Men may defer to women on lots of purchases for the home, ranging from dinnerware to wallpaper. But when it comes to big-screen televisions, Sharp believes that men care in outsized ways what is purchased for their household.

And so as Sharp begins peddling the industry’s first 70-inch high-definition LCD TVs under the tagline “Big is too small a word,” the electronics brand is specifically targeting the preferences of men.

Sharp has concluded that while women influence and often conclude the purchase of TVs for the home, men have a lot to say about this particular outlay more than most others — meriting supersized new words.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...

Last year, after the departure of Simon Cowell as the acerbic judge and the face of the show, American Idol confronted a fateful moment: How would the FOX mega-property fight a long-term slide in ratings without its fascinating bad boy and its most compelling personality – especially one who was going to create a competing show that would debut on the same network this fall?

Idol producers succeeded handsomely, bringing in Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler as judges to join holdover Randy Jackson, and making the show’s narrative about really developing really good talent instead of allowing not-so-good singers into the final ranks and then savaging them when they performed down to their level.

Viewership for Wednesday night’s finale was 29 million people, up about 18% from last year’s according to Variety. Votes cast for the two finalists, winner Scotty McCreery and runner-up Lauren Alaina, totaled well more than 100 million, easily a record for the show (thanks largely to its addition of online voting to the old-fashioned phone medium). Inevitably, Idol questions about how long it can keep going, now arise.Continue reading...

Eager to grab the interest of the younger drinking-age male, Dutch beer maker Heineken last December introduced a new marketing campaign under the banner "Open Your World." An elaborate 90-second spot titled The Entrance premiered online. It quickly became a viral hit, and has been viewed more than 3.6 million times on YouTube.

Three months later, the ad migrated to television, while Heineken's YouTube channel also became a destination for additional videos featuring vignettes of the characters depicted in The Entrance, extending the storyline and creating more buzz (and views).

Heineken is hoping to strike digital gold again, once again using a web-first strategy by premiering The Date, the second spot in the "Open Your World" campaign on its YouTube channel and Facebook page before running the ad on TV in September.Continue reading...

The “Army strong” marketing theme introduced in 2006 keeps on getting stronger – and more social. The above video, voiced by actor Gary Sinise, highlights "leadership" by playing up the army uniform as a “symbol of strength,” and suggests, “Try it on at goarmy.com.” 

Additional spots in the US Army's new campaign highlight the themes of education and opportunity. But the campaign goes beyond traditional TV advertising, as the US military's marketers, ever tilling for new recruits, are taking their campaign to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.Continue reading...

The NBA and its Players Association are getting ready for major contractual standoff this summer that could end up putting them right where the NFL is right now: With owners locking out players and the fans growing increasingly annoyed by their backroom maneuverings.

If it gets to the point where actual games are missed because of the wrangling, fans will at least have one place to turn: video games.Continue reading...

Perpetually in search of brand innovation since 1883, when it introduced its first major brand, Ivory Soap, Procter & Gamble’s corporate commitment to innovating is articulated in the June issue of Harvard Business Review, where P&G is dubbed the "new growth factory."

The HBR article, "How P&G Tripled Its Innovation Success Rate" (co-authored by P&G CTO Bruce Brown and Innosight managing director Scott Anthony) looks at how digital platforms have filled the branded content hole created by the collapse of TV soap operas, a branding medium that P&G helped invent with Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers.Continue reading...

The first preview for the weighty, moody new NBC TV series (coming this fall) about the iconic brand, The Playboy Club, is out.

The question is, will Playboy be able to capitalize on the attention to bring a little of its former luster to a brand that many now know more as a E! reality show staple? Besides paying homage to house that Hef built, it's also a potential windfall for the city of Chicago following the cancellation of FOX's Chicago Code.

Clearly, when it comes to new releases, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides has the weekend nearly to itself. So before we get to our look at upcoming releases, here's a look at another retro 60's brand that popping up on US TV screens this fall.Continue reading...