Pepsi Max is offering new ways to rid of those who don’t let you enjoy a can of your favourite soda. The fizzy drink brand released a series of tongue-in-cheek spots, featuring guys who just want to escape from the imperfect reality (in which they got to do unpleasant things like having dinner with a girl-friend’s parents, shopping with her or having a tough conversation with a boss) and spend some time with buddies.

PepsiCo Canada’s Quaker brand is on a mission to take its belief in the power of a nutritious breakfast to new heights this year, by motivating Canadians to start their day with Quaker oatmeal, and to help those in need to do the same. The brand unveils an exciting new initiative with Olympic Champion Alexandre Bilodeau called Unlock Amazing, which aspires to provide two million bowls of oatmeal this year to help feed the more than 860,000 Canadians helped by food banks each month.

Pepsi Max, the soda brand which has connected with the rap culture primarily through to its latest commercial featuring Snoop Dogg (still, Nike remains the most long-standing fan of this music style), has unveiled a new project created in collaboration with famous representatives of this movement. Ahead of Super Bowl XLV, Pepsi Max teamed up with a bunch of hip-hop and rap stars to develop new videos as part of the NFL Audible program.

It’s a jungle out there. And to tame it, ‘Gossip Girl’ actress Jessica Szohr sheds her inhibitions—and unleashes her inner lizard — in Costa Rica, wearing nothing but a pair of SoBe® Lifewater® skinsuits to launch new SoBe Lifewater with electrolytes. The sultry photo spread, the second installment of the SoBe Lifewater skinsuit series, will appear exclusively in the iconic Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, which hits newsstands on February 15.

Lipton Brisk Iced Tea has launched a new phase of the campaign featuring clay puppet characters, which represent A-list celebrities of the modern culture. This time, the brand has ‘invited’ Ozzy Osbourne and Danny Trejo to ‘star’ in the promotion, which encourages consumers to live their lives in a brisk way. The recruited stars didn’t actually appeare in the videos—instead, they gave their voice and ‘bodies’ to the clay puppet characters, featured in tongue-in-cheek web promotion, which includes short films and a competition on Facebook.

Following a review of more than 5,600 creative submissions Doritos and Pepsi MAX revealed the names of the 10 finalists in the Crash the Super Bowl challenge. These 10 finalists will go on to compete to be one of six consumer-created ads—three for Doritos and three for Pepsi MAX—airing during the Super Bowl XLV broadcast, February 6, on FOX.

PepsiCo‘s Frito-Lay North America division said that approximately 50 percent of its product portfolio will be made with all natural ingredients, including three of its biggest brands, Lay’s® potato chips, Tostitos® tortilla chips and SunChips® multigrain snacks. The products made with all natural ingredients do not have any artificial or synthetic ingredients, and they do not contain any artificial flavors or artificial preservatives, or ingredients such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), yet still have the great taste consumers expect from Frito-Lay.

In 2010, Pepsi proved that anyone anywhere can motivate and inspire Americans to move the world forward. Since February, all 50 states have participated by voting in the Pepsi Refresh Project. With over 61 million votes cast via www.refresheverything.com, the Pepsi Refresh Project is on track to award more than $20 million in grants to over 400 ideas in 2010.

The Doritos brand and Microsoft today unveiled the much-anticipated, fully playable Xbox LIVE® Arcade game versions for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft of ‘Avatar Crash Course’ created by Jill Robertson of Raleigh, N.C., and ‘Harm’s Way’ created by Justin Carpenter of Ogden, Utah—the two finalists in the Doritos ‘Unlock Xbox’ challenge.