Wikileaks spoofed Mastercard's "Priceless" campaign this week. Watch the spot below, along with new perfume commercials featuring Scarlett Johansson and Christina Aguilera, plus place branding with a twist and more.Continue reading...

So there's this little Indie film opening this weekend. Maybe you've heard something about it. Cars 2?

While Disney's original Cars only (only!) made $460 million at the box office, its merchandising efforts have raked in over $2 billion a year since 2006, enough to get any sequel's motor running. Just two weeks after the release, some estimates valued sales of Cars merchandise in excess $600 million. In June 2006, just a month after the film's release, Disney announced that Cars-licensed products had already broken merchandising records, racking up a volume ten times that of Finding Nemo. 

Cue Cars 2. Target, the film's official retail partner, has been running heavy tie-in ads letting consumers know here to get even more Cars merchandise. Target currently offers over 150 different Cars 2-branded products, from bedspreads to a "Bubble Mater." Landing Cars 2 deal was a huge "get" for Target, as Walmart was the retail partner for Cars.Continue reading...

Fun reading alert: Dumb Tweets @ Brands, a Tumblr account (tagline: "Unmeaningful customer engagement") that provides a few chuckles at tweets directed at brands, and a few questions about brand strategy and social media.Continue reading...

Remember last summer's denim diapers from Huggies? Continuing the trend of ready-to-wear diapers, Pampers has released a limited summer line of printed diapers (polka dots and flowers for girls, argyle and toy cars for boys) with Rosie Pope, the NYC-based maternity designer who just wrapped up her Pregnant in Heels reality series on Bravo.Continue reading...

Expedia's Netherlands agency (Woedend) takes inspiration from the legendary Saul Bass and the Catch Me if You Can title sequence in this new :20 commercial and :10 tag-ons.

Watch more new spots — from Target, Pepsi Max, Victoria's Secret and other brands — after the jump.Continue reading...

Apple reportedly acknowledges MacBook Air bugs, promises fixes.

AT&T trawls Twitter for customer gripes.

Bank of America and Caterpillar lead Dow surge to highest point since Lehman Brothers collapse.

Dish Network claims Hulu will destroy the TV industry.

DreamWorks puts Zynga in the picture.

FirstEnergy tests the world’s largest mobile fuel cell system.

GM makes its pitch to investors.Continue reading...

The Pew Research Center today revealed which tech brands dominate news coverage in the US — but tech brands are also king down under.

High tech is now the darling of Australian consumers, according to a new survey. That country's list of most-loved brands is dominated by technology companies, according to a  global survey conducted by Brand Asset Consulting. Google, Micosoft, Nokia, Sony, Apple and eBay are all at the top of the list.

David Evans, research director of Brand Asset Consulting, tells Australia's SmartCompany, "There really was no surprise that tech brands are the top of the leading brands, but the surprise is in the extent to which they're being admired by the majority of consumers and not just geeks."Continue reading...

Brands are investing in innovation by incubating innovating ideas from others. PepsiCo is boosting tech start-ups, while Kimberly-Clark is focusing on the fastest-growing sector of entrepreneurs: women, or in their case, mompreneurs.

So move over, baby Einstein; Huggies is helping mama Einsteins by financing a dozen ventures with grants aimed at the brand's core constituency, and perhaps more importantly, rewarding them for participating.

Twelve entrepreneurs now make up the first class of Huggies MomInspired grant recipients, receiving $15,000 each to fund their "unique baby or childcare product ideas that address unmet parenting needs and make life easier for moms and dads."Continue reading...