Brisk officially launched its Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace in 3D cross-marketing today: a mobile app (dubbed Brisksaber and actively teased on its Facebook page) and a limited-edition drink featuring Star Wars villain Darth Maul, as promoted with a new commercial, above. The Brisksaber app, which can be downloaded at uncaptheapp.com, invites fans to "Turn your finger into a lightsaber!" Click below to check out the limited-edition packaging promoting the movie's theatrical release next month.Continue reading...

Last February, PepsiCo made waves for Brisk with a clay-animated Super Bowl commercial featuring Eminem. Now, as the New York Times reports, PepsiCo is piggybacking on the February 10th theatrical release of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace 3D to promote the Brisk line of iced tea and juice drinks.

This week the brand is introducing new packaging and a new mobile game app featuring Star Wars characters Yoda, R2-D2, Jar Jar Binks and Darth Maul in a bid to engage Brisk's target market of young adults, "particularly males," ages 18 to 29. The extension of its ongoing partnership with Lucasfilm marks the "largest multimedia advertising and marketing campaign that PepsiCo has ever waged for Brisk." Find out more, and check out screen grabs from the mobile game, below.Continue reading...

About 120 Burger Kings across the nation currently use the high-tech Coca-Cola Freestyle beverage dispenser system to provide drinks to its customers.

The Miami-based Burger King just announced that it plans to roll Freestyle out into all of its more than 850 locations, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

Since it was acquired by private investor group 3G Capital Management last year, Burger King has been more adventurous in testing out new menu items. The addition of Freestyle has allowed BK consumers the “option of customized drinks from more than 100 brands using touch-screen technology,” NRN reports.

“The ability to customize your own beverages combined with the quality that Coca-Cola Freestyle delivers to our guests is a perfect addition to our most recent menu offerings,” said Steve Wiborg, president of Burger King Corp.’s North America division.

This will make Burger King the largest franchise to install Coca-Cola's Freestyle fountain drink dispenser across all of its locations. That is, if it beats Five Guys Burgers and Fries to the punch.Continue reading...

The U.S. version of the The X Factor may not be delivering the 20 million fans that executive producer Simon Cowell anticipated, but that’s not stopping the show’s main sponsor, Pepsi, from doing everything it can to engage the viewers the show does have. 

The judges sip from prominently placed Pepsi cups. Host Steve Jones injects much excitement each week into the fact that the show’s winner will not only win $5 million but — much more excitingly! — also the chance to star in a Pepsi commercial. One contestant said it would be “a huge blessing” to have such an honor. Pepsi also placed the musical guest Outasight on the show and he sang – guess what? – Tonight’s the Night, which happens to be the background music for Pepsi ads. Pepsi has also created two digital platforms to engage viewers: Pepsi Pulse and Pepsi Sound Off, which combine gamification and social TV to help bring X Factor fans together and enhance the viewing experience. 

If that weren’t enough, the pair have hooked up to find another way to keep the Pepsi brand top of mind during the show. This week sees the on-air launch of the "Pepsi Choice Performance," a “new partnership element” that invited “fans to help select details of a special ensemble performance by the finalists on ‘The X Factor’ live results show on a special night, Wednesday, Nov. 23." Voting has ended, but you can watch the results in tonight's broadcast.Continue reading...

Sometimes Americans are overseas somewhere and pull out the old credit card to cover the latest expense only to find that something isn’t working quite right. Chase and British Airways are teaming up to offer a new card to help combat such things and spread a little airline advertising at the same time.

Already widely used in countries including Canada, the co-branded card is “embedded with a ‘smart’ chip technology that reduces fraud and is widely used outside the United States,” the Washington Post notes.

Just as America is the only developed nation that steadfastly refuses to use the metric system, it also is the only one of the bunch to still use magnetic-strip credit cards. (We are an ornery bunch.) The rest of the world has switched to chip-based cards, which don’t involve sliding the strip in order to complete a transaction. Instead, the cards are inserted into slots and a PIN is used to finalize the matter.

The new Chase/British Airways card will have the chip and the magnetic strip. “Card terminals overseas also have a slot where magnetic strip cards can be swiped, (but) cashiers in less-traveled areas are sometimes confused by how to process such transactions,” the Post adds.

“What used to be a trickle a few years ago has become a frequent point of irritation,” stated Naney Pandit, general manager of Chase’s card services, in a press release.

Donatella Versace reportedly nixed a photo shoot with real women as models for her new H&M collection because they didn't fit the Versace brand. Judging by the video for the capsule collection, which goes on sale Nov. 19, she doesn't think much of real models, either, if the tongue-in-chic trailer for the studded, disco-tastic collection is any indication.

The designer, who took over designing the label after her brother Gianni's death, just confirmed that the first Versace couture collection in eight years will take place in Paris, in January. H&M, meanwhile, is eyeing its next big designer collaboration, with Tom Ford's name being floated by fashion insiders. See more of the Versace for H&M collection below, including the New York launch party.Continue reading...

As part of its branded channel original content push announced late last month, Google has signed a major player — Disney.

Disney Mobile is developing original Web series aimed at children for YouTube. The first is based on Where's My Water?, Disney's popular eco-friendly iPhone and iPad app.

"It's imperative to go where our audience is," James A. Pitaro, co-president of Disney Interactive, told the New York Times. With Disney.com not ready to relaunch until next year, the goal, he added, is to "bring Disney’s legacy of storytelling to a new generation of families and Disney enthusiasts on the platforms they prefer."

"It's an acknowledgment that we want to work with the best brands and, yes, we expect this partnership to attract new advertisers," added Robert Kyncl, YouTube’s global head for content partnerships.

Under the terms of the deal, Disney will produce eight original Web series to run on YouTube at any given time.

The NHL is having some success marketing its events outside of the usual everyday games. From its New Year’s Day outdoor Winter Classics, which now feel like they’ve been around forever, to the televised “draft” of superstars at last year’s All-Star Game, the league is finding successful ways to draw in fans and marketers alike.

Now comes an attempt at another new tradition: the Thanksgiving Friday Game. (That’s the 2011 Discover NHL Thanksgiving Showdown to you, buster.) Discover will be sponsoring the game this year between the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins at 1 p.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

So those of you who don’t feel like heading into the craziness of Black Friday (or those recuperating from morning forays into the madness), now you can make a date with your TV screen since NBC will be showing the game.Continue reading...