This 1966 commercial was one of the first for Horatio Magellan Crunch, aka Cap’n Crunch, who it turns out will not be retiring. According to Quaker Oats, rumors of his demise have been greatly exaggerated, leading one to ask — was it an effective marketing stunt?Continue reading...

It's always encouraging to see a legacy brand reinvent itself, especially one that offers assistance to the world's people.

That's what CARE is doing with a newly launched website that features a new kind of "CARE Package," a phrase that became associated with the nonprofit organization when it was founded in 1946.

CARE, which stands for the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, was originally comprised of 22 American organizations coming together to send CARE Packages consisting primarily of food to World War II survivors.

In the next twenty years, CARE sent some 100 million CARE Packages to people in need in Europe and later in Asia and other parts of the world.

The phrase "care package" has become so popular that it's widely used for any assortment of items being sent to a student, loved one, friend or other individual — but it has also lost its association with its origins.Continue reading...

Conde Nast's Glamour and Gap have teamed up for Glamour Girls, an original web series exclusively available on the magazine's iPad app. As Gap notes on its blog, there are four ten-minute episodes, each featuring a different Glamour staffer running about the office and New York — dressed, of course, in Gap's spring collection.

Marking National Breakfast Day in America, Kellogg’s hosted a kick-off event this morning with actress Melissa Joan Hart and its beloved cereal brand mascots, Tony the Tiger and Snap! Crackle! and Pop!, at New York's Grand Central Terminal.

It was more than just a feel-good photo opp and welcoming committee to offer free breakfasts to commuters flooding into Manhattan.Continue reading...

The new spot from Smartwater aims to go viral by making fun of the elements that have become viral video cliches.

It features viral memes such as double rainbows; YouTube lip-syncher Keenan Cahill (a web savant); adorable puppies; cute babies doing adult things; a crotch kick, a parrot and slow-mo hair-tossing that recalls Aniston's earlier spots for the brand.

What it doesn't have: the suggested video title of "Jennifer Aniston Sex Tape," the obvious fast-track way to making this truly viral.Continue reading...

Coca-Cola has long celebrated music as the heart of its brand, but the days in which it would like to buy the world a Coke are long past. It's stepping up its musical courtship by specifically wooing Gen Y, the young demographic that in the next nine years will grow to about 2.5 billion people world-wide.

It's been making a bid to stay modern and contemporary, including tapping K'naan for its World Cup anthem last summer, and the French avant-disco duo Daft Punk for a current collaboration that includes a new tune (above) and limited-edition packaging.

Next up: a live event in London on March 22 that will team the brand with the band Maroon 5 in a global crowdsourcing project to further attract young music lovers to connect Coke with music.Continue reading...

As Prince William and Kate Middleton prepare for their April 29th nuptials, the couple unveiled a website that's refreshingly free of pomp and glitz, and seeks to invite the public to participate through social features, video and newsy updates.

Bearing the URL of OfficialRoyalWedding2011.org, the site incorporates videos from the official royal YouTube channel, Twitter comments tagged with #rw2011, a link to ye olde Facebooke page, Flickr photos tagged #rw2011, and news updates (if not blog posts) with tags. 

The site invites visitors to check out virtual tours of Buckingham Palace, travel information for London (which directs to the government's more staid official royal wedding website). There's even info on the members of the wedding party, and a link to Royal Doulton's official wedding china. Reuters reports that Middleton's dress (and its designer) will be revealed on the site on the day of the wedding.

It's not the fanciest of websites, but that's the point.Continue reading...

Uniqlo has used models such as Agyness Deyn and celebrities including (most recently) Charlize Theron and Orlando Bloom to promote its fashion-for-the-masses designs. 

Now it's promoting its apparel and the style chops of its fans with a unique community-building initiative.

The just launched Uniqlooks site invites fans of the Japanese brand to upload photos showing their individual spins on how they style Uniqlo clothes.

A global audience then determines each "Look of the Week" winner (the current title-holder is Florian Gravovil, a 22-year-old French musician/student) to be featured on Uniqlo’s website, Facebook page and on in-store signage.

The digital lookbook by and for brand fans marries the best of self-styled fashion with social media's thirst for image-sharing, pushing the edges of both.Continue reading...