Hellmann’s mayonnaise turns 100 this year and its owner, Unilever, is celebrating with the brand’s biggest marketing campaign ever.

"It's part of the culinary heritage of America," said Brian Orlando, Hellmann's senior marketing director, the Associated Press reports. "After 100 years, we decided it was worth going out and revisiting this brand and what it is today."

Unilever is shelling out for TV, print and digital ads for its “Bringing the Best Together” campaign as well as a Facebook page and YouTube videos “featuring chef Mario Batali cooking up Hellmann's recipes, a Smartphone app and a September event that will include the world's largest picnic table,” according to AP. 
Batali has been asked to create 30 recipes that incorporate Hellmann's to be shared via Facebook and the app. The TV ads, however, will focus on founder Richard Hellmann’s New York deli where the brand was first sold.Continue reading...

“Perrier is the sexiest sparkling water you'll ever taste,” according to the 150-year-old brand, which is trying to woo a younger audience with a sexy and sparkling online gaming experience, Perrier Secret Place. 

“Secret Place is an immersive experience with a surprise at every turn, something that will be highly engaging for our target audience. And at a party that goes on for hours, we like to think of Perrier as the drink that can refresh like no other," according to a press release.

It's being marketed as the most high-profile, crazy party experience ever, dispensing clues through the eyes of 60 different characters along with a sweepstakes to win an invitation to one of five mega-parties taking place at Carnival in Rio, Ibiza in Spain, St. Tropez in France, Art Basel in Miami or New Year’s Eve in Sydney, Australia.Continue reading...

Nescafé is turning 75 and promising even more gusto going forward. The grandfather of instant coffee, made by Nestlé, (the name is a portmanteau of the words Nestlé and café) it was introduced in Switzerland, April 1, 1938.

Now (as you can find out in Nestle's anniversary slideshow and Facebook celebration, among other festive touchpoints) more than 5,500 cups of Nescafé are consumed every second in variations catering to taste preferences around the world.

The brand is getting a big boost from the Chinese and Japanese markets and the imminent market availability of new Dolce Gusto systems for coffee pods and premium Nespresso machines. "Nescafe is a big brand with different faces," said CEO Paul Bulcke to Reuters. "Nescafe is growing very well in China, but also in Japan, which is an important market. For example in Asia, Nescafe 3-in-1 sticks with milk and sugar that are ready to be used, are very strong."Continue reading...

Born out of an all-too-common social faux pas in 1961—founder Jean Nidetch was mistakenly congratulated for being pregnant in a supermarket—Weight Watchers is about to turn 50. The original weight-loss brand now operates in about 30 countries with its trademark programs using a science-driven approach to help participants lose weight.

After her supermarket encounter, Nidetch, who weighed 214 pounds at the time, checked into an obesity clinic but became convinced there must be a better way to lose weight. She created a typewritten meal plan and shed 20 pounds in 10 weeks, followed by convening a small group of friends who met regularly to plan out menus to lose weight.Continue reading...

It’s hard to believe that American Express is celebrating its 163rd birthday today, as the iconic brand continues a spry and active presence, pushing boundaries in social media while as fresh and enduring as those half its age. Case in point: its #163candles hashtag on Twitter today.

Just last month, the blue chip brand teamed with that whippersnapper on a social commerce experience that turns Twitter hashtags into purchases. The sync and tweet with #hashtags lets users buy $25 American Express Gift Cards and products from Amazon, Sony, Urban Zen and Xbox 360.

"Based on the initial success of Amex Sync for offers, we know there is significant power in combining our assets with Twitter's platform to bring value to Cardmembers and merchants," said Leslie Berland, SVP Digital Partnerships and Development. "Now, we're leveraging our unique technology and closed-loop network to introduce a seamless solution that redefines what's possible in the world of social commerce."Continue reading...

Harley-Davidson is a modern-day symbol of rebellion and anti-authoritarianism. But over the 110 years of its existence, that hasn’t always been true. Thousands of Harleys were sent along with U.S. troops to World War I and World War II, for instance. 

But somewhere along the way, in the rise of outlaw motorcycle clubs like the Hells Angels, the Harley picked up a brand of rebelliousness — and over time, the company has milked that for all it's worth.

This year, as the company marks its 110th anniversary, it's partnered up with Kid Rock, whom it calls a “legendary musician and ‘American Badass.” For starters, the brand is serving as the sponsor of Kid Rock’s 60-city Rebel Soul tour, which began over the weekend.Continue reading...

Diet Coke was introduced in the US in August 1992 and the following year in the UK and Europe. The brand's UK marketing team is celebrating its British 30th birthday with a bit of a hen party — by bringing back one of its iconic campaigns, the hunk. See the teaser for its new campaign breaking Monday (update: watch it here), and its inspiration (the 1997 "Window Washer" commercial starring Robert Merrill), below.Continue reading...

As rumored late last year, GM is dropping Chevrolet's lackluster "Chevy Runs Deep" slogan and replacing it with a tagline and positioning that the brand's management team believes is more forward-looking and will be more effective: "Find New Roads."

In dumping the introspective "Chevy Runs Deep" tagline — introduced in 2010 with narration by dulcet brand voice Tim Allen, the comedic actor who's also a Michigan native — and adopting a more outward-looking brand positioning, the GM marketing brain trust is taking a number of steps simultaneously.

They're aiming for a new external positioning that can serve more global purposes as "the touchstone for the brand as it devleops new products and technologies for sale in more than 140 markets," according to a GM statement.

Notably, Chevrolet also is adopting "Find New Roads" as an internal rallying cry, an actionable objective for its engineers, marketers and other staffers around the world both for purposes of internal branding and employee engagement in the mission of the brand.

"What we need to do is bring this to life, and it needs to become the thrust of the brand," Alan Batey, GM's interim CMO and its vice president of U.S. sales, service and global marketing, told brandchannel. "That's why the internal alignment is the starting point." External applications of "Find New Roads" will begin globally later in the first quarter, he said.Continue reading...