The Incredible Story About How Chik-Fil-A Became A Gay Pride Festival Sponsor

This may come as a surprise given recent events, but apparently the only Chik-Fil-A in New Hampshire is sponsoring the state's NH Pride Fest. Patch has an incredible story on one of the most unconventional sponsor pitches we've heard of....! "It started out as a prank," said Manseau, senior director of the NH Pride Fest, of his gay pride canvassing at the mall. His plan was to plant some N...

What We Learned About the State of Gaming From Electronic Arts' Recent Results

Gaming bellwether and major sports and entertainment marketer, Electronic Arts, reported 2nd quarter results last night. The Redwoods-Ca. company lost $120 million on $491 million in revenue, which was slightly down from $524 million a year ago. Here's what some of the EA numbers tell us about the rapidly shifting gaming industry. Moving to freemium: EA said this fall it would offer a new f...

How Beats Successfully Turns Athletes Into Influencers

Of all the news pieces about Beats by Dre's Olympic ambush in recent days, Billboard has one of the most insightful looks at the company's marketing strategy. In particular, here's what we learned in their interview with Sr. VP of Marketing Strategy, Omar Johnson: it's easy to get product in the hands of celebs and athletes, but getting them to actually use it is a much tougher task -- with or ...

USC Trojans Add Official Airline

The University of Southern California Trojans have landed an Official Domestic Airline Partner. The multi-year sponsorship with JetBlue Airways will kick off with the 2012-2013 school year and includes all 21 USC Division I teams. JetBlue, which recently exited its deal with another major college football program, is the largest carrier at nearby Long Beach Airport, where the partnership was la...

Toshiba Partners With NASA To Promote Mission To Mars

Toshiba has teamed up with NASA to promote the mission to Mars. In an unprecedented move, the Toshiba Vision screen in New York City's Times Square will show live coverage of Curiosity, NASA's most advanced planetary rover, as it lands on the Martian surface at 1:31 a.m. EDT August 6. The Toshiba Vision screen will broadcast NASA TV coverage, originating from NASA's Jet Propoulsion Lab, beg...

In Q2, This Headphone Maker Sponsored Nearly 50 Different Events

The headphone category is a white hot category. You know things are getting frothy when there are headphones for cats and perhaps no single event has done more for the premium headphones category than the London 2012 Olympics with the most famous of Olympians evading the IOC strutting their Beats by Dr Dre and Sol Republic's around Olympic venues. Whereas some category leaders are focused on ce...

Events Add Key Differentiator To Clear Channel's Digital Radio Entry

Clear Channel's entry in the fiercely competitive digital radio platform wars is growing faster than you might expect. iHeartRadio recently registered 10 million users in eight months of service, a feat company executives say is "faster than any other internet service." While well-known competitors like Pandora, SiriusXM and Spotify are focused almost exclusively on their digital efforts, Clear...

Video Chat Coming To Fantasy Football Via Groundbreaking G+ Partnership

NFL.com Fantasy Football presented by Verizon will be integrated with Google+ Hangouts, making it the first fantasy game to incorporate multi-party video chat according to Google and NFL officials. The new capability, which is sure to facilitate unprecedented trash talking, will facilitate multi-party video chat between up to 12 participants. Google+ Hangouts allow friends to connect face-t...

Soccer Teams Strip Down To Find Shirt Sponsors

Here's something new. Apparently, Football League club, Yeovil Town, has taken its 2012-13 team photo shirtless in an effort to drum up interest for its shirt sponsorship. The team recently started their pre-season friendlies without a shirt sponsor after their previous sponsor, Jones Building Contractors, decided not to renew the team's shirt deal. BBC has the full story here. Meanwhil...

Check Out The VW 'Pin It to Win It' Promotion That Uses Google Street View

Have you considered using Google Street View in a marketing activation? Volkswagen, with an assist from Ogilvy, recently did and here's what happened. Volkswagen's Street Quest is a Facebook challenge to find and 'Pin' as many Volkswagens on South African roads as possible, using Google's Street View application. Check out the clever campaign in the video below. #activationstag