Beyoncé is beyond busy. Following her Pepsi-sponsored Super Bowl halftime show, she presented an award at the Grammys with Ellen Degeneres, she's the cover girl for the March issue of Vogue, she did an interview with Oprah Winfrey and her documentary aired on HBO, not to mention that her "Mrs. Carter World Tour" is almost upon us, kicking off in Belgrade in April and reaching the U.S. in late June. 

The star posted a Warhol-inspired ad to her Facebook page (which has over 43 million likes!) and can be seen striking three poses, highlighting her much-talked about new bleached blonde hair. The caption, in a nod to her soda sponsor's "Live for Now" tagline and the 60's inspiration: "Pop Art inspires me to Live for NOW."

In another made-for-social promo image, Pepsi's $50 million girl channels Monroe and Bardot, clad in a pair of teeny shorts and a tight-fitting white turtleneck. The ads, which promote her upcoming Pepsi-sponsored tour have come under some fire for portraying the vocal star with a visibly fairer complexion.Continue reading...

JCPenney, seemingly a permanent fixture in the news these days, seeks to push past the negative financial and branding headlines and tap into customer experience with their new pop-up shops, which will hopefully garner appeal from designer collaborations. 

The store, which is currently embroiled in a high-stakes trial with Macy's and Martha Stewart over product licenses, has had a rough time since CEO Ron Johnson took over a year ago. The brand's "no markdown" strategy backfired, and word on the street is that employee morale has hit an all-time low at the company's Plano, Texas headquarters. 

However, the company had a moment during the Oscars broadcast. The new campaign, a series of commercials introducing JCP’s latest brand partnerships expanded on last year's rebranding campaign with Ellen DeGeneres. It also boosted activity on Facebook and Twitter, rewarding some followers with gift certificates.

Now, with the success of shop-in-shop brands like Sephora, MNG by Mango, Levi's Denim Bar and Liz Claiborne, the retailer is adding more designers to its in-store boutique lineup and plans to expand to home goods later this spring. Each brand will have their own design aesthetic within their individual shop.

With its in-store designer additions, J.C. Penney joins Target, Macy's (now battling JCP in court over Martha Stewart) and Bloomingdale's as the latest department store to experiment with boutique-style shops. In fact, JCP is stealing from Target's playbook with a new exclusive home goods collection by American architect Michael Graves—Target's first designer partnership, which launched in 1999 and produced a whopping 2,000 items—and Justin Timberlake's William Rast collection, which launched as a Target exclusive in 2010.

Other upcoming JCPenney designer collaborations include in-store boutiques for Happy Chic by Jonathan Adler, Designs by Conran, Watchgear by Tourneau, Carters and Giggles. Here's a look at the in-store boutiques now hitting its stores:Continue reading...

Little do the stars know, by the time it comes to Oscars night, the most important performances are on the little screen, not the big one.

During the "Super Bowl of the entertainment industry" on Sunday evening, the ABC telecast of the Oscars, Hyundai and a handful of other advertisers will be leveraging the big stage in big ways for their brands. The prospect of the largest TV audience for the Academy Awards in several years would make achieving their goals easier.

Hyundai, for instance, will be running seven commercials during the telecast—the most of any advertiser—and it has the sole automotive rights to the automotive ad category during the show. Keeping with the show biz theme, it's fitting that Hyundai's voiceover talent is, once again, its longstanding brand voice: Academy Award-winner Jeff Bridges. At a time when Hyundai continues to dimensionalize the brand along both luxury and performance lines, the Oscars are at least as important a forum for the carmaker as for any actor or director.

"We're bullish on the chances for ratings this year, with the combination of films that were critically acclaimed and that also did big box office," Steve Shannon, CMO for Hyundai of America, told brandchannel. "We just like the feel of the Oscars."Continue reading...

Many politicians, actors and sports stars have experienced an annus horribilis. But when it comes to corporate CEOs, few have ever had as bad a year as Ron Johnson of JCPenney.

It's been about a year since the former Apple retailing executive blew into Penney's headquarters in Dallas believing that he had a secret formula that would do even more than rescue the company from its threatened place in the nation's retailing industry. Eager to start a "retail revolution," Johnson sought to simplify the company's structure and re-program the American consumer's attitude toward store pricing, discounting and promotional tactics.

A year ago today, at a splashy two-day press event in New York, Johnson outlined his vision for transforming the 110-year-old department-store chain over four years through "Fair and Square" pricing as part of a rebranding and repositioning for the company. But it's not working.Continue reading...

Most of America’s top-rated restaurants are run by male chefs, yet cooking is still conventionally considered to be something that women are more interested in than men. So where do these guys come from, anyway? Where did they keep themselves out of sight all their lives before getting their Michelin stars?

Well, one young fella who likely hopes to be on that list someday isn’t hiding himself away anymore. Four-year-old Gavyn Boscio of New Jersey has been thrown into the limelight this holiday season thanks to a hue and cry raised by his sister, 13-year-old McKenna Pope.

Gavyn would like to have an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas but he told his family that knows that “only girls” cook. So Pope is lobbying Easy-Bake’s manufacturer, Hasbro, to not market the product exclusively to girls.

The least they could do, she says on her Change.org petition that has been signed by more than 40,000 people, is to put a boy or two on the packaging and offer it in a color other than pink or purple.Continue reading...

"1. Place fries and seasoning into the bag; 2. Seal the bag tightly and shake it like Psy’s "Gangnam Style."; 3. Open the bag and enjoy your fries."

Those are the instructions — translated from Malaysian — along the bottom of a McDonald's French fries bag.

Korean performer Psy — responsible for the K-pop video "Gangnam Style" that has become a global phenomenon, the #2 song in America and the most-liked video in YouTube history (take that, "Call Me Maybe") — tweeted a photo of the bag with the message, "They know how to do it Malaysia~!!!!! LOL."

An excellent viral campaign by McDonald's ... except it wasn't.Continue reading...

Just watching the video for Korean artist Psy's "Oppa Gangnam Style" is not going to cut it — you have to learn the dance and post your version online. That's helped the K-Pop video — with its catchy, pony-riding, wrist-crossing, hip-dangling dance — become a major global phenomenon.

The original video is now clocking in over 166 million views on YouTube, and has sparked hundreds, if not thousands, of Gangnam Style parodies and giving the cottage industry in Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" spoofs a run for the money.

Now, marketers are starting to take notice. In what might be the first instance of product placement in a Gangnam parody, Thai airline Nok Air has popped up in local spoof "Kamnam Style."Continue reading...

If Amy Sedaris pitching Downy in a perky new campaign rings a bell, it's because celebrities have been sudsing up for brands since the early days of Hollywood. Think back to the golden days of radio, when Jack Benny plugged Jello in his opening line, "Jello, everybody, this is Jack Benny," and Bob Hope promoted Pepsodent toothpaste. And in the early days of television, George Burns and Gracie Allen peddled Carnation Milk, Groucho Marx touted Prom Shampoo and Ozzie and Harriett shilled for Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix. Before he was President, Ronald Reagan stumped for Chesterfield cigarettes.

In today’s world of 24/7 social media, celebrity endorsement, backing and entrepreneurship (from Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop to Jessica Alba's Honest Company) have reached new digital platforms. This week Stamped, a mobile app and website that lets people share reviews of anything they like, announced new celebrity backers including Justin Bieber, Ryan Seacrest and Ellen DeGeneres, and investments from Columbia Records, Eric Schmidt and The New York Times Company, bringing its financing to over $3 million.Continue reading...