The Super Bowl is the biggest television marketing event of the year. This year, for the first time since 1987, Pepsi will not be airing any commercials during the big game. Instead, the beverage giant is investing millions in a cause marketing program called the Pepsi Refresh Project.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is a grant program that will fund people’s ideas to improve their local communities. The purpose is to align Pepsi’s brand with social responsibility and build brand equity.

Starting January 13th, individuals and organizations can pitch their project ideas on Pepsi’s site, RefreshEverything.com. Based on the pitch and supporting media, site visitors vote on which ideas they’d like to see funded. The projects that receive the most votes will be awarded Refresh Grants, ranging from $5,000 to $250,000.

Each month in 2010, Pepsi will donate a total of $1.3 million to as many as 32 projects. Projects can fit into a wide variety of categories, such as Education, Health, and Arts & Culture. Want to start a local film festival or build modular homes? Get enough votes, and Pepsi will help you make it happen.

“The Super Bowl broadcast can be an amazing stage for advertisers if it aligns with their brand strategy; however, brands should not blindly anchor themselves to history,” said Frank Cooper, a senior VP of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, in a statement. “In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event, less about a moment, more about a movement.‪”

Thirty seconds of Super Bowl air time costs advertisers $3-million. Once the spot runs, it’s over. The impressions stop. The Refresh Project, on the other hand, will reach people on a longer term. Throughout the year, there will be new projects pitched, new grants awarded, and new Pepsi-backed community improvements affecting people across the country.

Are .net and .biz not doing enough to spice up your URL? Get ready for a slew of (dot) options.

A recent article in Advertising Age points to the proposed expansion of generic top-level domains.

Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are the short words that follow the dot in a web address, such as .gov or .edu. There are 21 gTLDs, with .com, .net, and .org capping about 91% of all websites.

A proposed expansion of these domains could add hundreds more to the mix.

The expansion would allow companies to supplement  their .com TLD with more descriptive, on-brand TLDs. For example: John Deere could use “JohnDeere.tractor,” “JohnDeere.mower,” and “JohnDeere.green,” among other options.

Who’s proposing this expansion? A nonprofit agency, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which has a Joint Project Agreement with the US Department of Commerce. ICANN believes that opening up new TLDs would increase innovation and competition in the domain name market. And, though .coms aren’t running out, the space is crowded.

The expansion has its downsides. Mainly, it’s expensive.

Registering a top-level domain name is significantly more involved than registering a domain. When applying for a TLD, you’re applying to run an entire registry. A registry is a business, just like .com or .net, and that doesn’t come cheaply.

The application fee for a TLD is $185,000. Plus annual fees that range anywhere from $25,000 to $75,000. That’s a lot of money, especially for companies pushed to snatch up several brand-related TLDs.

What’s more, if two companies wanted the same name, the name would be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The battles between Coke and Pepsi, or McDonald’s and Burger King would undoubtedly be epic. No wonder the expansion has caused trademark holders some concern.

Its these concerns, according to ICANN’s March 7th news release, that have kept the proposed expansion from, as of yet, going through. But that doesn’t mean it won’t.

So it’s best to be prepared. Marketers, eager to put their clients’ brands in sticky new places, should get ready to rumble.