Hang in there, folks, we're only hours away from the Opening Ceremonies of the XXX Olympiad. Above, members of the U.S. Olympics swimming team including Michael Phelps sing their rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe." Phelps has already won 16 Olympic medals and had made plenty of dough from sponsorships and endorsements. But now he’s entering these Games with fellow American Ryan Lochte nipping out his heels and thepostgame.com is wondering what will happen to Phelps’ earning power if he happens to lose a few races this time around. "If he walks away with no medal at all, it would be a tremendous disappointment and devastating for the brand," brand expert Laura Ries tells the site. "People want winners, especially Americans." His current sponsors include Speedo, Hilton, Subway, Visa, Proctor & Gamble, HP, Topps and Omega. Not too shabby. Even he does lose, he’s got enough in the bank already to last him a pretty long time.

Below, a few more headlines leading into the biggest sports event that will be gripping the planet in the weeks ahead:Continue reading...

As the Summer Olympics gets underway in London, Twitter — rebounding for a pre-Olympics wobble on Thursday — has launched its London 2012 Olympics hub, driving its user base to jump on the #Olympics hashtag. 

NBC has partnered with Twitter to produce the Olympics Hub, highlighting noteworthy tweets from across the Games and beyond NBC's wall-to-wall Olympics coverage, without U.S. bias, even though a U.S.-based team in Boulder, CO, will curate tweets 20 hours a day for the hub. 

The goal is to centralize and surface tweets and conversations around the Games in a service for users and companies alike, with brands such as GE and P&G already promoting their Olympian marketing efforts via the hub.Continue reading...

Google homepage logo pays tribute to the opening of the XXX Olympic Games in London.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pledges $2.5 million in support of gay marriage as Chick-Fil-A deals with firestorm created by CEO’s gay-marriage stance.

Barclays reveals new interest-rate probe and more U.S. lawsuits.

Airbus delays A350 over production problems.

Apple acquires fingerprint security firm.Continue reading...

"The new campaign is not conservative, it's a wink to the past as we move to talking more about what we do on the INSIDE of Go Daddy." That's the pitch from GoDaddy.com — never a brand to shy away from suggestive marketing. Below, check out the trio of commercials that will be running during NBC's wall-to-wall coverage of the London 2012 Olympics, starting with a "Leave It to Otter"-esque spot:Continue reading...

God help the poor Pepsi-loving soul who wanders through London over the next few weeks. The dreaded brand police are swarming the country in search of any signs of anyone mentioning or attempting to showcase any corporate entity that is a competitor to the official Olympics sponsors, and anyone who even so much as thinks of sponsor Coke’s biggest competitor should fear the consequences. But that's nothing compared to what Nike is staging: the brashest act of ambush marketing in the history of the Olympics Games. And we'll bet they get away with it because, well, it's Nike.Continue reading...

That's Team USA gymnast (and five-time Olympic medalist) Nastia Liukin, above, doing the splits with the special London 2012 Summer Olympics edition Dora the Explorer doll. Mattel's Fisher-Price will sell the interactive Fantastic Gymnastics Dora doll starting in August for $50. What makes the latest doll from the Nickelodeon hit series interactive? Consumers can download the free, Fantastic Gymnastics Dora augmented reality app on retail shelves or download from Apple's App Store.Continue reading...

It rolls over the television industry every four years like a welcome wave of money, basically no matter what the economy at large is doing. The quadrennial advertising mania created by the coincidence of U.S. elections and the Olympics is upon us, and more outlets than ever are looking for ways to tap into all thatextra cash that will be spent by politicians and Olympics sponsors.

The bonanza is even bigger than before during this election cycle because courts keep upholding the validity of corporate and individual election spending as free speech, so super-PACs will be adding their hundreds of millions of dollars of TV ads to the amounts already due for expenditure by the political parties and candidates themselves.Continue reading...

Social media mavens can't help themselves, as details leaked virally this week following Monday's technical dress rehearsal (that's the crowd above) for Friday's opening ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The ceremony's artistic director, filmmaker Danny Boyle, begged those in attendance to "save the surprise" and even projected a Twitter hashtag (#savethesurprise) on the stadium's giant screens, but spectators tweeted pictures of the event and chatted up that the theme (spoiler alert!)...Continue reading...