Director/actor Morgan Spurlock arrives at the premiere of Sony Pictures Classics' "Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" at the Cinerama Dome Theater on April 20, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)Kevin Winter/Getty Images
1. 30-second spots, meet the 5,280-second spot. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock has been rocking this "NASCAR chic" look to showcase the brands that financed his new movie, POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold opening Friday in select U.S. cities (in Canada, May 6). The film, which is about product placement, raised its entire $1.5-million (U.S.) budget through, you guessed it, product placement. Pomegranate juice maker POM and other sponsors such as JetBlue Airways and Hyatt Hotels are betting they'll look better for being in on the joke. More than 500 other companies turned down the director best known for lampooning the fast-food industry in Super Size Me. Predictably, McDonald's did not call him back.
2. Speaking of suits, those damn Yankees had better put on their best pinstripes; their brand could land them in court. A woman is claiming her uncle designed the famous logo - a star-spangled Uncle Sam top hat perched atop a baseball bat, which forms part of the K in the New York Yankees' name - and she wants the team to pony up the profits associated with it. On Monday, Tanit Buday, 63, filed a claim in New York federal court alleging copyright infringement of the image, which dates back to the 1930s. Ms. Buday said the team commissioned the logo from her uncle, Kenneth Timur, but never paid him. In a statement, the Yanks said "there is no proof" of that.
3. You can sue us, but we will not be cowed. That was the message Taco Bell wanted to send with a big print campaign on Wednesday, criticizing the law firm that accused the fast-food chain of false advertising because its tacos' meat fillings did not have enough meat to be called beef by USDA standards. The full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other papers crowed, "Would it kill you to say you're sorry?" The federal suit was dropped this week, leading to the celebratory ad spend that simultaneously shames critics and reminds the public that there was any question about whether its meat was real in the first place.
4. Some things are getting meatier. The new AdWeek, for example. The trade mag flaunted its redesign this week, with a beefed-up size, glossy paper and a broader focus after swallowing its sister publications Mediaweek and Brandweek. The publication is aiming to be "the voice of media," according to Richard D. Beckman, chief executive officer of Prometheus Global Media, which bought the struggling publications from Nielsen. In an open letter announcing the changes, the new editorial director Michael Wolff claimed, "It's time for one conversation, not separate ones."