Sharpie loves fan input, evidenced by last year’s takeover of YouTube’s home page with user-generated art in an interactive mosaic ad that generated more than 62 million impressions in one day.

This year, Sharpie is inviting fans to create artwork for a music video for indie-pop band, California Wives, making their debut at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, in a campaign from Draftfcb Chicago.

Now through August 6th, submissions are open via the brand’s Facebook page and website. “What we’re really about is putting fans at the center of our story,” Ryan Rouse, global director of marketing for Sharpie, tells Marketing Daily. “It’s not about ambushing an audience with an ad; it’s about taking the passion within our community and amplifying that.” Continue reading...

Following rumors last fall, Coca-Cola confirmed that it's producing a global TV series to woo teens with music in more than 30 countries during the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

As a (lightly) branded entertainment extension of its global youth and music-oriented "Move to the Beat" Olympics marketing platform, Beat TV is being distributed in partnership with MTV Networks International, producing 10 episodes aimed at bringing youths some of the cultural flavor and excitement of the Games and its London setting. It's also not to be confused with "Move to the Beat TV," above, a web series Coca-Cola produced for European audiences as part of its Olympic marketing. (Coke's Move to the Beat campaign just picked up a bronze Cannes Lions award for mobile this week.)

While sponsored TV programming isn't new — look at NBC's recent Escape Routes series touting the Ford Escape crossover vehicle — Coke says Beat TV will run as a regular TV show (including channels with official rights to the Olympics and previous ad commitments from Coca-Cola); it won't feel like an infomercial for Coke's official Olympics sponsorship and the brand's presence won't be "overt"; and ad opportunities will be open to other brands.Continue reading...

Pepsi's new global platform — the "Live for Now" cross-platform campaign — has found a friend in MTV. Given that Live for Now is music-based, with tie-ins with Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, even Michael Jackson, it makes perfect sense for the beverage giant to tie in with MTV Networks, in addition to MTVN's siblings across the youth-skewing Viacom empire, in order to maximize the exposure of the effort.

With social and digital threaded throughout Pepsi's Live for Now (and Viacom's DNA), the upfront-inked partnership means fans will be able to tweet images with individual hashtags, relevant to various Viacom-owned TV shows and digital properties, for a chance to win prizes and get their photos featured in those shows and in Pepsi's advertising efforts in keeping with these Pinteresting, photo-tagging times we live in.Continue reading...

Competition for locals looking to book "nearcations" in New York City's tri-state area is heating up. While the Big Apple doesn't need much help on the marketing front, Connecticut just launched its big tourism campaign. Now New Jersey's fabled Atlantic City is wooing northeastern residents to visit — and not for the reasons you might think. 

The Atlantic City Alliance, a non-profit funded and operated by local casinos, is focused on increasing tourism by pitching. The marketing challenge: how to promote a city synonymous with gambling without focusing on casinos? The strategy: woo potential visitors on the city's other charms, as part of a campaign titled "Do Anything. Do Everything."Continue reading...

Pepsi has announced an exclusive global partnership with Michael Jackson’s Estate as part of its new "Live for Now" campaign, PepsiCo’s global platform to re-engage teens via pop music and culture influencers including Nicki Minaj and Katy Perry, whose upcoming movie the brand is sponsoring.

The deal coincides with brand's legacy with the King of Pop and the 25th anniversary of Jackson's multi-platinum Bad album (released August 31, 1987) and record-breaking tour, and Pepsi and Sony Music will share new mixes, as well as one billion — that's right, billion — special edition Michael Jackson Bad 25 Pepsi limited edition cans with an iconic silhouette of Jackson, as you can see below.Continue reading...

General Motors has been learning some sobering facts about Millennial (non-) car-buyers from its collaboration with MTV Scratch. But the executive in charge of getting a bearing on Generation Y for America's largest automaker insists that the Chevrolet brand is going to figure out how to appeal to twenty-somethings better than any of its competitors.

"We're committed to getting to know them better than anyone and giving them the products they want, as well as ones that are rational and functional to meet their needs," John McFarland, GM's manager of global strategic marketing, told brandchannel. "So we're going to win, long-term."

McFarland came to GM last year from Procter & Gamble just to helm this effort. Among his early moves was to notch an agreement with Scratch, the consulting arm of Viacom's MTV network, to help GM understand how to market better to a generation that now comprises about 40% of today's potential car-buying public -- but who are measurably less excited than their forebears about new cars and even about driving. Continue reading...

Car brands have become intent upon roping in reluctant consumers from the Millennial generation. That's why Ford has decided to set up shop, literally, in Silicon Valley, and why General Motors has turned to MTV for advice.

Today's twenty-somethings have looked like trouble for a while to America's automakers because they can't be counted on to swoon about cars they way their parents did — and often still do. Of course, the importance of digital connectivity to this generation has been well-established, and Ford has managed to capitalize on it with its trail-blazing Sync infotainment platform.Continue reading...

As the appetite for all things Hunger Games seems insatiable, with its record-breaking $155m weekend opening and Fandango pre-sales for more than 1,200 showings, one key player that deserves credit for making the pre-release marketing a hit on social media is a relative newcomer: thismoment.

Simply put, “Lionsgate social media marketing is centered around thismoment’s social infrastructure,” writes Forbes. Entrepreneur-centric Inc. also acknowledged the thismoment-powered social media savvy of The Hunger Games pre-launch marketing. Their secret sauce?Continue reading...