With such brands as Tide, Charmin, and Bounty in its massive brand family of consumer packaged goods, Procter & Gamble has long focused its marketing push toward the mothers of the world. Even now, in a world where the stay-at-home-dad population is growing and U.S. women are heading toward out-earning their husbands, P&G still pays tribute to mom in much of its marketing.

Its current global campaign, called "Thank You Mom," celebrates the mothers of Olympic athletes, and P&G will take some of those women to the Games in London this summer. While we can all agree that moms rock, P&G is smartly taking a break so it can focus on dads, even for a bit. With Father’s Day coming up this weekend, P&G’s Gillette brand launched dad-centric TV ads during the England-France Euro 2012 tie game on Monday.

Gillette's pre-Father's Day U.S. campaign pitch for the spot at top:

Gillette is searching for the greatest fatherly advice ever. Visit us on Facebook, or use #HeresToDad on Twitter between June 7 and 17 to share your dad's words of wisdom. This commercial celebrates Dads everywhere, by recognizing the man behind the athlete...the man behind all of us. "Here's to Dad. The Best a Man Can Get."Continue reading...

Domino's Pizza is thanking its U.S. digital customers for passing the $1 billion mark in digital sales between April 2011 to April 2012 — that's one billion dollars in digital sales in one year, folks — with 50% off all pizzas ordered online at menu price. The deal is available through Dominos.com and mobile.dominos.com, and iPhone and Android apps through Sunday, June 17 (conveniently, also Father's Day).

"We love our online customers, and have learned so much from them during the past five years about how we can continue to deliver the best online ordering experience in the industry," said Russell Weiner, Domino's CMO, in a press release. "Reaching $1 billion in online sales during a one year time period is a major milestone, and we hope offering this amazing deal for an entire week lets our fans and customers know how much we appreciate them."Continue reading...

If you hurry you can still see one way that Ford just keeps on using Facebook for paid advertising even as rival GM has pulled its paid ads (and invested in Manchester United as a way to reach Chinese car-buyers). And next week, you can read a report that presumably will underscore how many advertisers still agree with Ford, not GM.

Ford is currently running ads for Ford-logoed licensed merchandise such as t-shirts and toy cars with the Blue Oval logo that the company just got out of hock. The idea is to promote them for Father's Day, so they're June 1st through 10th in advance of Father's Day on the 17th. The ads — a first for Ford's licensing operations — appear on the right-hand side of Facebook user profiles to visit Ford and motor sports-related FB pages, according to Bloomberg.Continue reading...

JCPenney raised some eyebrows and a few hackles last month when its May online and print flier featured a real-life lesbian couple among various real moms, partners and kids for Mother’s Day.

Now the corporation is giving some equal time to gay men ahead of Father's Day by featuring two real-life dads/partners with their two kids in the retailer's June book. And once again, One Million Moms is up in arms at the same-sex parenting image and urging their followers to boycott JCP stores.

Fearless marketing, alas, hasn't helped the retailer (so far) post better results. JCP, despite refreshing its brand and pricing strategy with a bold new vision in January, lost $163 million and sales went down 20% in the first quarter of 2012.

"Our first 90 days are a little tougher than we expected," CEO Ron Johnson recently told analysts and investors, Ad Age reports. "But the good news is the transformation, from my perspective, is way ahead of schedule. ... We're trying to essentially convert the Titanic into 1,100 WaveRunners."

Trending on YouTube is this heart-warming commercial that Oreo released for Fathers Day — according to Ace Metrix, it's the most effective ad of the week.Continue reading...