Ultra endurance athlete Jason Lester doesn’t back down from a challenge. He’s in the middle of a massive one right now, crossing America – all 4,800 miles of it — on foot and by bicycle in 102 days so he can share the power of sport — and sponsor Nike's Better World vision — along the way to any who will listen.

The author of Running on Faith is in his late 30s and it’s a miracle that he’s even involved with sports at all anymore. He was left for dead at the age of 12 when he was hit by a car while out for a bike ride. He broke 21 bones and a lung collapsed. His right arm became partially paralyzed. While he was in the hospital recovering, his father and sole guardian had a heart attack and died.

But the kid stuck with it. He went back to playing sports the way he had before the accident and went to his local baseball all-star game the next year. Since then, he’s become an accomplished triathlete and the first disabled athlete to complete the Ultraman World Championships.Continue reading...

Ford's new "Go Further" tagline was introduced in January, and it's now being promoted with a new 60-second commercial (above), a pop-up gallery in San Francisco (more on that below), and on social media, including via the Twitter hashtag #gofurther.

No puppets, no testimonials, no Ford name or even a blue oval logo to identify itself, just a simple pitch: "What does it mean to Go Further? For a car company it means offering vehicles with innovative technologies, plug-in hybrids and EcoBoost® engines that combine power and efficiency. If you were offering a new car in today's crowded market, you'd do all this to go further. Learn more at http://www.gofurther.com"

Ford's social hub elaborates on why it's pushing out "Go Further":Continue reading...

Proving that not all eco-efforts have to happen on Earth Day, Honest Tea's new eco-centric campaign, The Great Recycle, launches on Monday April 30th with the goal of boosting recycling awareness and activity across America in general, and consumer recycling of all of Honest Tea bottles by 2020.

It took 10 people to inflate the 30-foot-tall 100% recyclable recycling bin (at right) that will be placed in New York's Times Square on Monday in a bid to collect at least 45,000 beverage containers in a single day, approximately the same number of Honest beverage bottles typically sold daily in New York in April.

The company generates about 20 million glass bottles and 60 million plastic bottles each year, just a sliver of the total Americans used in 2010: 38.6 billion glass and 71.9 billion plastic, according to the Container Recycling Institute.

Hard statistics on U.S. recycling activity are hard to come by, although the Environmental Protection Agency estimates about 33% of glass bottles and 27% of plastic bottles are currently recycled.Continue reading...

Ford is pursuing the Millennial generation these days like the rest of the global auto industry. But so far the carmakers' love largely has gone unrequited by a car-reluctant cohort.

Now, Ford hopes that a new Mustang can keep wooing Generation Y the way that its new Ford Fiesta did when it debuted a couple of years ago. Ford design chief J Mays has been telling folks for a while that the 2014 Mustang will comprise perhaps the nameplate's sharpest departure ever from the "pony car" that first excited the baby boomers a half-century ago under the guidance of then-Ford executive Lee Iacocca.

The company will have to be cautious. In the 1970s, after mistakenly believing that the appeal of the original, muscular, blockish Mustang design had run its course with the car market, Ford introduced a vastly diluted design and called it Mustang II.Continue reading...

Launching Doritos' new "Jacked" product line via a giant vending machine isn't the only thing PepsiCo has been up to at SXSW. The CPG giant, and its brands, have been all over Austin this past week.

“What I love about SXSW is it’s a place where culture breaks — and specifically digital culture,” Josh Karpf, PepsiCo’s Global Director of Digital and Social Media, told brandchannel. “We get to see the latest technologies 12-18 months before they hit the consumer consciousness. We’re getting it earlier which makes it a key part of the calendar.”

It’s PepsiCo’s fourth year at SXSW and its corporate and brand presence is larger than ever with four of its "billion-dollar" brands on-site, including festival novice Doritos plus SXSW veterans Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Brisk.Continue reading...

The new Doritos have a larger-than-life flavor, so what better way for PepsiCo's snack brand to introduce them to the world than with a larger-than-life "vending machine"?

At the cauldron of brand and music and digital fervor that is the annual SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Doritos is unveiling its latest innovation: Doritos Jacked tortilla chips, which are 40 percent larger than conventional Doritos and come in two flavors, Enchilada Supreme and Smokey Chipotle BBQ. As it's been promoting on Twitter and Facebook, Doritos promises that Jacked Tortilla chips (hitting stores on March 26th) will deliver a "one-two punch of intense flavors up front, followed by a twist of spice or tanginess that packs the ultimate crunch."

To drive home the point, Doritos is promoting the Jacked chip line with a 56-foot-high vending machine at SXSW. Consumers at the festival, while sampling the new chips, can get "larger-than-life Doritos-branded quarters" via Foursquare and Twitter.Continue reading...

Coca-Cola brought its "Move to the Beat" 2012 Summer Olympics campaign in Belgium with a dance-activated version of its gift-giving Happiness machine. Giveaways ranged from the obvious (a case of Coke) to the human — check it out above.

Brands are invited to the Winter Party Festival in Miami Beach, an annual six-day, 20-event festival fundraiser. Running Feb. 29 to Mar. 5 at venues throughout Miami Beach and Miami, more than 10,000 visitors from around the world are expected.

Produced by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Winter Party already counts major brands as WPF 2012 sponsors. 

Showtime, a longtime supporter of LGBT causes and programming such as Queer as Folk and The L Word, will be promoting Nurse Jackie and The Borgias. Office Depot is underwriting t-shirts and donating office supplies. Coca-Cola's brands and Grey Goose/42 Below vodkas are the official non-alcoholic and spirits sponsors, respectively, while Surfcomber is the festival's host hotel.Continue reading...