Brand Central Station

Okay, this spot has been out for a while but I just found it. And it’s cool.

Very cool.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kj87G2BHDI&rel=1]

Well done, Pepsi.

You can fight ‘em or you can join ‘em – it seems YouTube is as much a “joiner” as a “divider” when it comes to the institutions of American pop culture.

Case 1: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has thrown down the glove and insisted the service remove all “unathorized clips” of the movie industry’s group hug … er, Oscar telecast. YouTube has complied with the request – but not before over 250,000 viewers got a chance to watch Will Ferrell sing with Jack Black and John C. Reilly (along with other video snippets).

Still have to satisfy that Oscar-driven anxiety? You can see select video clips on Oscar.com – although none of the shows musical numbers nor host Ellen DeGeneres’ monolog are available.

Case 2: CBS, on the other hand, is planning on leveraging the power of YT to generate additional madness on top of the traditional March Madness that is the NCAA finals. According to an article in today’s NY Times, the CSTV Networks division of CBS is starting a campaign today entitled “Are you fan enough?” that invites viewers to upload do-it-yourself video clips.

Think Sharon and Ozzie were a bit much to take? Try David and Posh.

NBC is reportedly close to closing a deal with former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham for an upcoming reality show. England’s Daily Mail values the deal at just under $20 million.

An NBC spokesperson declined to comment on any pending deal.

Imagine getting an invite to the Sports Illustrated bash kicking off their annual swimsuit issue featuring beautiful girls, sports and music celebrities and food from celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck. You’d be pretty excited, right?

Now imaging finding out your food might have been exposed to Hepatitis A.

A PR disaster in the making? Maybe.

Reuters reports that the LA County health department recommended all attendees to the Valentine’s Day party get treatment to avoid developing the serious liver disease. A spokesman for Wolfgang Puck Catering said the company was working closely with health officials on the matter.

Is a health emergency more of an emergency when it happens to celebrities? Just askin’.

The Associated Press has apparently adopted a policy to NOT cover Paris Hilton. (Of course, she’s not covered herself from time to time, but I digress.) According to a memo written by AP entertainment editor, Jesse Washington:

I love pizza. There’s no question about that. This stunt, developed by Pizza Hut (and, you would presume, one of their agencies) encourages consumers to profess their love for Pizza Hut pizza. The job pays $25,000 (not much for a VP level position, but hey, there can’t be that much work involved).

Runners-up receive a pizza party for themselves and 99 of their closest friends. How many job candidates that miss out on their dream job still receive a “consolation prize” if they don’t get the job? The only ones I can think of are the girls that win “Miss Congeniality” in a beauty contest.

Official rules can be found here.

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The insane world that is sports marketing is continuing to roll along as Fathead announces its newest line of HUGE decals, this time concentrating on college basketball logos. According to the company, they are introducing logos for a number of b’ball powerhouses like UConn, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky. These logos will join similar products for perrenial football powerhouses like Notre Dame, Michigan, Ohio State and Florida.

Don’t miss the timing here, folks. It’s getting to be March Madness time (the Division-I college basketball championship series) and that means sports marketing is shaking off its Super Bowl hangover and starting to ramp up for roundball. All to the delight of Fathead and other sports licensees.

The Fathead product is pretty cool. As a kid, I would have loved to have a nearly life-size sticker of my favorite football player in my room.

Congrats to Slate for scoring Ron Rosenbaum, he should make a nice addition to the magazine.

Sure Al Gore won an Oscar. Politicos and entertainment folks were all a titter about that. But it appears the environment was an over-riding theme at this year’s Oscar celebration.

According to Global Green USA, stars and other Hollywood glitterati who arrived in eco-friendly cars received special gift bags filled with environmentally-aware products. Products included Starbucks organic coffee in re-usable mugs (aren’t most mugs re-usable?), organic dog treats, organic jeans, stays at eco-concerned resorts and more.

Is it just me or is this whole gift bag nonsense antithetical to the “green” movement? Isn’t a gift bag the pinnacle of conspicuous consumption?

Warrington Web Works CEO, Anthony Fallon, has authored a little piece on why search engine optimization is a waste of time. (Read the article here.) Fallon offers the piece as “proof” that SEO campaigns aren’t worth the money.

“Web 2.0 is all about the visitor,” Fallon says. “New distribution technologies like RSS will get your message out there without any magic or manipulation of search results.”

Will this latest revelation caus consternation among SEO firms? Probably not. As a rule, relevant content always win over bulk as a media becomes more and more congested. But put the self-promotion aside for a minute and you’ll realize that Fallon offers a legitimate example of this rule that can be applied to a variety of industries and media disciplines.