Battling counterfeit products is one of a brand's biggest headaches. More often than not, counterfeiting strikes luxury and accessory brands, since it is easier to sell fake branded handbags, shoes, and clothes online and in flea markets and bazaars around the world. But what about when buying a knock-off has life-or-death implications?

Fake products are penetrating an even more serious category than luxury goods — pharmaceuticals. America's Food and Drug Administration just announced the findings of the agency’s investigation of fake vials of the cancer drug Avastin that have showed up in California, Illionis, and Texas.

The FDA's tests indicated the vials did not contain Avastin's active ingredient, and traced the phony drug to the U.K. via a distributor in Tennessee. Reuters reported that the fake Avastin apparently originated in Cairo, Egypt and went from there through Switzerland to Britain. While the FDA was warned about the products by British officials late last year, it only confirmed that they were counterfeit last week. Cancer patients and medical practitioners, understandably, are up in arms.[more]

While the U.S. medical community is being alerted by Roche Holding's Genentech unit, maker of Avastin, it isn't known yet whether patients have been given the drug, or exactly how much of it has been distributed. The FDA has set up an online resource about counterfeit medicine, while President Obama this week moved to reassure cancer patients and the medical community that the government is addressing the shortage in cancer drugs that created a marketplace for fake drugs to proliferate.

The case highlights that a new, dangerous channel for counterfeits in the U.S. now exists. Most Americans have thought of drug counterfeiting as something that happens elsewhere. But Jonathan Rockoff and Christopher Weaver write in the Wall Street Journal that "the latest incident, which follows the appearance of other fake drugs in the U.S. — including counterfeits of the weight-loss treatment Alli and the influenza treatment Tamiflu — suggests it is a growing risk, especially as more medicines and drug ingredients sold in the U.S. are made overseas."

In 2010, WSJ reports, fake versions of the weight-loss treatment Alli lacking the drug's active ingredient were being sold online, as well as a fake "generic Tamiflu" that contained an antibiotic instead of antiviral drugs. Fake Viagra and Lipitor, as well as other drugs, have been sold over the Internet.

The result is a flurry of activity on many fronts designed to stem the flow of fake drugs. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, for example, has documented thousands of fake online pharmacies who distribute counterfeit, adulterated and substandard drug products, often without requiring a valid prescription. As soon as the counterfeit Avastin was discovered, Genentech said on its website the company was "implementing special packaging and printing techniques that make counterfeits both more difficult to make and easier to spot."

But the problem is global, and given the huge and lucrative market for pharmaceuticals, it won't be easy to solve. More than 1,700 incidents worldwide related to drug counterfeiting occurred in 2011, according to Forbes. More than 80 percent of the active ingredients in U.S. drugs are now manufactured outside of the country, which makes controlling fakes even more difficult. As for other countries affected by counterfeiting, Forbes reports as much as 30 percent of drugs sold in Asia and Latin America, and 20 percent of drugs sold in India, are fake.

Nathan Sigworth, founder and CEO of PharmaSecure, told Forbes it will require three things to eliminate counterfeit drugs in the U.S.

"First, legislation which would criminalize the use of counterfeit versions of trademarks and enhances penalties when counterfeit marks are used on drugs; second, expand the FDA's capacity to investigate counterfeits; and finally, pharmaceutical manufacturers have to implement effective track-and-trace systems to protect their supply chains and their consumers." PharmaSecure uses a combination of ID codes and the mobile phone to deploy technology that authenticates drugs.

Consumers may have been concerned before about buying fake brand name merchandise, but drug counterfeiting requires a whole new level of heightened awareness on the part of all.

When Sony’s new handheld gaming system, PlayStation Vita, launched in Japan in December, it came with some unfortunate bugs that caused it to crash on occasion and lag a bit during some games.

Sony says it has updated the software and is feeling good enough about things that it launched the product Wednesday in the United States and Europe. What's new and improved about PS Vita? To paraphrase Shakespeare, the game's the thing.[more]

Innovative features include augmented reality games; a rear touchpanel that engages all ten fingers in gameplay; and the ability to download games from an online store that is very conveniently accessed from the game itself.

PS Vita, like every other electronics product coming out these days, is "connected" and integrates the user's social network. The release notes that gamers will have the “ability to connect to friends via Facebook, Foursquare, Skype and Twitter.”

