Sandra O’Loughlin

When the Olympic flame on Feb. 12 lit the cauldron at BC Place Stadium, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, it symbolized peace, hope, inclusiveness, equality, joy and fraternity to viewers around the world. To Coca-Cola and RBC, presenting sponsors of the 2010 Olympic Torch Relay, the flame represented all that and more: the challenge of carrying it safely 45,000 kilometers across Canada for 106 days to more than 1,000 communities and touching more than 90 percent of the Canadian population along the way.

Bravo’s series “Shear Genius” at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival presented a Shear Genius salon where celebrity stylists created hairstyles for A-listers and provided fans an inside peek at the show. The salon featured hair care products from Nexxus, which sponsors the series. Jonathan Antin, one of the judges on the show, and Nexxus creative director Kevin Mancuso styled the celebrity looks. The salon also partnered with Locks of Love, a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to disadvantaged children suffering from long-term medical hair loss.

New Belgium Brewing Co. this month has unleashed a team of “beer rangers” clad in tan and olive uniforms who will appear in bars and retail outlets as well as in print ads and online games to introduce a new brew called Ranger IPA. Their mission: “To Protect. To Pour. To Partake.” Their get-up: a wide-brimmed hat, red kerchief, olive shirt and pants and tan gaiters.

Burger King on Feb. 4 embarked on the biggest tour in its history, an 18-week, 41-city BK Next Best Move national mobile tour that is hitting African-American communities in search of “game-changers” both on the basketball court and in urban areas across the U.S. Reality TV star Syrus Yarbrough will accompany the tour to all 41markets.

LAST YEAR COULD BE CALLED the year of the handout. For eight hours on Feb. 3, Denny’s restaurants gave away two million free Grand Slam Breakfasts—two pancakes, two eggs made to order, two sausage links and two strips of bacon. Snack-cake maker Little Debbie last fall gave away one million cupcakes (125,000 cartons holding eight cupcakes each. Yummy).