Comparison stands behind any considered choice, and any confident global brand tends to provide its consumers with an opportunity to examine both the positive and negative sides of their products—and sometimes weigh its offerings against goods by other manufacturer. Sometimes, companies also step outside the product world and help compare lots of other things—sexes, automobiles, brothers, tastes, political parties, athletes and more—to help determine which of the two is better, stronger, messier, tastier, faster, more attractive, reliable, sportive, etc.  In this overview, we won’t focus on serious ratings revealing carbon footprint or social impact, like Nike’s Environmental Apparel Design Tool, Timberland’s Eco Index or GoodWill’s rating—instead, as tribute to April Fool’s Day, which was celebrated last Friday, we will focus on humorous and tongue-in-cheek projects.

The Fast Company magazine presents its new rating of the 50 most innovative companies in the world. In mid-February, they published the 2011 list, giving short descriptions to their picks. Apple scoops first place, pushing the digital giants Twitter, Facebook and Google to the 2nd, 3rd and 6th place correspondingly—with Intel, Microsoft, Linkedin,eBay, IBM and Cisco resting below them. The sport and fashion apparel industry is presented by Burberry (No.13, “for breathing new life into a luxury stronghold”), Nike (No.23, “for its mix of sports, style, and yes, plastic bottles”), Opening Ceremony (No. 28) the food and drinks business has two representatives—PepsiCo (No.33)—“for its ambitious nutrition R&D” and chocolate company Madécasse (No.50).

A city as a source of the ‘creative spark’. Urban streets as basis for bold and massive campaigns. For many decades, smaller towns and megalopolises have been inspiring advertising agencies behind multiple marketing projects, which on the one hand are targeted at promoting brands and, on the other hand, encourage consumers to compare different cities, unveil creativity and strong dedication to sport, cinema and quests, or even bring rural accents to urban settings. We at Popsop have reviewed global brands’ ad activity during 2010 and first two months of 2011 to see how they’ve been embedding city into their promotions. Now, we are presenting our 3-part study dedicated to the subject. The first section of this review will highlight competitions, cross-city studies, urban sport-related promotions, which have been taking place within big cities around the globe and in a way were dedicated to them.

Nissan North America announced a significant new marketing initiative to showcase the strength of the car manufacurer’s innovative product portfolio and build on 10 straight months of sales growth for the Nissan brand in the U.S. market. The campaign, to be headlined under the theme «Innovation for All,» will launch on August 28 and permeate a variety of medium and targets over the next several months.