The price: For $299 in the U.S., consumers can pick up the 3G and Wi-Fi-capable Vita while $249 buys a Wi-Fi-only version. (AT&T is the exclusive Wi-Fi carrier in the US; more details are in the press release.)

Sony boldly states that the handheld is “set to transform the gaming world.” New Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Andrew House talked up the release to the Wall Street Journal:

One of the things we've done differently than the competition with PlayStation Vita, is to open our dialog to a broad range of publishers and developers much earlier in the development cycle. Net benefit of that: We had 24 games — really good games — ready on the day of the Japanese launch, which we'd never seen in the history of our platforms and arguably not on other platforms either. I think the content portfolio is possibly even stronger for a European and North American audience than it was for the Japanese launch.

Tesco, the UK-based mega-retailer, is making headlines for actions that relate to its corporate citizenship stance.

For a start, the brand has decided to ditch its participation in an "eco-labeling" scheme which was aimed to calculate the carbon footprint of each product slapped with a "carbon-reduction" label provided by Carbon Trust. Despite disappointing eco-activists, Tesco said that it was too expensive and time-consuming to analyze each product's purported impact on carbon-dioxide emissions and was disappointed that other retailers hadn't followed its pioneering role in the program, which started in 2006 when the brand promised to start a "revolution in green consumption" and become carbon-neutral by 2050.

Not to be discouraged from do-gooding, Tesco has set up a not-for-profit organization to raise money for women's health charities in the UK that will be funded by sales of its new feminine-care line of products under its Halo private label. The "venture brand's" cheeky marketing campaign includes the tagline, "Halo protects women. No ifs. No butts." The campaign website includes a cheeky (pun intended) invitation to women to "show us your knickers." Feminists, start your (blog) engines!

It's also been in the news for its efforts to help get Britain's legions of unemployed youth working, with one online job posting leading to a firestorm in the British press.[more]

The UK's largest private-sector employer said on Tuesday that it would provide full pay to British young people during their stints in a government-sponsored jobs training or "work-experience" program, and pledged a guaranteed offer of a full-time job at the end, provided they performed satisfactorily. The announcement was aimed at quelling the uproar that resulted after a Tesco job posting seemed to confirm fears that British employers might exploit the work-experience program.

In a mis-classified listing of a night-shift position, Tesco said that compensation would be comprised of the ability to stay on the dole, plus expenses to get to work. After the job listing was discovered and highlighted by critics, Tesco said that an IT error had resulted in the mis-description of what was supposed to have been categorized as a full-time position.

Tesco promotes apprenticeships on its careers website (which bears the odd slogan, "Every little helps"), and about 1,400 people have taken part in its work-experience program. The UK government-funded nationwide program institutionalizes what America calls internships, and to date, tens of thousands of British youth have volunteered for the opportunity to gain work experience for up to eight weeks.

In return, they're promised the opportunity to train and interview for a full-time job, while toiling for "free" in exchange for a continuation of their state-paid unemployment benefits. Though youth joblessness has become epidemic in Britain and across much of Europe, some have criticized the work-experience as a "slave-labor" program. With its promise of full pay, at least Tesco is putting its money where its mouth is.

Microsoft takes a swipe at Google (personified as a fast-talking salesman; check out the sly tie with Google's colors).

The spot's description: "What happens when the world's largest advertising business tries to sell productivity software on the side? Beware the Googlighting Stranger. Learn more at WhyMicrosoftProductivity.com"

For generations, Lego has been considered a pretty unisex toy. You could build anything with those colorful little plastic blocks, but that was before big-time partnerships and licensing ever became truly part of the marketing equation.

When you walk into a toy store and look at the Lego shelves, it’s not too hard to find Lego products aligned with things that are traditionally marketed to boys, and lately they've been co-branded: Lego Harry Pottery, Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Alien Conquest, etc. The strategy helped Lego engineer a massive brand turnaround, making about $1 billion last year in the U.S. alone. The next step, naturally? Creating Lego lines aimed at girls.

