Blog Posts by Suzanne Baran

This one's for the ladies. Nikon has signed Ashton Kutcher to star in TV commercials to promote the new Nikon COOLPIX cameras.

The two new Nikon ads are set in boutique hotels and upscale shopping destinations. It's a feast for the eyes, with female models and the camera's exquisite styling, fashionable colors, simplicity, and performance. The two spots featuring Ashton are directed by Emmy Award-winner Brian Buckley. Watch, as adoring fans pass around Ashton's camera and take pictures on the sly:

A clever tune plays in the background of the Nikon ad. Fortunately, or unfortunately--depending upon how you feel about her music--emerging artist/musician Kreesha Turner gets some play. But viewers might be too caught up in the obvious eye candy to notice her hit tune, "Bounce With Me."

This same track has been featured on Entourage, Gossip Girl, and other TV shows. It was even heard in a Lipstick Jungle promo.

But fans and curious listeners alike will have to wait for her debut album,

Watch out, Apple. AT&T is giving you a run for the money by capitalizing on cutting-edge, song-themed ads.

The company cleverly ushers in spring with a promo featuring blooming flowers that sprout [Samsung aT37] slider mobile phones:

So what's that familiar and catchy tune? It's "Daydreamin,'" the Grammy Award-winning third single off of Lupe Fiasco's Food & Liquor album. The accompanying female vocals belong to none other than soul singer Jill Scott, and the song samples a variety of sources, including Tchaikovsky's "Danse de Cygnes" (from "Swan Lake"). Fiasco's lyrics are explicit, but the AT&T commercial cuts off before consumers (and their kids) can hear them.

The single was released as a download in the U.K. in September 2006 and climbed the pop chart to No. 46 without any physical record sales. But there's more to the backstory. "Daydreamin'" has a catchy hook based around a sample of "Daydream in Blue" by I Monster, a British electronic act who in turn sampled the music

"I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this," screams a British vocalist in the new iPod commercial in heavy rotation. That ad is as colorful as Joseph's Technicolor dream coat, and the catchy song is enough to make anyone get up and dance, even during a long and exhausting American Idol break. It catches the eye, even when you're holding down the fast-forward key on your TiVo remote.

The tune, "Shut Up and Let Me Go," is one of three newly released singles from the British duo the Ting Tings. Their debut album for Columbia Records, "We Started Nothing," will be legally available in the U.S. on May 20, and it drops in CD format on June 3.

Apple actually picked one of the Ting Tings' minor songs, keeping other, more cut-above tunes from being touched by the hands of the corporate gods--for now. Though the disco groove in "Shut Up" is coupled with punk guitar strums and mixed with Katie White's vocals, it's also marginal, moxie-wise, when compared to the band's other hits like "Great DJ" and