managing direct Neil Christie's YouTube channel, presents a clear shift in brand tactics ahead and a tease for a major pre-Christmas push announced by CEO Philip Clarke.

The 20-second spot isn't visually grabbing, but it's all about the audio. It features the theme music and countdown from Gerry Anderson's classic Thunderbirds series, which will be instantly recognizable to British boomers, and supports a current promotion offering customers a £5 voucher for every £40 spent, online and in-store, up until Thursday, October 25.

The commercial debuted during Channel 4’s Homeland on Sunday, and teases Tesco’s Christmas 2012 campaign. The proverbial coin countdown, “five, four, three, two, one…” positions the brand as a salvo for cash-strapped families, and repositions their tagline of two decades, “Every little helps,” replacing the word ‘little’ with a stack of coins.Continue reading...