Having dipped a toe in the water with pink boxes containing brightly colored bricks and flowers, Lego went all out with the launch of Lego Friends, a line expressly targeted to girls, that launched in December. Not everyone, however, is convinced that gender-specific Lego is the way to go.[more]

The line’s catch phrase? "The beauty of building." It’s got a beauty salon, a cafe (with cupcakes, of course), a purple convertible, a splash pool, and a vet’s office. There are six characters related to each scene. The bricks are less complicated than traditional Lego pieces, while the emphasis is on the dolls (some in miniskirts) and not construction of their settings. The figures' hands are also designed to accommodate accessories such as hairbrushes and handbags. No wonder it’s got a whole slew of angry people who don’t like that Lego is going out of its way to market based on gender.

While there is a Friends science lab or "invention workshop," with techie tools and a cute robot, that's not enough to mollify opponents.

“The main problem with the new Friends line is not that Lego is trying to reach out to girls after 15 to 20 years of marketing only to boys,” stated Bailey Shoemaker Richards, who is cosponsoring a petition on Change.org, on NPR. “It's more the way they're going about it. It's a very narrow and limiting sort of idea of what girlhood Lego experience should be.”

Richards added that she doesn't see this fitting with Lego’s core mission statement “about wanting to create innovative products that help kids develop creativity... All they've done is sort of throw in with Barbie and Bratz and that sort of very, very narrow stereotypical type of marketing.”

She's also irked that there's a different edition of the Lego Club magazine for girls, which "very noticeably lacks any build instructions and the storylines are very domestic. They're very limited. It's the characters eating and partying and looking for a lost puppy, as opposed to going on these big adventures that they're selling to boys.”

Surprisingly, Lego didn't apply its boys-marketing chops to the girls market by co-branding with (for instance) Barbie, Disney or Polly Pocket, as Squinkies is doing.

Bloomberg Businessweek notes that Lego didn't venture into girls products without some serious marketing research into these new toys.  “This is the most significant strategic launch we've done in a decade," Lego CEO Jorgen Knudstorp told the magazine. "We want to reach the other 50 percent of the world's children."

Your thoughts? Smart brand extension for Lego or a sexist and dumbed down version that dilutes the brand? Weigh in below.

Update: Click here to read Lego's response to concerned parents and others about the intentions and goals of Lego Friends. Lego has also agreed to meet in March with bloggers and others who are protesting the line.

Anheuser-Busch InBev considers bid for European brewer StarBev.

Apple defends rights to iPad name in Shanghai court.

Barnes & Noble sees profits crimped by digital investments.

Carbonite encourages planning for loss.

Comcast takes aim at Netflix.

Ford boosts pay for directors by 25 percent.

General Mills and Kraft promise to hold line on marketing spending in tough environment.[more]

Google expects to sell head's-up display glasses by year's end.

Hostess faces criticism for bid to shed union deal in bankruptcy.

Jamba buys Talbott Teas.

Jeremy Lin 'linsanity' continues as Knicks' star gets wooed by brands.

JetBlue partners to build kids' playgrounds for Kaboom.

Johnson & Johnson picks new CEO as questions grow about problems with company's hip implant.

LVMH plans to enter jewelry retail business in India.

Mattle uses augmented reality for Barbie's dream closet campaign.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom makes bail in New Zealand.

Microsoft sues Motorola Mobility over web video fair use.

NBC struggles to keep initial footing for Smash.

Peugeot and General Motors discuss alliance to deal with weak European market.

Shell bids $1.6 billion for African explorer Cove Energy.

Sonic social campaign returns "out of work" spokesman.

Sony launches Playstation Vita.

Square hopes to put iPads in New York City taxis.

Tencent pivots from PC to iPhone for ads in China.

Wynn Resorts defends ouster of key investor.

Zipcar invests in Wheelz, a campus car-sharing service.

& Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum meet for crucial GOP presidential debate tonight in Arizona.

The battle among the Big Three U.S. auto makers for full-size pickup truck buyers is getting as down and dirty as the hard-working, mud-splattered vehicles they show in the commercials. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler have entered a new day of back-biting that may harken to the watershed moment in 2009 when GM and Chrysler accepted U.S.-government bailouts — and Ford demurred.

The latest punch in the tete-a-tete has been delivered by Chrysler's Ram brand, which poses a question in the brand's new national TV commercial, above, for February's "Ram Truck Month": What do you get if you subtract the horsepower, torque and warranty coverage of a Ram? The answer: a Ford F-150. Ram Truck Month 2012's slogan is "Test our Metal," but it seems it's Ford's mettle that's being tested.

