What does PepsiCo believe in even more than Beyonce? The answer might be crowdsourcing.

Sunday's Super Bowl halftime show served as the main kickoff to its huge investment in the globally popular entertainer with a concert that some felt usurped the game itself. But the walkup to her much-anticipated performance used a highly populist approach that underscored PepsiCo-Frito Lay's faith in the crowd as much as any pop star.

The bulk of the ad, produced by NYC-based Mekanism, featured a lightning-fast succession of Pepsi enthusiasts culled from more than 120,000 photos submitted to the brand via New York-based Olapic and Crowdtwist. Olapic collected and curated the pictures while CrowdTwist rewarded uploads through a point-based platform. Mekanism, as TIME puts it, took that material in a bid to manufacture "viral on demand" for the Pepsi brand.Continue reading...

Barclays CEO vows to improve bank's ethics as company sets aside $1.6 billion for legal costs following exec shake-up.

S&P and McGraw-Hill sued by U.S. over controversial mortgage bond ratings.

KFC parent Yum! Brands suffers after China scandal.

Applebee's sees social media firestorm after employee posted customer receipt online.

AT&T introduces $1 mobile hotspot (with contract).

Axe broadens men's grooming portfolio.

Amazon and Samsung unseat Apple in customer engagement ranking.

Boeing finds experts stumped over Dreamliner's faulty batteries.Continue reading...

"Brotherhood," Budweiser's 2013 Super Bowl ad, was among those which stood out among rather routine fare.

Super Bowl ads (the complete list) this year provided few gems, according to an emerging consensus of industry professionals.

Many were deemed lame or even confusing, and generally considered ineffective and off-brand. Several brands seemed to suffer rather than benefit from the frenzy of sneak peeks and full-commercial reveals in this year's rush for pre-Game exposure and social buzz.

Pepsi may have shelled out massive dollars to sponsor the Super Bowl halftime show, but Beyonce Knowles—hired to keep millions from switching over to Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl IX” (and add luster to the NFL and PepsiCo brands) may be the biggest beneficiary.

Ms. Knowles, of course, had recently taken a pretty big PR hit for lip syncing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at President Obama’s second inauguration. But she's putting that behind her with a PR charm offensive, and Sunday night, she very clearly sang (and improvised a bit) her tunes live while constantly dancing, working the stage and speaking directly to the audience.

People called it “divalicious and hooftastic,” and The New York Times pointed out that she “answered her critics” by singing her songs in unexpected ways.Continue reading...

This late in the game, General Motors isn't about to change its game plan for the Super Bowl: no ads during the game this time. But you can be sure GM marketing executives are planning to do everything but advertise during the Big Game.

In fact, GM is happy to stoke speculation about what exactly how it might be planning to hop on the Super Bowl bandwagon without actually running a commercial during the competition, a promise that former CMO Joel Ewanick made last spring before his departure — and one which, for whatever reasons, the company has kept. Some observers believe that GM could be planning to take a page from Pizza Hut with some sort of integration of its brands or products into the pre-game show on CBS. According to the Detroit News, GM has worked out a presence for the Chevrolet Corvette around the Pepsi-sponsored halftime show featuring Beyonce, who's been busy defending, rehearsing and promoting the halftime show. Chevy, meanwhile, quietly slipped a 2014 Corvette Stingray commercial onto its YouTube channel late last month.

In other late-breaking Super Bowl branding moves, the latest move in the Cola Wars (which has already seen SodaStream swatted by CBS): PepsiCo's Pepsi Next brand tweak Coca-Cola's Coke Chase Game Day campaign (with a hand from the wags at Funny or Die) above—and below, Coca-Cola's responses released online today.Continue reading...

In addition to posting photos on her Tumblr, Beyonce's final pre-Game YouTube sneak peek before her highly anticipated, Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl Halftime Show, highlights what New Orleans means to her personally and what today's performance means to her legacy. Check out her new video below and tell us: will Beyonce's halftime performance beat Madonna's halftime show last year?Continue reading...

The Super Bowl is either an excuse for a phantasmagoria of purposeless eating, or the stage for a veritable symphony of snacking. Either way, QSR and CPG brands have been gearing up for Sunday for months — and not just in the game-day advertisements that are being run at great expense by Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Coke, Doritos, Wonderful Pistachios and other kings of Super Bowl consumption.

Take Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, for example, both owned by Yum! Brands. This week, Pizza Hut expanded its "Hut. Hut. Hut" Super Bowl campaign it's been promoting on Facebook by offering all Americans a free sample of its latest "product innovation" on Tuesday afternoon at any of its 6,200 U.S. locations. The chain wouldn't reveal the nature of this innovation but said it'll become apparent by being integrated into the content of CBS's pregame show. All that is necessary to activate this promotion is for one of the quarterbacks to yell "Hut!" during the game — which seems very likely.

On the Taco Bell side of the company, the brand plans to introduce the new Cantina Bell Steak Burrito in a pregame ad and, of course, already has released its Super Bowl ad featuring young-at-heart seniors. Copy at the end of the ad  points viewers to Taco Bell's Facebook page, where consumers can participate in a "Live Mas Monday" on Feb. 4, during which a free churro willl be given away with any purchase during regular storehours at U.S. locations.Continue reading...

The deluge of early looks at Super Bowl ads, both entire spots and teasers, has helped brands generate lots of buzz online and elsewhere long before Sunday. And in terms of creating brand presence before the Big Game that didn't used to occur, it's hard to argue with that strategy.

But the tidal wave of sneak peeks and January reveals also has allowed early germination of inevitable controversies. Whether the publicity created by those whirlwinds has been good or bad for the brands and their overall Super Bowl branding efforts probably falls under the usual maxim of PR: "as long as you spell my name right."

GoDaddy.com has always bared everything in its Super Bowl ads, so there's no surprise in the controversy over one of its two ads released this week. It's an up-close and personal look at a brief make-out session between supermodel Bar Refaeli and actor Jesse Heiman — something about small business scoring.Continue reading...