Strange bedfellows, but sweet promise from DBG, Mindshare Entertainment, and Unilever’s I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter! brand.

Toast to the Red Carpet LIVE! is billed as a first-of-its-kind web show that will stream live during the Oscars ceremony on Sunday, February 26th on UsWeekly.com, and the brand's Facebook page starting at 6:00pm EST.

Celebrity panelists include a quartet of TV personalities — dancer/model Brooke Burke, model/actress Molly Sims, fashion commentator (and former Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) Carson Kressley and cookbook author Katie Lee — all dishing on celebrity fashion and up-to-the-minute red carpet coverage.Continue reading...

Converse is continuing its "Three Artists. One Song" musical collaborations with a new single being released Friday: DoYaThing, a "robo-funk" (as NME calls it) track featuring Blur spinoff Gorillaz with guests Andre 3000 of Outkast fame and musician/producer James Murphy in his post-LCD Soundsystem guise.

The track is promoting the brand's limited edition Gorillaz-themed line of sneakers, which includes camouflage Chuck Taylor high top sneakers, designed by comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, who was best known for Tank Girl before he designed the Gorillaz characters.

The co-branded collection/single/video launch is being promoted with a Twitter hashtag and teaser videos, which you can check out below.Continue reading...

Toyota teams with Marvel for a Yaris viral video, above.

Ford hooks up with the 2012 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue for product placement.

The king(size) Snickers bar is dead. Make way for the fun size.

Below: Coke and ScarJo, Will Ferrell, Jeremy Linsanity and more.Continue reading...

Liv Tyler continues her long association with Givenchy, this time taking a page from her father Steven Tyler's songbook by breaking out her rock chick persona to cover the INXS hit, Need You Tonight.

The campaign is for the launch of Givenchy'sVery Irrésistible Givenchy Electric Rose perfume, with this music video/commercial shot by director Johan Renck. According to Givenchy, "The Need You Tonight video captures Liv's resolutely rock 'n' roll spirit and shows her more magnetic and irresistible than ever. Featuring a choreography by famous dancer Bianca Li, its unique style and energetic vibe resonate perfectly with the Givenchy world."

See her previous campaigns for the brand below.Continue reading...

Major sporting events and major brands go hand in hand, and marketers can't get started early enough with pre-event promotions. 

Witness the recent Super Bowl. An unprecedented number of Super Bowl ads appeared prior to the Super Bowl, as online unveilings appeared via YouTube and on promotional websites. Some pundits questioned the wisdom of such pre-game publicity, wondering if it simply undermined advertising effectiveness.

But that isn't stopping big brands from doing it again, this time in advance of the 2012 Summer Olympics to be held in London. Coca-Cola, a major Super Bowl advertiser, has gone public with its "Move to the Beat" London 2012 Olympics campaign that was announced in September.Continue reading...

Looks like Karl Lagerfeld liked The Artist too. The creative director of Chanel's latest short film — a tribute to the silent film era titled "My New Friend 'Boy'" — features the new face of the brand and Lagerfeld's muse, punky model Alice Dellal. Her style (as you can see below) channels another film: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.Continue reading...

When you Google "Hasbro," the company is identified as “Hasbro Toys, Games, Action Figures and More.” While the first three have dominated the company’s business for most of its 89 years, it’s that last part that is getting a lot of the company’s attention these days.

The “and more” has taken the form of TV and film productions related to Hasbro products. Thanks to the success of the Transformers films, which have grossed $2.6 billion worldwide and are based on the toys that were strewn across the playrooms of little boys in the mid-’80s, Hasbro has begun delving deeper into the worlds of television and film production, according to the New York Times.

Helping to build Hasbro’s confidence in this area is the success of its G.I. Joe movie, which grossed $302 million worldwide. Now a sequel to that film is coming out this summer as well as an action-adventure film based on the Hasbro game Battleship, which was promoted with a Super Bowl commercial (at top).Continue reading...

James Bond has long been known as a martini drinker – shaken, not stirred, Moneypenny – but it appears that he may be continuing his fascination for another alcoholic beverage in his next film, Skyfall. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first Bond film, Dr. No, though Ian Fleming’s famed books started hitting shelves in 1953 when Casino Royale was published.

Don’t be shocked If you see Bond, as played by Daniel Craig, tipping back a Heineken when Skyfall hits screens. Heineken has announced that it “will introduce an unprecedented and innovative global marketing campaign to support the launch of the new film.”

While this is the sixth Bond film that the beverage will be associated with, it will be the first time that Craig will be directly involved — for instance, co-star Eva Green did the honors for the beer's tie-in with Casino Royale.Continue reading...