Chevrolet also took a shot at Ford in its Super Bowl ad set in an apocalyptic 2012, in which the only one of a band of survivalists who didn't make it out of the rubble was the guy who owned a Ford truck. The rest of them, Silverado owners, all emerged.[more]

There's a history behind this struggle, including a very recent one. For one thing, the stakes in this part of the market are highest in the entire U.S. auto industry. Big Three profits on trucks far exceed their margins on any other vehicle segment, particularly because they face little significant foreign competition.

And so they work hard to protect their shares: Ford as the leader, then Silverado, and Ram in third place. Dealers and manufacturers can slap total sales incentives of several thousand dollars on the hoods of these vehicles just to hold on to a loyal customer or to conquest a buyer from another brand.

While Ford overall refrained from reminding American consumers very often about its refusal to take a bailout, Ford CMO Jim Farley did directly attack GM's marketing brain trust in a book by auto writer Bill Vlasic published last year.

And last fall, Ford rolled out a thinly veiled jab at Chrysler and GM in a TV commercial for the F-150, featuring an actual owner named Chris, who says, "I wasn't going to buy another car from a manufacturer that was bailed out by our government. I was going to buy from a manufactrer that's standing on its own, win, lose or draw."

So the way GM and Chrysler see things, Ford — and specifically its F-150, America's best-selling vehicle — had it coming. Your move, Mr. Farley.

Below, watch Chrysler's other Ram Truck Month spots along with a couple that may get feminists up in arms, "The Dark Side of Ram" —

Amazon.com, ranked at #9 among U.S. retail brands on Interbrand's new Best Retail Brands report, has found itself in hot water with environmentalists.

The Seattle-based company “allows” (or at least has turned a blind eye to) its Japanese website to "traffic in whale and dolphin products,” according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Whaling has been illegal since 1982. Britain's the Mirror states that “animal rights groups found 147 illegal items advertised including whale curry, whale bacon, whale stew and tinned whale hamburger” on the site. That's right: whale burgers.[more]

“By allowing vendors to sell whale products it is effectively helping to prop up a trade that should have been consigned to the history books,” stated Clare Perry, a spokesperson for the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which put out a press release today to draw attention to the matter, along with the graphic video below asking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to put a stop to the sale of the endangered species' meat. Consumers are being asked to boycott Amazon, too.

EIA president Allan Thornton added in a statement:

"Amazon.com has a clear policy of banning trade in endangered and threatened species but is turning a blind eye to commercial trade in whale products from endangered and threatened whales on its Japanese website. We are appealing to Jeff Bezos and Amazon to ensure that Amazon's ban includes all trade in products from whales, dolphins and porpoises across all of Amazon's websites."

EIA investigators purchased eight whale products from Amazon.co.jp in 2011, including canned whale meat, whale jerky, whale bacon and whale stew. Analysis revealed six of them to have mercury levels exceeding the Japanese national limit for mercury in seafood of 0.4 parts per million and one had a staggering mercury level of 20ppm, which is 50 times the safe limit. "Amazon says 'we're constantly looking for ways to further reduce our environmental impact' – banning these harmful products is an easy way for Amazon to show genuine commitment to this principle, while protecting its customers."

The organization's press release added that one-third of the 147 products were not listed with a species name, contrary to the requirements of Japan's labelling laws. Since many of these products originate from Taiji, where 10 times more dolphins are killed than whales, it is likely Amazon Japan is selling dolphin products mislabelled as "whale." "The vast majority of Americans and nations around the globe oppose the commercial slaughter of whales," commented Kitty Block, vice president of Humane Society International. "Profiting from the killing of whales is a dirty business which no reputable company should be involved."

The Economic Voice reports that Amazon blew it on another front as well: “EIA investigators that bought these products from Amazon Japan in 2011 found that six of the eight they purchased had mercury levels that exceeded the Japanese national limit of 0.4 parts per million. In fact one sample was found to contain a mercury level of 20 ppm, about 50 times the safe limit.

All this from a company that’s headquartered near where Free Willy took place. 

Amazon Sells Whale Meat from EIA on Vimeo.

