More Coke and Diet Coke Oscar Spots: "Calories" and "Hunk"

More spots to come as they become available online.

Diet Coke Oscars Spot

Mtn Dew's Breakfast Drink, Kickstart, to Get Massive Marketing Push

via adage.com

New Beverage Aims to Give Millennials a Morning Pick-Me-Up

Mtn Dew is looking to jump-start its new morning beverage, Kickstart, with a massive marketing campaign, including paid media, PR and a robust sampling effort.

A national television campaign -- which, based on the creative, seems aimed at a demographic of millennial guys -- is set to launch Feb. 25. Ad Age has learned that the spot focuses on the idea of "Chasing Sunrise," showing an all-male cast making their way through the morning. Omnicom Group's BBDO is the agency handling creative for the brand.

Emily Silver, marketing director at Mtn Dew, called the Kickstart launch "big and strategic." She said parent company PepsiCo is looking to give the fledgling brand a "strong push out of the gate," by focusing on spending up front.

"This is a much bigger push than we've put behind one thing for Dew as long as I've been on the brand," said Ms. Silver, who began working on Mtn Dew about two years ago. "This is an opportunity to drive some loyalty by putting out a comprehensive, differentiated morning solution."

In addition to TV, there are plans for radio spots, as well as out-of-home in key markets like New York, Chicago and Orlando. A partnership with ESPN's "Mike & Mike" show will include a radio spot, product placement during the show and a text-to-win promotion. And plans are in place for a five-month sampling tour, with teams expected to hand out more than 2 million samples.

"We want to get the name out there," Ms. Silver said. "We're confident in our testing, confident that once people try this, repeat will be strong."

Enterprising millennials and die-hard Mtn Dew fans have long blended the citrus soda with juice for a morning pick-me-up. Case in point: Taco Bell, which last summer introduced Mtn Dew A.M., a blend of the soda and Tropicana orange juice. Ms. Silver said company research showed that almost half of millennials are looking for a boost in the mornings, but they don't necessarily want a full-powered energy drink. So, they've been fickle, bouncing between juice, coffee, soda and energy drinks.

That led Mtn Dew to begin testing a morning beverage in April of last year. Kickstart was not tested in market. The product going into market later this month comes in two flavors, Orange Citrus and Fruit Punch. Both have 80 calories per 16-oz. can and combine the taste and carbonation of Mtn Dew with 5% fruit juice and a dose of caffeine.

Brands Brace for Deluge of New Domains in April

via adweek.com

The launch of hundreds of new top-level domains, such as dot-app, dot-music, even dot-sucks, is only two months away, and skittish advertisers are bracing for a return to the Web's Wild West days.

"It's going to be a bigger budget item for brand owners," warned Joanne Ludovici, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm that represents brands and domain name registries. "It will be expensive and chaotic."

To protect trademarks from squatters and phishers, the International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has a trademark clearinghouse and a rapid suspension system. But that gives advertisers little assurance since they must then pre-emptively register millions of second-level domain names.

In the last few weeks, the Association of National Advertisers and more than 60 companies, including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Time Warner, Microsoft and General Mills, have sent comments to Icann that call for a limited preventative registration (LPR). For a fee, the LPR would enable companies to block registration of their trademarks across all Internet domain registries.

Such a provision, however, would take time, and Icann CEO Fadi Chehadé "remains focused" on the April rollout.

Without added protections, advertisers fear the worst. But in the end, it could be consumers who suffer the most if they can't trust or find a brand name on the Internet.

Pepsi the latest major brand to post "Harlem Shake"

Will You Sing For a Free Coke?

We’ve seen YouTube videos of Coca-Cola offering you a free coke by doing different things like hugging and dancing with the vending machine in the past.  Most recently we’ve even seen a video where thirsty consumers are told to accept a James Bond-like mission to get a free bottle of pop.  Now they have asked you to sing for a free Coca-Cola.  See the video above where students in Sweden sing karaoke to a Coca-Cola vending machine during the holidays.

