Articles from AdWeek Advertising and branding

West Elm!” declares Maureen Sullivan, pointing to a metal pendant lamp as she brightly describes the workplace furnishings in her chic, exposed brick East Village office in New York. The president of AOL.com and lifestyle brands since July 2012—she was bumped up from svp of brand marketing and communications—the 32-year-old Sullivan is acting like the very consumer she and her team are working hard to win over by being a trusted resource.

State.com has set all our hilarious social media frustrations to classical music. Along with all having to look at what other people care about, which turns out is never what you care about, there’s angst about hashtagging, tail-wagging and "Am I bragging?" All of it leads up to the message that no one cares about your social media posts. State suggests we use another part of our brain, though they don’t say which part. Seriously, do you have any idea from this promo what the State app actually does?

The compressed hydrogen-powered Honda FCX runs so clean, its exhaust contains only water—and it's so clean, it's drinkable. To celebrate this, Honda Australia and Leo Burnett Melbourne came up with a memorable stunt—creating a new bottled-water brand, H2O. As seen in the case study below, the automaker gave the water away in movie theaters around Australia (as free samples, no less) as a way of showing people what they're doing for the environment. There are also plans to make the water available at Honda service stations and dealerships.

A new Guitar Center ad featuring Metallica's James Hetfield wasn't meant to be an ad at all. The 30-second execution was cut from a longer video that the retailer filmed to accompany a cover story about Metallica in Guitar Center magazine, said Dustin Hinz, vp of brand experience and entertainment marketing. That 13-minute video went up on YouTube in February and has since generated more than 1.7 million views. In the video, Hetfield, the lead singer and guitarist in Metallica, talks about his first guitar, feeling "in the zone" when he plays, and how, as a kid, he was painfully shy.