Microsoft will unveil a new tagline — "Bing is for doing" — for its search engine with a TV commercial (above) that will debut during Sunday's NFC Championship Game on FOX, when the New York Giants face the San Francisco 49ers for a spot in the Super Bowl.

The first in a series of Bing's action-oriented spots features the triumphant return of U.S. pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce, following rehab for a brain injury incurred in a wipe-out two years ago. As Ad Age notes, "The new campaign plays on the 'ing' in Bing as the gerund form of verbs: doing, living, healing, etc."

Winter sports injuries are top of mind this week, following a fatal training accident that took the life of Canadian freestyle skiing champ and X Games medalist Sarah Burke.

If there is one thing that has characterized the renaissance of Chrysler over the last three years, it is an insistence by the company's leadership to ignore the doubters and forge ahead, following their vision.

That's why Fiat accepted the carcass of Chrysler from the U.S. government three years ago in the first place, why CEO Sergio Marchionne figured he could cobble together a competitive global automotive company from the two, and why he and his lieutenants make interesting — and sometimes daring — product and marketing bets in America.

Sometimes they work out uproariously, like the Chrysler 200 and the Eminem "Imported from Detroit" commercial that debuted during last year's Super Bowl. Other times they have worked out poorly, such as the 2011 debut of the Fiat 500 in the U.S. market, which led to criticism for the Jennifer Lopez music-video-style commercial for the car, and the subsequent ouster of former Fiat U.S. brand chief Laura Soave.

Chrysler and Fiat's CMO, Olivier Francois, says he has learned from these mistakes.Continue reading...

In advertisements that began in the U.S. market last weekend, BMW launched an attempt to move its brand definition beyond traditional notions of "performance" to a more holistic positioning that depicts the company's entire model range as offering the "ultimate driving machine" for someone, depending on their wants and needs. And at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit this week, BMW executives explained what they mean.

"We want to set in motion a platform that defines what 'the ultimate driving machine' means in 2012 and beyond," Dan Creed, CMO of BMW of North America, told brandchannel. "Twenty years ago, it was all about visceral horsepower, handling and going fast. But now we have four, six- and eight-cylinder engines; we have diesel and gasoline and EV [powertrains]; we have 'i' [electric vehicles for urban setings] and still our strong involvement with motorsports. Those last two are extremes. What we're saying is that, no matter the vehicle, we're delivering an ultimate driving machine."

The timing couldn't be better, with BMW having just won the 2011 crown for luxury auto sales in the U.S., pipping Mercedes-Benz and Lexus for the title. But there's no evidence of schadenfreude for having won the race against a highly competitive Mercedes-Benz, and succeeding Lexus, which had held the crown for 11 years.Continue reading...

Brisk officially launched its Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 3D cross-marketing today: a mobile app (dubbed Brisksaber and actively teased on its Facebook page) and a limited-edition drink featuring Star Wars villain Darth Maul, as promoted with a new commercial, above. The Brisksaber app, which can be downloaded at uncaptheapp.com, invites fans to "Turn your finger into a lightsaber!" Click below to check out the limited-edition packaging promoting the movie's theatrical release next month.Continue reading...

In the branding world, Las Vegas stands out as a city so well known that it is in a class by itself. The hotel brands that occupy the Vegas strip are just as famously iconic, so it's a rare event when one of them changes its name.

But on Tuesday, some Sin City visitors may have thought an extended New Year's hangover had them seeing things. That's when the long-standing Hilton name was removed from the Las Vegas Hilton and a new marquee appeared: The Las Vegas Hotel & Casino. 

Opened as the International Hotel in 1969, the property soon became the Las Vegas Hilton when the hotel chain bought it in 1971. But last year, financial troubles led to the hotel-casino seeking to end its agreement with Hilton, and new ownership took effect this year.

The new owners, an investor group that includes Colony Capital LLC, were determined the hotel will remain open for business without any big changes beyond a new name and website (indeed, Flavor Flav used the hotel to launch his vodka before the holiday, LeFlav Straight Up). However, guests staying at the hotel can no longer take advantage of Hilton's hotel loyalty program.Continue reading...

Last February, PepsiCo made waves for Brisk with a clay-animated Super Bowl commercial featuring Eminem. Now, as the New York Times reports, PepsiCo is piggybacking on the February 10th theatrical release of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace 3D to promote the Brisk line of iced tea and juice drinks.

This week the brand is introducing new packaging and a new mobile game app featuring Star Wars characters Yoda, R2-D2, Jar Jar Binks and Darth Maul in a bid to engage Brisk's target market of young adults, "particularly males," ages 18 to 29. The extension of its ongoing partnership with Lucasfilm marks the "largest multimedia advertising and marketing campaign that PepsiCo has ever waged for Brisk." Find out more, and check out screen grabs from the mobile game, below.Continue reading...

The Smithsonian Institute is 165 years old and isn’t hurting for visitors: 30 million people come calling annually.

Even so, the organization's executive team was dismayed to learn that that “its recognition had dropped to 77 percent for 18-to-24-year-olds, and that 25 percent of respondents think that the Smithsonian is ‘elitist,’” the Washington Post reports. Too many people were thinking of the place as America’s attic, and a confusing one at that. As its Twitter bio reads, "We're not a museum. We're 19 of them! Plus 9 research centers & the National Zoo."

Time for a brand refresh. The Smithsonian set aside $1 million to come up with a branding campaign that G. Wayne Clough, the Secretary of the Smithsonian, hopes will show that the Institute's diverse programming and educational activities represents a “conversation, not a lecture,” the Post notes.Continue reading...

If a Jaguar growls in the automotive jungle, will anyone notice? That's the challenge faced by the venerable ultra-luxury brand as it attempts to become globally relevant again after a few years "away" — and as its competitors largely have stepped up their games.

India's Tata industrial conglomerate picked up Jaguar and Land Rover in 2008 as Ford was disassembling its stable of European luxury brands, and Tata automotive executives have gradualy been restoring some of the luster to the two fabled marques since then. The combined Land Rover Jaguar North American sales rose by 17 percent in November over a year earlier, and were up by 10 percent year to date. Jaguar finally began national advertising in TV in the U.S. last spring.

But a new campaign that kicked off last week, created by Jaguar's new global ad agency of record, Los Angeles-based Spark44, represents Jaguar's most robust attempt yet at returning forcefully to the American luxury-market conversation. Over the last three years, high-end competition from Mercedes-Benz, Audi and others has grown, while shaky global finances have kept even the best-heeled car shoppers a bit off balance.Continue reading...