To paraphrase Don Draper: At last, a beautiful product placement Jaguar can truly own.

And own it they do when it comes to the latest music video for Lana Del Rey's new track "Burning Desire."

"I drive fast / Wind in my hair / I push you to the limits / Cause I just don't care," sings Del Rey. With her on a dark lonely stage and a Jaguar F-type on a sunny lonely highway, the video might be something Don Draper and team would have cooked up themselves.

It's been nearly a year since Jaguar was ambushed with its unflattering product placement on Mad Men, where Jaguar was party to prostitution and a failed suicide attempt. Jag's appearance in Del Rey's "Burning Desire" video is the latest step on the march to the upcoming debut of the branded film, "Desire," which the luxury automaker is commissioning from director Ridley Scott's production company.

Everything old is new again as auto companies from Mercedes to Dodge are embracing the exploding auto-branded content format... again. Continue reading...

Now that Chevrolet has rolled out the first creative under its "Find New Roads" brand positioning, General Motors CMO Alan Batey wants to give the upbeat, product-oriented theme as much exposure as he can.

Batey tells brandchannel that, in addition to new vehicle-specific TV ads in the weeks ahead, Chevrolet will be doing more in-cinema advertising than ever before.

The original ad that aired during the recent Grammy Awards telecast on CBS—including vignettes separately featuring the Chevrolet Volt, Spark, Sonic, Corvette Stingray and Impala—"will be broken down into four standalone-product ads," Batey told us, "and we'll also be using that work quite extensively not just on TV but also in cinema," he said.Continue reading...

General Motors counted on a continued U.S. auto recovery and its new products for a strong fourth quarter in 2012, reporting nearly $5 billion in net income for the year and a three percent increase in fourth-quarter revenue.

But the world's second-largest automaker -- Toyota took back the number one spot last year -- continued to have a rough time in Europe, like the rest of the industry and GM still has some particular chinks in its own armor that also could slow down the company in 2013 and beyond.

"We recorded another solid year in 2012 as we grew the business, delivered a third straight year of profitability and took significant actions to put the company on a solid path for future growth," said Dan Akerson, chairman and CEO, in a press release. Continue reading...

American Airlines and US Airways to create the world's biggest airline with $11 billion union.

AB InBev will sell Corona unit to salvage Modelo takeover, as Pernod Ricard is open to Jose Cuervo talks.

H.J. Heinz Company enters agreement to be acquired by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.

Time Warner rumored to eye Time Inc. split and talking to Meredith about buying magazine brands.

Adidas unveils new global brand strategy with Boost product push.

American Express and Yahoo accused of stealing travel service idea.

Angry Birds parent Rovio slings into advertising.

Apple promises to fix iOS Exchange bug, fights activist shareholder Einhorn.

Barclays agrees to stop speculating on food prices.

Barnes & Noble warns of lower 2012 sales and Nook concerns.

Boeing looks at interim 787 fixes.

BT sticks by Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius (charged with murdering his girlfriend), for now.Continue reading...

In addition to new campaigns for Ford's "Hello Again" music project for the Lincoln brand and Kraft's "We are the World"-like music video for its Miracle Whip dressing during the Grammy Awards telecast on CBS, a host of other brands used the post-Super Bowl platform to make some noise.

Anheuser Busch InBev's Bud Light Platinum debuted its new new campaign by its new "creative director," Justin Timberlake, while Target also used the Grammys to kick off its tie-in with the singer's new album and promote its tie-ins with singer Pink and fashion designer Prabal Gurung:Continue reading...

Honda's "Innovator Series" attempts to position the automaker with envelope-pushing individuals.

With the Super Bowl over, many auto brands in the U.S. market are picking up in their marketing programs where they left off late last year. And while the eight brands that advertised during the game are all trying to extend those new advertising platforms in various ways (mainly through social media), others are turning — or rather, turning back — to associating themselves with innovation. Nissan, Honda, Ford and Lexus are among those employing the approach.

In fact, a new ranking of innovative companies across all industries, by Boston Consulting Group, gives automakers ten slots in the top 50, the highest total for the car industry since the consultancy began its ranking in 2005. Hyundai is ranked No. 10; Toyota, 11; Ford, 12; Kia, 13; BMW, 14; Nissan, 22; Audi, 25; GM, 29; and Renault, 34. VW dropped to 45th in this survey from 15th overall in 2010, the last time senior executives were polled.

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Mercedes-Benz appears to have capitalized on its Super Bowl involvement.

Chrysler and Toyota have garnered the consensus nod for creating the most enjoyable Super Bowl XLVII spots for viewers to watch. But when it comes to drawing interest in vehicles, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai already are emerging on top. And that means they're all winners of a mega-event that car marketers increasingly dominate.

Most reviewers appreciated the all-American sentiments and the magnanimity expressed by Chrysler's pair of two-minute anthem ads, "Whole Again" and "Farmer," the latter of which received attention for being based on a 2011 ad about the farming life. And Toyota's "Wish Granted" spot, starring Kaley Cuoco, scored as the most effective humor displayed by any of the eight car brands that advertised during the Big Game.

But Edmunds.com established on Monday that the Mercedes-Benz CLA Class model advertised during the game garnered the biggest jump in web traffic afterward, as measured by visits to the site's own home pages — a whopping 23,067 more product pageviews compared with the previous four Sundays on average. And on AutoTrader.com, Hyundai generated the top statistic of any brand last night: a 1,004 percent increase in searches on the site, according to Adweek.Continue reading...

This late in the game, General Motors isn't about to change its game plan for the Super Bowl: no ads during the game this time. But you can be sure GM marketing executives are planning to do everything but advertise during the Big Game.

In fact, GM is happy to stoke speculation about what exactly how it might be planning to hop on the Super Bowl bandwagon without actually running a commercial during the competition, a promise that former CMO Joel Ewanick made last spring before his departure — and one which, for whatever reasons, the company has kept. Some observers believe that GM could be planning to take a page from Pizza Hut with some sort of integration of its brands or products into the pre-game show on CBS. According to the Detroit News, GM has worked out a presence for the Chevrolet Corvette around the Pepsi-sponsored halftime show featuring Beyonce, who's been busy defending, rehearsing and promoting the halftime show. Chevy, meanwhile, quietly slipped a 2014 Corvette Stingray commercial onto its YouTube channel late last month.

In other late-breaking Super Bowl branding moves, the latest move in the Cola Wars (which has already seen SodaStream swatted by CBS): PepsiCo's Pepsi Next brand tweak Coca-Cola's Coke Chase Game Day campaign (with a hand from the wags at Funny or Die) above—and below, Coca-Cola's responses released online today.Continue reading...