Kenneth Briodagh

Consumers are getting more and more cynical, and untrusting of branded communications. Instead of looking to brands for advice and tips on trends and the next new thing, they look to trusted peer experts and tastemakers, frequently online. For years, brands have been aware of this and have been looking for ways to influence those influencers. The problem is complicated. Such attempts are frequently tone-deaf and way off the mark, like paid reviews and blog posts. The other big hurdle is in the strategy. Too often, there isn’t one.

DTS, a Los Angeles-based audio technology provider to over a billion consumer electronics products worldwide, is launching its new brand campaign at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. The campaign, dubbed “Sound Changes the Way We See,” is designed to excite the brand’s base of b-to-b clients about new products and drive interest among potential new clients at the show.

PepsiCo bottled water brand Aquafina has launched the Aquafina Pure Challenge in partnership with fashion design reality show competition “Project Runway” to invigorate the fashion conscious audience and reintroduce them to the brand.

Office Depot on Dec. 15 unveiled its new “store of the future” design that will roll out eventually to all locations and is designed to make the store and its products appeal to Millennials. The other purpose of Saturday’s event is to highlight the brand’s new partnership with the 2013 X Games, and to help drive excitement for the brand’s activation there, which will be live in Aspen from Jan. 24 to 27.

Frank’s Red Hot, a product of Reckitt Benckiser, has just wrapped its first-ever mobile tour, the Frank’s to the People Tour, a 10-month journey across 25 states and more than 250 stops, designed to bring the sauce to underperforming markets and encourage trial with consumers who’ve not been introduced to Frank’s line of hot sauces. And, according to the early end-of-tour numbers, boy did it hit that mark.