Joel Thomas Zimmerman has a knack for drawing attention to himself. The house-music icon better known as deadmau5 sports a colorful and massive mouse head at live events, and dates the equally outrageous actress/model/tattoo artist Kat Von D has a way of helping the 31-year-old Canadian do such a thing.

And Nokia is happy to take advantage of his ability. Last November, he flew to London to rev up the crowds with a live music and 4D light projection show on London’s Millbank Tower to help promote the company’s Lumia 800. The show was projected onto big screens in six other English cities and live-streamed for those around the globe who wanted to pay attention. Now get ready for more deadmau5 x Nokia fun with another streaming show from London tonight.Continue reading...

McDonald's UK is promoting its limited-time Festive Menu with a holiday campaign featuring "the charming story of a postman — in many ways the modern Santa Claus — who braves the elements to deliver festive joy to the British public. After a tough day's work, he rewards himself for his efforts with a delicious Winter Warmer and some banter with his workmates." Watch it below:Continue reading...

Conventional wisdom in recent months has had it that the video-game-console business is a dying one. Even though it still brings in big bucks, the culture is changing and people are playing games in different ways thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices and smartphones.

As noted by the New York Times, Nintendo — one of the game-console industry’s biggest names — really needs the new Wii U, a combo of a more audacious Wii and a tabletish gamepad that allows for multiscreen gaming adventures, to be a mega-hit. And it is looking like the company's launch campaign is paying off. Video game retailer GameStop opened 3,000 of its stores Friday at midnight to kick off Black Friday and promptly sold out of all of its Wii U consoles, the Times reports.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America subsequently told the NYT that the new console is selling in the U.S. as well as the original Wii did when it launched. More than 400,000 units flew out of stores in its first week on the market, which ended Saturday. The original Wii had sold 475,000 in that same time. “We are essentially sold out at retail,” Fils-Aime said. “As soon as we replenish product to retailers, it sells out immediately.”Continue reading...

In-N-Out Burger caused a "frenzy" last month when it popped up with a stealth five-hour pop-up in London. Now Five Guys, the US burger chain so-named in honor of the male half of the founding couple and their four sons, is about to make its first foray out of North America and into the UK, and it's planning to stick around a little longer.

The word from UK's Marketing magazine is that Five Guys, which has a thousand locations in the U.S. and Canada, is expanding to the UK thanks to a deal that Five Guys has made with Sir Charles Dunstone, the founder of Carphone Warehouse.

The plan is for Dunstone to open a few Five Guys in the UK next year with the first of them being a flagship store in London. And no, Barack Obama's beloved Five Guys won't rebrand as "Five Chaps" for its UK arrival, and we doubt they'll start calling their menu's mainstay "burgers and chips."Continue reading...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg isn’t the only leader of a major city who is trying to get his constituents to be a little healthier. After all, the United States Conference of Mayors shelled out some bucks back in 2009 to produce an online guide to help its members fight childhood obesity. 

But the fight isn’t limited to just America. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is targeting the fast-food joints in his city to get a bit healthier. Johnson apparently isn’t happy with his legacy being only about that he was the guy who happened to be at the helm when the Olympics came to town. 

Nope. Johnson is ready to follow in Bloomberg’s footsteps. Back in June, when Bloomberg announced that he wanted to limit the amount of soda New Yorkers could buy in one cup, Johnson wrote, "where New York leads, London is not far behind,” the Standard reports. Now he’s making his move. The Mayor’s London Food Board partnered with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health to create a Takeaways Toolkit in an attempt to help “fast food takeaways … make their food healthier,” according to Fresh Business Thinking.Continue reading...

It’s been about two and a half years since nearly 5 million barrels of crude oil was dumped into the Gulf of Mexico as the result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the owners of that particular well – BP – would love it if the world would just forget about the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry.

Now a key piece has been settled with its $4.5 billion fine, the energy giant is returning to full-on “advertising (in the UK) next year with a campaign showcasing the contribution the company makes to society,” as Marketing Magazine reports. The corporate citizenship-themed push will note its cultural partnerships with the London Royal Opera House and the British Museum as well as its sponsorship of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

Even while the oil was gushing into the Gulf, BP spent nearly $100 million on advertising, CNN reports, three times the amount of cash it had laid out in the same time period the previous year. BP claimed that the increase was partially due to ads it bought in the Gulf Coast region to inform people there about the recovery effort.Continue reading...

A few years ago, UGG was stomping all over its competitors, but these days, the Australian company is just dancing as fast it can to keep consumers buying.

Yes, there are still queues at the UGG store in New York's Soho district, but that's mostly among tourists, which is why the brand is opening in the trendier Meatpacking district, joining Patagonia and Lululemon in cozying up to crowds at the Standard Hotel and upmarket retailers such as Jeffrey in a bid to woo higher-end shoppers.

The brand sparked a sheepskin boot craze more than a decade ago, and while it's trying to shore up its US business with a new commercial featuring brand ambassador Tom Brady ("Pink Slip," above) and a new store aimed at men, its popularity persists in markets such as the UK, where this month, the company is opening its seventh concept store and working hard to woo kids of all ages.Continue reading...

The British Broadcasting Corporation went live on the airwaves with its first radio news bulletins on Nov. 14, 1922. The top news that day: a train robbery and the notorious London fog. The BBC is still an institution, even as the venerable broadcaster is gripped by an ethics scandal, as it marks the 90th anniversary of that first transmission by making another bit of history.

To mark the occasion, BBC Radio broadcast a three-minute collage from Blur frontman Damon Albarn, 2LO Calling, named for the first transmitter used in 1922. It played on every BBC radio channel at 5.33pm GMT simultaneously, reaching more than 80 million listeners on 55 radio stations, the broadcaster's first simulcast since that first transmission.

"The first broadcast by the 2LO 90 years ago marked the moment when radio moved from the realm of the 'amateur enthusiast' to the first proper public broadcasting service in Britain,” said Tim Boon, head of research and public history at London's Science Museum, which is hosting an exhibition about the anniversary that features the device.Continue reading...