The question is, why is Coca-Cola offering so many drinks for free?  What do they get out of giving away so many bottles of Coca-Cola?  Aside from the free media and overall feel-good behavior that these activities generate, it falls right in line with their tagline “Open Happiness”.  Notice that all these events take place in a collectivistic setting where many people gather together (school, train station, mall), so it can bring enjoyment to everyone.  The fact that these activities are recorded allows for online sharing indicate that it can bring even more joy for those that cannot immediately participate.  These vending machine videos entrenches the message that every time you are consuming a Coca-Cola beverage, you are feeling gratification.  It is also accepted by society since everyone else is smiling and feeling the same way you are.

What is also curious to note is that all these initiatives originated in Europe and Asia.  Will these media-generating activities happen in Canada and the United States?  From a business standpoint, maybe in the United States more than in Canada.  Vending machines typically don’t offer a strong investment return unless it is in a high traffic area and Canada does not have too many high traffic locations.  Consider this similar to the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, where they are more easily found in the U.S. than here.  These units must be placed in high traffic and high visibility locations in order to generate enough sales and/or media buzz.  And culture-wise, North American culture celebrates individualism more than collectivism.  That also play a role in determining whether these types of activities are imported.  While hugging, dancing, or singing are not culture-specific, the setting in which these activities take place are.  Singing and dancing in public are much less common here than in Europe.  People may also be less likely to do these things in public for fear of embarrassment.

This means that though the message of “Open Happiness” stays the same in North America as in Europe or Asia, the communication to deliver this message is different everywhere.  In the meantime, we can always look forward to these types of social engagement activities on the web.

via bevwire

AXE: ASTRONAUT VALENTINE'S

Follow up spot from the Super Bowl advertisement--via Creativity-Online


Axe continues its "Astronauts are the best" theme, launched pre-Super Bowl to promote the Unilever brand's Apollo variant and accompanying contest, which will send 22 lucky people up to space. The latest edition, timed perfectly for Valentine's Day, features the astronaut's girlfriend presenting him with a beautifully wrapped gift -- but did he remember to get one for her?

At least, we think it's a him. As we reported earlier this week, women are entering the bro-centric marketing contest -- and winning. We can't wait to see who is under that space helmet.

Robin Williams Is TV's Next Brilliant Ad Agency Chief

Dan Wieden. David Ogilvy. Phil Dusenberry. Mork from Ork?


Count CBS among those TV networks drawn to the premise of a show set in the world of advertising. The Tiffany network has ordered a pilot called "The Crazy Ones," a half-hour comedy from David E. Kelley about a father (Robin Williams) and his daughter who run an ad agency. It's true, a pilot is just a test, and the proposed show may never make it to the screen, but the very fact that CBS -- home to many of the nation's most watched TV programs -- is interested only underscores the ongoing fascination TV outlets have with shows about the ad world.

Is this a nod to the success of AMC's much-lionized drama "Mad Men"? A squint at that network's reality show "The Pitch"? Or is it simply the latest example of TV's decades-old focus on the industry that feeds it? We've seen ad-industry antics on the boob tube before, ranging from Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari as cross-dressing ad execs on ABC's "Bosom Buddies" to the fabled ad firm of McMann and Tate in "Bewitched."

Some ad shows, of course, simply don't get off the ground. Time Warner's TNT attempted to launch "Trust Me," about a creative/art team at an ad firm and starring Eric McCormack from "Will & Grace," didn't last long.

We suspect "The Crazy Ones" will nod to advertising, perhaps about as much as "Just Shoot Me," set at the fictional fashion magazine Blush, reflected publishing. But this is CBS, home to "The Big Bang Theory" and "2 Broke Girls," so you might expect to see more of the network's trademark raunchy humor than anything else.

BREAKING COMPETITIVE ALERT!

A spot for Diet Pepsi was shown at the Grammys as well featuring Sofia Vergara.

BREAKING COMPETITIVE ALERT!

During the Grammys last weekend, Pepsi ran six spots that they had been hyping up since the Super Bowl in addition to sponsoring the "Best New Artist" award category. Below are three of the spots just released today.