Boston Beer Takes a Big Hit

America’s drinkers are putting down their Sam Adams. Its brewer, Boston Beer Co., which has gotten a bit of press recently for putting in a trademark request for Boston Strong 26.2 Brew in the wake of the bombings at the Boston Marathon, announced its quarterly earnings Wednesday and they were not good. The company earned 51 cents per share in this year’s first quarter, “down almost 9 percent from a year earlier and well below the 62 cents a share expected by analysts,” CNN reports.

That news sent shares of the country’s top craft brewer down almost 11 percent Thursday. Their spot at the top of the heap is hurting them, the company said, as consumers are turning their tongues to other smaller craft brews that are on their way up.Continue reading...

DreamWorks acquires Awesomeness TV, a YouTube teen network.

Walmart retools e-commerce and mobile.

Facebook says 30 percent of revenue now comes from mobile ads.

Boeing moves to upgrade popular 777 passenger jet.

Bud Light launches Music First initiative.

CBS scores big from Super Bowl ad revenues.

Cablevision adds Glenn Beck's network.

Del Taco emphasizes freshness of its food in campaign.

Disney rethinks role in Bangladesh supply after building collapse and deaths.Continue reading...

Miller Lite is turning to an old page in its playbook, with a new gang of celebrities designed to boost the flagging brew in a fresh slate of TV commercials served up on another iconic platter for the franchise, "Miller Time." The new go-to guys for Miller Lite include Vince Vaughn, Ken Jeong, Chuck Liddell and Questlove.

But interestingly, Miller brand managers say that their new campaign (watch below) will not seek to trade too heavily on the appeal or persona of any one of its new stable of celebrity pitch people. One ad wonders what it would be like to hang out with actor Jeong, who will star in the upcoming Hangover Part III—but he's self-deprecating in the spot.

"Celebrity is not our strategy," Con Williamson, chief creative officer at Saatchi & Saatchi, the agency behind the campaign, told Ad Age. "Our strategy is solely focused on Miller Time." That, of course, will leave Miller strategically opposed to the growing number of tight tie-ups between beverage brands and individual celebrities, including Justin Timberlake and Bud Light Platinum, Taylor Swift and Diet Coke, and Beyonce and Pepsi.Continue reading...

In addition to new campaigns for Ford's "Hello Again" music project for the Lincoln brand and Kraft's "We are the World"-like music video for its Miracle Whip dressing during the Grammy Awards telecast on CBS, a host of other brands used the post-Super Bowl platform to make some noise.

Anheuser Busch InBev's Bud Light Platinum debuted its new new campaign by its new "creative director," Justin Timberlake, while Target also used the Grammys to kick off its tie-in with the singer's new album and promote its tie-ins with singer Pink and fashion designer Prabal Gurung:Continue reading...

The list reads like a Who’s Who of A-list celebrities: Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Victoria Beckham, Swizz Beatz, will.i.am. But it's not a concert bill.

Instead, it's a list of stars who have recently agreed to serve as creative directors for brands — a trend that seems to blur the lines between star bling and business acumen.

Bud Light Platinum is the latest, announcing this week that it's inked deal with Justin Timberlake “to provide creative, musical and cultural curation for the brand.” The collaboration is to debut at Sunday’s 55th Grammy Awards via an ad, "Platinum Night," which features his latest single, "Suit & Tie." "Bud Light Platinum brings a refined, discerning aesthetic to beer that plays well with what I'm doing," Timberlake stated in a press release.Continue reading...

Scrambling to get their teams on the field as kickoff nears, the drum beat from brands getting ready for the upcoming Super Bowl continues:

MilkPEP is going long with its plans to run its first ever TV commercial—a 30-second spot for its "Got Milk?" campaign—during the Big Game on February 3. Consumption of fluid milk in the U.S. continues to drop even as Americans keep eating more cheese and yogurt, so MilkPEP, the Milk Processor Education Program funded by the nation's dairy companies, is producing a spot featuring Dwayne Johnson, known as the Rock. He goes a long way to get his kids to have milk for their breakfast cereal.

This group has some branding chops, including the long-running campaign that adds milk mustaches to the upper lips of celebrities in print ads and includes its iconic slogan. But as the New York Times notes, until now, its Super Bowl marketing participation has been confined to running newspaper ads before or after the game.

It's also partnering with the National Dairy Council and the NFL, including New York Giants star receiver Victor Cruz, to get kids to eat better and be more active, under the league's Fuel Up to Play 60 campaign.

In addition to joining forces with Pepsi for a bigger Super Bowl retail push, Budweiser has unveiled more of its plans for its six Super Bowl ads. In addition to debuting a new Budweiser Black Crown brand — a higher-alcohol, more upscale version of Bud aimed at evening consumption — AB InBev will be plugging new beer brand Beck's Sapphire. It also will bring back the venerable Clydesdales, the iconic giant horses that have been associated with Bud for decades.Continue reading...

Purchasing for Super Bowl parties just got easier. Two CPG behemoths are boosting their brands' cooperation in the retail store using the upcoming Super Bowl as a way to generate unprecedented synergies from in-store marketing.

PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev will put Bud Light and Pepsi together for the first time under the new effort, which AB InBev internally called a "National Big Bet," according to Ad Age. The companies previously had paired AB InBev drinks with PepsiCo-owned snack brands such as Doritos and Lay's, but not beverages.

As official Super Bowl sponsors — and Budweiser's Bud Light the official beer of the NFL — the respective beverage giants are hoping the co-branded in-store signage will woo shoppers in the days leading up to America's Biggest Snacking Occasion.

The co-branded marketing materials reportedly include display signs showing two bags of Doritos, two bottles of Pepsi and two bottles of Bud Light along with the Super Bowl logo and the slogan, "Super Bowl. Super Team. Super Party."Continue reading...

With the Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans just seven weeks away, more brands are announcing and making their decisions about TV spots and about the ever-broadening advertising environment around the Big Game. CBS is working to sell the last handful of spots for the broadcast of Super Bowl XLVII from New Orleans, and Ad Age reports that ad packages are going for an average of $3.7 million to $3.8 million. A few of the latest:

MillerCoors is sneaking through the back door into the Super Bowl using a tactic that other advertisers, including auto brands, have used over the years: buying up regional and local TV time. In the brewer's case, it has purchased time during the game on local TV stations in the Great Lakes and Southeast for a 15-second ad for Redd's Apple Ale, an apple-flavored malt beverage that it began testing over the summer, Ad Age reports. MillerCoors can't do national Super Bowl buys because Anheuser-Busch InBev is the exclusive beer sponsor of the NFL, meaning it gets to bring back its Bud Light Hotel to the Big Easy among other cross-promotion around the game.Continue reading...