HTC One, a.k.a. the Facebook Home phone that's coming to AT&T and other carriers, is just one focus of the company’s impending brand refresh and aggressive marketing campaign to get better market placement against competitors like Samsung. 

HTC has been known for good hardware and not-so-good promotion, but squaring off against marketing-savvy Samsung requires the former to up its game. "It's one thing to make a great device—HTC has done that before," Mike Woodward, president of HTC America told the LA Times. "What is a little different this time is the way that we're going to market. We want to really get that down to the streets and get that down to consumers." 

HTC had been using “quietly brilliant” as its slogan, but the brand is looking to step out of its shell with a new marketing message that has “bold,” “authentic” and “playful” themes. The new tagline, "Everything Your Phone Isn't," is courting "Generation Feed" (what HTC calls tech-savvy, early-adopters). "Tech millennials are hard to connect with," Erin McGee, HTC North America VP Marketing told Ad Age. "We wanted to create a closer connection by targeting passion points."Continue reading...

Selfridges has revealed its first batch of unbranded products as part of its month-long "No Noise" quiet shopping promotion.

Ahead of Monday's official launch of the event, the British retailer's Oxford Street flagship in London has unveiled its first collection of de-logofied products in partnership with brands in its food hall a trio of bare labels created by Heinz for its iconic ketchup bottle, baked beans tin and Marmite jar. (Warning: It's a "very limited" collection by Heinz, tweeted Selfridges food and restaurants manager David Jarvis.)

Selfridges grocery section of its food hall is now offering on-the-spot juicing by Juice Club UK, healthy snacks (and a food prescription consultation) from WinNaturally and other "food for thought" as part of the promotion inspired by the store's namesake founder — whose story is coming to British TV on Sunday night, with Jeremy Piven starring as "Mr. Selfridge" in ITV's new period drama series.

Other "No Noise" elements shoppers can check out include free meditation sessions and motion sensor window displays from Headspace, cellphone- and shoe-free shopping, art and (quiet) music performances and other moves to turn down the visual and auditory volume as a minimalist kick-off to the new year.Continue reading...

BMW is taking its Guggenheim Lab cultural collaboration to Mumbai after stops in New York, and Berlin.

The six-year collaboration between the blue chip automaker and the prestigious museum kicked off this past summer in New York. Now the global road show is heading to India to examine the relationship between social behavior and art and cutting to the heart of pressing urban challenges worldwide.

Running from December 9 through January 20, the Mumbai installation — which will be based in the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum — will offer “design projects, participatory studies, tours, talks, workshops, film screenings and cultural activities [that] will address challenges and opportunities related to public space and the choices Mumbaikars make to balance individual and community needs.”Continue reading...

When 12-year-old Claudia Kincaid and her 9-year-old brother Jamie decide to run away in 1967’s The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, they head off to New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they sleep in a big, antique bed and they make money from the coins tourists throw into the fountains. 

If the fictional pair were to hit the road today, they might want to head to the headquarters of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide in Stamford, Connecticut. That is where the company has opened its new two-level Starwood Experience, an open idea lab that might also appeal to another young hotel lover (Eloise). The showcase invites visitors to check out what’s coming next in a few “next generation model guest rooms,” according to a press release. (Certainly this would feel better than the old lumpy antique bed at the Met.) 

The idea is to test out new innovations in two- and three-dimensional design, guest-facing technology, brand programming, event activation in public spaces, and food and beverage initiatives for such Starwood hotel brands as Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridien, Aloft, Element and Four Points by Sheraton.
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Coca-Cola continues its Coke Zero marketing tie-in for the upcoming James Bond movie release/brandstravaganza with a London promo that turned London commuters into 007, for 70 heart-pounding seconds, all for the chance to win Skyfall tickets:Continue reading...

Kellogg’s is crossing two bridges at once, bringing its successful Special K Cracker Chips across the pond to the UK, where they're called (in local parlance) Special K Cracker Crisps, and using social currency in the form of tweets to pay for the savory treats.

Special K’s London pop-up, The Tweet Shop (a play on the classic British "sweet shop") is seeking tweets with the Twitter hashtag #tweetshop in return for a box of its new Cracker Crisps. That's what Kellogg's UK is billing as its ‘healthy brand of crisps (potato chips) that don't use potatoes’ and come in three flavors: sea salt and balsamic vinegar, sweet chilli and sour cream and onion and usually sell for $1 a pack.Continue reading...

Pepsi Canada took a big risk back in 1976 when it challenged consumers to a blind taste test, hoping that they’d not only top rival Coke but also that some of those folks who generally purchased Coca-Cola would surprise themselves and choose Pepsi.

Well, it worked then and the company hopes that it will keep on working this summer. PepsiCo Beverages Canada has announced that it is touring the nation this summer to administer the test to 1.5 million consumers at more than 1,000 events across the land.

With all this energy being thrown into it, Pepsi has gone ahead and renamed the promotion the Pepsi Ultimate Taste Challenge, which makes one wonder how they can possibly top that in the future.

Since 1976, the company has given nine million taste tests and this summer’s taste tests will feature the use of new technology, more than a thousand local events, and tricked-out semi-trailer crossing the country.Continue reading...

Burberry has shown off its ability to use digital technology to spread its brand name around in the past by hosting live 3-D streams of Burberry fashion shoes, allowing in-store customers to shop from tablets, and creating animated GIFs of how different collections look.

But the iconic British trench coat maker has outdone itself with the grand opening of the brand’s largest store in the Asia Pacific. For its latest opening, this week in Taipei, the brand's digital maestros made it (virtually) rain for the launch of Burberry World Live.Continue reading...