Marketers will soon have a whole city in which they can not only advertise their products on huge, Times-Square-like outdoor billboards, but they will even have the opportunity to integrate their brands into the lives of community residents and visitors. It's called a "branded city," and there is currently one under construction in a field not far from Phoenix. It's called the Westgate City Center, and it is being created by Ellman Cos. and Clear Channel Branded Cities. Now in phase one of construction, the place will have 6.5 million square feet, two major sporting arenas, hotels, condominiums, convention centers, …

Marketers take note: insult hip hop stars at your own risk. High-end champagne marketer Cristal learned that lesson the hard way when rapper Jay-Z launched a hip-hop boycott of the beverage. Jay-Z--as well as Sean Combs, Snoop Dogg, and dozens of other rappers--have extolled the virtues of Cristal for years, making references to the champagne in their lyrics. Also, hip-hop events in recent years have stocked Cristal, which usually sells for anywhere between $100 and $1,000 a bottle, but no more. "It has come to my attention that the managing director of Cristal, Frederic Rouzaud, views the hip-hop culture as …

Ford Motor Co.'s Lincoln division is using the idealistic concept of the American Dream as the focal point of its new advertising campaign, which is designed to capture the attention (and dollars) of younger car buyers. The print portion of the campaign began this past weekend, and broadcast ads will follow in the fall. The media plan relies heavily on lifestyle media, including Web sites and broadcasts playing to food, travel, and personal finance. The print ads--one shot with blue hues in an airport terminal asserting that "Without a dream, there's no departure"--advance Lincoln's cultivation of the younger, hipper consumer …

How much does it cost to market a movie? Plenty. The average movie costs $60 million to make--and $36.2 million to market, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Movie marketing is so big, in fact, that a special awards show honors the people who do it. It's called the Key Art Awards, and the event will be held--where else--in Hollywood this Friday night. The people honored at the ceremony play a bigger role in the success of movies than moviegoers realize, creating posters, trailers, and slogans to lure consumer into theaters on opening weekends, when a movie's financial …

Marketers who want to rise above all the advertising clutter now have a new means by which to achieve their goal--literally. A huge new blimp that makes the standard Goodyear model look like a kid's water balloon has been developed by a Florida company called The Lightship Group. The device floats 1,000 feet in the air, travels 15 miles per hour, and sports a 70-by-30-foot LED screen that looks like a floating drive-in movie screen. Marketers who rent the blimp can show their newest commercials, NFL football highlights, movie trailers, or just about anything else that would normally be shown …

Pharmaceutical marketer Bayer Consumer Care is taking its Alka-Seltzer brand back to the future in an updated version of an old ad campaign in which comedian Kathy Griffin reprises the famous line: "Try it, you'll like it." The original spot debuted in 1971, and the line became a popular, cultural catch phrase. It refers to someone eating something they're not quite sure about, and then regretting it later when they need some Alka-Seltzer to relieve an aching stomach. "Alka-Seltzer has some of the most familiar advertising in television history," said Jay Kolpon, vice president for marketing and new business at …

A new survey reveals that a surprisingly large number--48.9 percent--of senior marketing executives admitted to paying for placing mention of their brands in print and broadcast media outlets. Observers said the results of the survey of 266 chief marketing officers, marketing vice presidents, and directors by PRWeek magazine and PR agency Manning Selvage & Lee reflected as poorly on the marketing executives as it did on the media. "This type of behavior is as harmful to PR professionals as it is to consumers and the media," said Manning Selvage & Lee CEO Mark Hass. The publishers mixing editorial and advertising …

Hershey's is using the time-honored tactic of simple hyperbole in a new marketing effort for its Take 5 candy bar. The candy marketer has decided that henceforth, Take 5--made from peanuts, caramel, pretzels, peanut butter, and milk chocolate--will be known as "The greatest candy bar ever." While the candy bar's sales record is no match for competitors from Masterfoods USA--such as Snickers or even the company's own Hershey's Chocolate Bar--it nonetheless has racked up impressive numbers in a short time. Take 5 sales from drug, grocery, and mass merchandise outlets--excluding Wal-mart--jumped 80.8 percent to $17.2 million for the year ended …

Walt Disney Cop.'s new summer movie "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" is already a hit with marketers before it has even opened in theaters. The latest national brand to score a connection with the film is Masterfoods USA's M&M's, which is developing an entire integrated campaign built around the film. And the company is not alone. Other major marketers that have established tie-in with the movie--which opens July 7--include Volvo, Valpak, and McDonald's. M&Ms' partnership dovetails with the launch of its newest candy creation, White Chocolate M&M's. For a limited time, the brand is rolling out packages of …

Doctors want time to study the pros and cons of new drugs before pharmaceutical marketers can start advertising them to consumers. That was the message this week from physicians attending the annual meeting of the American Medical Association, who said they will ask manufacturers and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to work out a waiting period before marketing new prescription drugs and implantable devices to give doctors more time to study the products. The move was a compromise by the association, which for years had grappled with supporting a proposed ban on direct-to-consumer prescription-drug ads prompted by the belief …