Taco Bell will eliminate kids meals and toys at all U.S. restaurants, beginning this month. In a statement released Monday, Taco Bell chief executive Greg Creed said kids meals are not part of the Irvine, Calif.-based chain's long-term brand strategy and have an insignificant impact on sales.

Is it real? Who knows. An ad for a Yukon Territory public access show covering weekly city council meetings uses slo-mo panning, and intense thriller music to make its weekly show about the meetings seem downright nail biting. Evidently, the ad is nearing 80,000 YouTube views in a week, which is apparently more than three times the town's population. The suspense becomes unbearable when Mayor Dan Curtis announces that an additional $15,000 was made available to the local museum.

Beckham retired from active play earlier this year, but the global soccer icon continues to play as a marketing spokesman. He has five other Beckhams to help Sky Sports, the U.K.'s version of ESPN. The goal -- so to speak -- is to spread the word about the multi-platform options available to fans and viewers and also support a new kid's show, "Game Changer," starring Beckham and 74 other athletes.

Rum's best imbibed in the evening, but the sun also rises on Crispin Porter + Bogusky's new rum and its marketing effort for the cane spirit, called Papa's Pilar. The rum is named after Ernest Hemingway's fishing boat. The agency has done similar things with three other brands it has dreamed up: Green Garage, a company that refurbishes and outfits cars with eco-sensitive and smart products; B-Cycle, an urban bike sharing program now in 17 cities, including Fort Lauderdale, and Angel's Envy, a bourbon whose "cask strength" was named as the "Best Spirit in the World" by Spirit Journal in …

Electronic cigarette maker FIN Branding Group is completing its first national television advertising campaign, titled "Rewrite the Rules." The 15- and 30-second commercials depict timeless images, taking viewers back to an era when they were able to smoke freely. "We are committed to changing the game for smokers everywhere," said Joana Martins, VP, marketing at FIN. "We want to educate our consumers about our products and the technology behind them."

TripAdvisor has appointed Anne Bologna to the newly created role of vice president of brand strategy, giving her responsibility for TV and offline advertising. Bologna, who reports to TripAdvisor CMO Barbara Messing, was previously managing director of New York-based agency holding company MDC Partners, which she left earlier this year. While there, she was responsible for a portfolio of agencies spanning advertising, branding and market research.

The NCAA said it won't renew its football video game partnership with EA. EA will, however, continue to make college football games, but without the "NCAA" brand. The Collegiate Licensing Company, an agency that handles licensing for college football programs, has reached a deal with EA to start a new franchise that will probably be much like the one EA has been pumping out every year under the NCAA Football banner since 1998.

The Chevrolet logo, whose origin has been debated for years, is about to celebrate its centennial. The emblem first appeared in the Oct. 2, 1913, edition of The Washington Post in an ad advising car buyers to "Look for this nameplate." The brand itself had been registered two years earlier - Chevy celebrating its own centennial in 2011 - by the Swiss migr Louis Chevrolet.

More humor doesn't mean more effective, nor does it mean more funny, for that matter. To work, ads must be "extremely funny" to illicit the strong psychological responses that are linked to sentiment and purchase intent as audiences have been subjected to a "glut" of humorous attempts from marketers, according to a white paper from Unruly Media.

Brand advocacy can account for up to 80% of reach from marketing campaigns, yet most brand mentions on social media aren't passionate or contain content that advocates a product or service. Social mentions are neutral or negative. And according to Social@Ogilvy research, only 15% of all brand mentions analyzed by the study were advocacy mentions.