Pepsi took YouTube by storm last month according to Google’s YouTube Ads leaderboard. The brand is benefitting from its latest viral branded content hit "Test Drive", which has over 33 million views. 

The video, which is the brand's second attempt on a spoof video, garnered more plays than any of 2012's leaderboard ads, earning 13 million more views than 2012's top performer, Nike's "My Time Is Now."

Samsung made the chart twice in March with its Galaxy S4 launch, while newcomers EA Sports, Adidas, ConAgra, ESPN, Doritos and the Anti-Defamation League’s "Imagine a World Without Hate" video, (the first non-profit to be so feted) all made it as well.Continue reading...

Branded content is the hot new thing. Prada is the latest to the game with a short film directed by indie darling Wes Anderson and starring French actress Léa Seydoux.

Anderson is best known for charming films filled with twee sensibilities such as Rushmore, The Life Aquatic, Moonrise Kingdom and The Royal Tenenbaums. But Anderson is actually an old branded content auteur.

For the short film Prada Candy L’Eau promoting the brand's new Prada Candy fragrance, Anderson shared directing duties with Roman Coppola, son of directing icon Francis Ford. It's not the first teaming of the pair; Coppola joined Anderson in 2010 for a Stella Artois spot that feels oddly familiar to the new Prada film. Check it out below and see how it rates against other Wes Branderson projects.Continue reading...

Sex sells, right? Well, Louis Vuitton apparently thinks so as its clothing is the star of a new (NSFW) short film that features a few of its top models acting the parts of prostitutes in the dark streets of Paris.

A naked woman in the backseat of a car, a half-dressed woman swaying down an alley, a woman undressing in front of a car’s headlights and a slew of come-hither looks fill up the new film that was produced by the U.K.'s Love Magazine and directed by James Lima.

Watch the NSFW video after the jump.Continue reading...

At 30 million views, does it matter if it's real? Pepsi MAX's branded viral hit "Test Drive" is set to pass the 30 million mark on YouTube and the brand is beginning to roll out edited versions of the video for TV that will drive back to the longer original online. But at 30 million views, how many who would want to see a disguised Jeff Gordon take a used car salesman for a spin haven't yet seen it?

"Test Drive"—created by the TBWA\Chiat\Day LA agency—is Pepsi MAX's second branded viral to surpass 20 million views on YouTube. Two of the brands other videos are well over 10 million combined—an astonishing record of branded content success. branchannel spoke with the brand and the creator behind Pepsi's other viral hit, Uncle Drew, about branded content and their (secret) next project.Continue reading...

Newcastle Gets Real

Newcastle has taken a new tack in its advertising and it’s all about turning old beer advertising on its head. Beer marketers love to throw “heritage” imagery at consumers to make beer drinkers feel like they are part of something bigger, so Newcastle decided to go back to its roots, the English town of Newcastle, where residents—known as Geordies—are filled with humor and realism. The result? Newcastle’s “No Bollocks” ad campaign.

“If you look at the Geordies, they’re very friendly, down-to-earth; they don’t take themselves too seriously, and tell it like it is. We figured that is a really interesting space for us to be in," says Newcastle Brown Ale Brand Director Charles van Es, according to Fast Company's FastCoCreate blog. "We wanted to use that wit and dry sense of humor as our brand voice. We want to be transparent about the fact that we’re marketing to you and the fact that our beer comes from England.”Continue reading...

With four billion hours of viewership a month, YouTube’s leaderboard position in the evolving stream of video is more secure than ever, but the web video world has radically changed since YouTube first hit the scene in 2005, which is why the streaming giant is busy evolving its platform and creating new partnerships. 

YouTube today works hand in hand with social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to make videos trends like the "Harlem Shake" (with various versions scoring tens of millions of views apiece in weeks) a viral phenomenon.Continue reading...

It’s the kind of coincidence that can’t be let alone. The same week that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer banned working from home in a move that caused major upheaval among the media and the public, “Makers: Women Who Make America,” premiered on PBS, telling the story of the last 50 years of the American women’s movement.

Beginning with the publication of Betty Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique,”— which is credited with codifying women’s ennui as housewives and mothers—the three-hour documentary puts the iconic Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine, front and center discussing the 70s. “It was heady and exciting and naïve, imagining that if we just explained it to people, that it was so unjust, that surely it would change.” 

Makers is a very modern model of a truly cooperative effort. The project is funded by many companies and organizations including AOL, PBS, Unilever's Simple skincare brand, the Charles H. Revson Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Narrated by Meryl Streep, the film focuses on the famous and infamous from Steinem and Abzug to Barbara Walters, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and barrier-breaker’s like tennis legend Billie Jean King.Continue reading...

Welcome to the annual Brandcameo Product Placement Awards. Since 2001, Brandchannel has tracked product placement and brand appearances in every film that spent a weekend at the top of the U.S. box office. And every year since 2004 we have honored the good, the bad, and the ugly (and the most) product placement in the year's #1 films in tandem with the annual Oscars frenzy.

So without further ado: our 2013, 9th annual Brandcameo Product Placement Awards, covering films released in 2012. The envelope, please...

Continue reading...