IDEA: Chipotle has won scores of ad awards and legions of fans with its gorgeous animations and haunting soundtracks. Now, the burrito chain is getting even more ambitious with a longer format and a whole new tone—launching a satirical scripted comedy show on Hulu humorously attacking the evil ogre of industrial farming.
Are brands the new celebrity weeklies? A tweet announcing the news and first pic of the birth of pop singer Kevin Jonas' daughter came not from People or OK! Magazine but a non-media source altogether: the detergent maker Dreft. The Jonas Brothers singer and his wife Danielle teamed up with the Procter & Gamble brand to reveal exclusive content on their baby's arrival that was delivered via Dreft's Facebook and Twitter handles.
Despite grumbling from some quarters that the Discovery series Moonshiners—which shines the camera light on the bootleggers of backwoods Appalachia—is a dramatization, one component of the show just got real: Tim Smith, the series’ bibbed-overall-wearing star, has gone into retail. Prost Beverage has inked a deal with Smith to sell his booze under the name Climax.
Digital video technology has gotten user-friendlier by leaps and bounds in the recent past, with the exception of download-to-own stores plagued with spotty authentication, kludgy interfaces and frustrated consumers who couldn’t take their content from device to device. But it’s getting better. In 2012, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment took steps to streamline its Digital HD offerings and push out digitally owned copies of its films weeks ahead of traditional DVD and Blu-ray releases, and at lower prices than it’d been asking for. Competitors have followed suit.
It was Albert Einstein who said “The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” He was talking about relativity, of course, but just hold the thought for a moment. In case you haven’t looked up from your iPhone lately, an unusual countertrend has crept into our gadget-obsessed world. It’s one that acknowledges the fact that even as we embrace the latest technology, there’s something inside many of us that misses the look and feel of the old stuff.
Janette Yauch, Charmin’s brand manager, is meeting this week with marketers for sister Procter & Gamble brand Duracell to brainstorm how to charge up popularity around the battery’s smartphone app. In the packaged-goods world, Yauch’s word might as well be gospel since her brand’s SitOrSquat app found a strong female following among seekers of clean public rest rooms. A basic tip Yauch plans to share: “You have to think like your users.” More importantly, you have to have a hell of an idea, agreed industry observers.
QuizUp is among the fastest-growing apps on the iPhone, and it barely spent a penny on marketing. That’s rare for a game industry that invests to boost app rankings and push installs. But QuizUp has become more than a game. It’s a trivia-driven social network, one in which niche audiences challenge each other on all manner of topics. Communities are forming around hundreds of categories, and they communicate by messenger and message boards. CEO Thor Fridriksson says the trivia is addictive and the social component is cohesive—which means brands want in. And his ultimate aspiration?
In retrospect, it was over before it started, but Super Bowl XLVIII still managed to draw more viewers than any other broadcast in U.S. television history. According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast delivered an average 111.5 million viewers, besting the previous record holder set by NBC in 2012 by the slimmest of margins.
Well, this looks like a first. Kevin Jonas, a member of pop group Jonas Brothers, and his wife, Danielle Jonas, evidently signed a deal with Dreft to let it introduce their baby girl to the world on Twitter.
The debate over net neutrality in Washington is just getting started. Just days after President Obama pledged during a Google+ hangout that he supported net neutrality, Democrats rallied in Congress to put some legislation behind his words. Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.), ranking member of the House commerce committee, Rep. Anna Eshoo (Calif.) and Sen.
