The upcoming re-imagined Great Gatsby 3D has a slew of roaring '20s brands going along for the ride. Moet & Chandon and MAC Cosmetics are listed among the film's partners in its official "Guide to Style." As is New York's Plaza Hotel, which will "celebrate the Roaring `20s with period-inspired affairs throughout the spring," while Brooks Brothers has released a special Gatsby collection. While not listed in the film's official style guide, Prada has its own major partnership and Gatsby-inpired line. Tiffany & Co. has embraced its tie-in as well.

But one needn't be at entertainment's high-end to grab a fashion line tie-in. Clothing brand Opening Ceremony partnered with Spring Breakers to release a line based on the exploitation film: "Accessories include unicorn bandanas, mesh backpacks, lighters, cotton beach towels, 'HARMONY' friendship bracelets, and 'SPRING BREAK 4EVER BITCHES' wristbands."

It's all part of a booming product placement business that grew 11.7 percent in 2012 and promises to get bigger this year.Continue reading...

"Whenever Stark hangs up his suit, the technically-adept billionaire can be seen in the film behind the wheel of the all-electric R8 e-tron sports car prototype," reads the Audi press release announcing the brand's partnership with the upcoming Iron Man 3.

Iron Man's alter ego, Tony Stark, was last seen driving an Acura NSX roadster in 2012's The Avengers. In Iron Man (2008) and Iron Man 2 (2010), Stark drove Audi R8s. A spokesman at Acura's parent company, Honda, told Bloomberg that its role as the official vehicle of SHIELD (and the brand's relationship with Marvel) remain "unchanged."

"This is a strategic collaboration for us," said Loren Angelo, a marketing executive with Audi of America. "Similar to the position of the R8 as an innovation leader, Iron Man's character consistently evolved throughout the trilogy as he masterminds new trends."

In addition to swapping Stark's Acura for an Audi S7 in the third installment, Audi's Iron Man 3 deal will go beyond the R8 e-tron.Continue reading...

When an ad for a cookie contains a "Do Not Attempt" disclaimer, you know you've got marketing gold. 

As the Super Bowl went dark for nearly half an hour, the Oreo employees tasked with handling the brand’s social media during the game went quickly to work and came out with a tweet that won the company major kudos. “Power out?” it asked. “No problem. You can dunk in the dark.”

Oreo has since been showing its social strength, launching a “Cookie vs. Crème” debate on Instagram that encourages consumers to post images that lets the world know which side they fall on. That battle also raged on its Twitter and Facebook pages and is now being followed up on the brand’s YouTube page with a series featuring four inventors who have created “high-tech, robotic-like machines that divides the two for maximum cookie enjoyment,” Mashable reports.

The first inventor to be featured is physicist David Neevel, who explains his position in a monotone while his Rube Goldberg-esque machine gets the separating done. The following three inventors will each be introduced to the world in the next two weeks. The hope is to not only create a hunger for the cookie but for the brand to add some YouTube followers as well. "We are continuously looking at YouTube as a means to share Oreo video content to keep our fans engaged and excited," Janda Lukin, Brand Director for Oreo at Mondelez, told Mashable.

The YouTube channel, which has about 9,500 followers, has got some catching up to do. Oreo’s Facebook page has 32 million likes and its Twitter page has more than 77,000 followers. Of course the YouTube numbers could follow what happened to Oreo’s Instagram followers, which went from 2,200 before the Super Bowl to 87,000 after the game ended. Touchdown! Continue reading...

The brand that's arguably "the most important James Bond product placement of all time" has a new website. But more than that, iconic firearm maker Walther  has a whole new brand challenge as it begins a marketing life free from its former import partner, Smith and Wesson, after the latter called Walther a "shrinking piece of business," with revenues dropping from $44 million in 2010 to $32 million two years later.

But the 130-year-old brand best known for arming James Bond will continue its manufacturing partnerships with S&W. It's a deal that may make brand differentiation a problem in a marketplace that, while booming, is full of extremely discerning, picky consumers.Continue reading...

With the debris settled after the latest James Bond success, it seems that all of the bellyaching about Heineken's role in the film was about nothing. Daniel Craig as Bond reclines and sips a green bottle here and there, the label never visible. Without the ruckus surrounding Heineken's tie-in, none would be the wiser. Indeed, without the ruckus, movie reviewing icon Roger Ebert never would have known what brand to mention when he called Bond a Heineken sell-out. But then the ruckus was the point. A $45 million point that backfired on Heineken.

Just one of the slaps in the face to Heineken from Skyfall's filmmakers came in the form of Macallan whisky, which is poured throughout the film by Bond villains and M alike. At one point, a bottle of "50-year old Macallan" (£1,400.00) is even identified Bond's "favorite drink." Macallan, by the way, paid nothing for the honor.Continue reading...

When January 15 rolls around in the new year, it will mark a significant birthday for luxury auto brand Aston Martin: the company’s 100th anniversary.

It’s been shut down by world wars, owned by a few different entities, and nearly shut down production in the early 1980s when sales dwindled, but somehow the Aston Martin brand lived on. Only last week, Italian private equity firm Investindustrial picked up 37.5% of the company.

It's still an elite pleasure, with only 4,200 vehicles sold last year, according to Reuters. Likely helping to keep the brand alive has been its use by British secret agent James Bond in a number of films, including this year’s Skyfall, and Ian Fleming’s original books. The International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., counts an Aston Martin as part of its collection.

To start getting fans in the spirit of its upcoming anniversary, the automaker posted a video on YouTube with its CEO giving a glimpse of the special 100th logo (check it out below) at a recent race. The centenary logo was “created to resemble a nautilus shell as each of the 100 years is represented by a point in the spiral,” according to LuxuryDaily.com.Continue reading...

When the financial crisis hit in the United States, it also was a big blow to one particular Dutch brewery that pretty much only made one beer. Heineken’s sales went down for a couple of years and its U.S President, Don Blaustein, left in August of 2009 “saying he had a different view over how to expand Heineken in the U.S. during the recession,” as Bloomberg recalls.

We’ll never know if Blaustein’s ideas would have worked given more time, but the new guy, Dolf van den Brink (one of Fortune’s 40 Under 40 execs to watch this year), seems to be figuring it out just fine. “We weren’t in a good position in 2008, 2009,” he told the site. “For 45 years, we were a single-brand operation. We were set in our ways.”

His job, of course, has been to shake up those ways.Continue reading...

Country? England. Gun? Shot. Agent? Provocateur. Murder? Employment. Skyfall? Product placement.

The latest James Bond film hit the US this weekend, letting audiences decide for themselves what all the product placement hubbub was about. The verdict? Meh. Some valuations have nailed down some dollar numbers on just how much exposure Skyfall brought its top-line brand partners, but what about the unidentifiable brands on-screen?

Despite no label ever being seen, at least one already has backorders going into 2013. And what to make of Bond's glorious return to tobacco?Continue reading...