Taco Bell is changing its tagline from "Think Outside the Box" to "Live Más," Spanish for "Live More," starting with national advertising rolling out on TNT's NBA All-Star game on Saturday night.

The move is timed to the Doritos Locos Tacos launch on March 8th, which CEO Greg Creed told USA Today will be"the biggest new-product launch Taco Bell has ever had."

Not everyone's convinced by the new slogan, however. "They're trying to suggest a lifestyle aspiration but this seems an overreach for Taco Bell, as is their Cantina Bell menu effort," commented restaurant marketing consultant Denise Lee Yohn to Ad Age.

"A tagline should embrace the DNA of the brand, which for Taco Bell is extraordinary value," she said, adding that the use of "imperative tag lines" seem outdated, and that Taco Bell should use a tagline that communicates the personality, spirit, or values of the brand, such as Chipotle's "food with integrity" stance.

Friendly technology. It may sound like an oxymoron to some, but through thoughtful branding and visual design, it can be portrayed as exactly that. Nitro, which offers a PDF conversion product, has just rebranded for that very reason.

The brand, which started in Australia in 2005 and is now headquartered in San Francisco, felt its visual identity did not reflect its culture, products, or approach. In short, they wanted a brand "we could be proud of." Below, find out how they rebranded and why.[more]

As the company embarked on this process, they contracted Davis Elen agency in Los Angeles for brand discovery, positioning, development, visual identity, marketing collateral and the website makeover.

So what exactly is Nitro's brand positioning? "Making easy a reality." Their mission? "To create tools that enable people to work smarter. To build intuitive software designed to improve the shared document lifecycle so that you can work more productively, your way." Or as their revamped Twitter bio page puts it, "we build intuitive products—like Nitro Pro and Nitro Reader—that help people work smarter. We make PDF easy."

Nitro wants the user to act "instinctively smarter" and their software to replace effort with instinct. They wanted the brand to reflect their core values:

Rooted in Australian culture. We work hard, we play hard, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Passionate. We give 110%, because we believe we can positively impact the lives of our users and customers with great products.

Easy.Easy to use, easy to work with. We simplify the complex.

Fun. We enjoy doing what we do, and we want the same for our customers. No Bullshit. We’re real people and real in the way we operate and communicate with each other, our customers, and our partners. Open and honest dialogue is a must in keeping our interactions real.

The new look and feel aims to reflect these values:

As for the character on the right, that's Milo. A wombat. With a jetpack. The company's new Aussie marsupial mascot shows up on 404 pages, support process and documentation, seasonal and campaign collateral, social media properties — even a cheery mural at its Melbourne office:

Is it silly to have a friendly mascot for such a strong tech company? Of course not. Mega-corporations have mascots, especially high-tech companies in Silicon Valley. Since tech can be scary (or just plain dull) to some, the mascot makes the service or product more appealing then just a name and a mark.

How do you think Milo stacks up to other tech mascots? Check out a few examples below and post a comment!

Other big name mascots

Valentine’s Day was marred for many by failed or faulty delivery of bouquets to loved ones, as we covered here, last week – and many consumers and retailers had things to say.

A popular florist blogger commented in a Feb. 17th post titled “Valentine’s Day Flowers Adwords: Feasting on the Bones of Local Florists”:

“Vultures. It’s the only way I can think to describe Google’s Adwords ads this past Valentine’s Day holiday. ‘Don’t be evil’ flew out the window and Google opened it even wider for the birds of prey to strip consumers and local flower shops of their hard-earned dollars.

First, we had ProFlowers telling shoppers seeking local florists BY NAME in Google searches that the stores were sold out of flowers. It’s a completely despicable ad tactic that diverted consumers by lying about local flower shop inventories. Despite having plenty of beautiful blooms for Valentine’s Day, the drop-shipper tried to suck in late buyers by falsifying the flower availability at these shops. Shame on Liberty Media. Shame on ProFlowers. And shame on the Google staffers who approved those ads."

We asked Google to comment, and they replied by email.[more]

"Google allows advertisers to bid on competitor keywords as well as to use competitor terms in the ad text itself as long as advertisers do not make any false or inaccurate claims in their ads (see more here)," we were informed when asked for Google's response to the Valentine's Day debacle. "We use a combination of manual and automated processes to enforce this policy. Ads that are found in violation of our policies will be removed."

