More than three month are left before the World Cup 2010 in South Africa kicks off, but brands are already busy preparing for the event. One of them, the Carlsberg beer, is promoting its partnership with the event by introducing a mini-website on the YouTube platform “England Team Talk“.

The Carlsberg Sport line (the rare example of how alcohol can unite with sport) has got another set of commercials, featuring animals. After introducing penguins and squirrels, the brand has a series of spots with bees being the main characters.

Carlsberg’s Tuborg will become the flagship sponsor of the upcoming music festival Shockwaves NME Awards. The brand has taken the place of one of its rivals, Wells & Young’s Red Stripe, which used to be the main sponsor of the event.

Irish beer consumers now can know the secret of Carlsberg’s brewing success and share it with the rest of the world like Dr Emil Hansen from the new Carlsberg Laboratory, did in 1883. The new commercial “The Secret‘ developed by Owens DDB from Dublin tells the story of Carlsberg’s perfecting the secret of lager brewing more than 120 years ago and freely offering it to other breweries to improve beer on a global scale.

This December the new female low-alcohol (3,1% abv) drink, licesenced by the international Carlsberg Group, Eve will hit the Russian market. It will be produced by the Russian brewing company Baltica in St. Petersburg and distributed under the licence agreement.

Carlsberg, one of the biggest global beer companies with 500 brands in 150 markets around the globe, is going to shrink its portfolio by four brands in Germany and pay more attention to the northern part of the country. The German list of 27 names will be shortened by removing Feldschloesschen, Grenzquell, Lüneburger and Moravia out of it.

Carlsberg is going to treat UK women with is newly-launched product called Eve. It is a light alcohol drink with only 3.1% abv with only 123 calories in each 250ml bottle. It is produced in two flavours, the usual one and the fruit one.

This Saturday the Carlsberg company as the official beer of Football Association will launch the nation-wide event in pubs celebrating the England’s qualification for the World Cup.

The Footbal Association (FA) of England has unveiled details of its sponsorship deal with Mars. By the terms of the 5-year agreement, the international confectionary brand becomes an “official supporter and official supplier” of the English national team.