Clearly, manual and automated processes weren't up to the task of policing floral ad campaigns around Valentine's Day. Many local florists took note of the ambush Google AdWords campaigns and a few others blogged about it, including:

"Loads of local florists are going through this time-consuming exercise daily. Google has long been a company I’ve respected, but this holiday they put ad dollars way, way ahead of truthful advertising and consumer/user interest. Google: Don’t tell your users drop-shippers are ‘located nearby’ and don’t let advertisers misrepresent the inventories of real local florists. Both are evil and are far more vulture-like than the Google brand I’ve respected for many years. Lose the trust of local businesses... and buyers...and you lose a whole lot.”

A final word of caution from floristdetective.com:

“Consumers should keep in mind, when they order from "national sites" and not directly from a local florist, that most of the time, the monies paid in Delivery/Service fees are not passed along to the local florist and kept by the "brands". Also, so called "deals" where you buy a coupon for dollars off of flowers, can actually cost you more in the long run as these fees often eat up any discount you may have received. Consumers will always get a better deal, dealing directly with the local florist that will be delivering the gift, and the local florist will receive the funds they need to do the job right.”

Next up – Mother’s Day. Caveat emptor – and the sellers too.

Kia has been showing off a head-turning concept car called the GT around the auto-show circuit lately. And now it looks as if the Korean brand's first rear-wheel-drive sedan will be introduced this summer — and very much resemble the GT.

Code-named KH, the production version of the car and the GT concept are based on the same mechanical platform that upholds Equus, the top-of-the-line nameplate for sibling brand Hyundai. This means that Kia is following very closely in the footsteps of Hyundai in plans to move upscale after establishing itself in the mainstream market.[more]

"It would definitely be a halo vehicle, limited number" of units, Michael Sprague, CMO for Kia in North America, told Automotive News. "You don't want to build any more than you have to. You want it to be a unique vehicle for the brand."

Kia has paved the way for this move relatively quickly. It has been spiriting the GT around the international auto-show circuit, beginning with Frankfurt last fall and including Los Angeles and Chicago. Producing the similar KH by this summer, initially for the Korean market, would be a quick move for Kia.

There's no word yet on a timetable for getting the car into the U.S. market, but Sprague and his colleagues are convinced that Americans would entertain a Kia that purports to compete around the $60,000 level with stalwarts such as the BMW 5 Series, Mercedes-Benz E-Class and Audi 6.

That attitude, of course, is similar to the approach used by Hyundai a few years ago in bringing the pricey Genesis and even more upscale Equus to the United States. It also provides an interesting glimpse into the thinking at the two brands' corporate parent. Some U.S. observers have assumed that the company eventually would split its positioning in the American market into a premium Hyundai brand and a mainstream Kia brand.

But Hyundai and Kia executives in America long have insisted such a bifurcation wasn't in the plans of the Korean conglomerate. And introducing a Kia-badged luxury vehicle certainly would be evidence of such a strategy.

Typically mentioned as the international competitor to Facebook, Orkut, Google’s “also-ran social networking site,” just launched a Google+ badge for users with both accounts – its first integration. “No, it’s not a big deal in terms of the feature itself (oooh, a badge), but it’s an indication of Orkut’s current status in Google’s eyes,” writes TechCrunch.

With 66 million users in Brazil and India, Orkut is alive and (sort of) well, but trailing Facebook substantially and may have missed the moment to level the playing field. In its recent IPO, Facebook said its active user base in Brazil had nearly tripled in 2011, placing it ahead of Google’s Orkut service as the leading social network in the country.

"I can't think of an example where Facebook has grown so quickly," commented Andrew Lipsman, VP of industry analysis at comScore, to Reuters. "It really just skyrocketed." So does that leave Orkut, which introduced many Brazilians to social networking, ditched at the dance?[more]

The rise of Orkut, named for its creator, Google employee Orkut Büyükkökten, "coincided with an economic boom that lifted millions out of poverty, with many Brazilians gaining access to computers and the internet for the first time. That turned into a double-edged sword, both expanding Orkut's user base while alienating more-affluent early adopters,” Raquel Recuero, a professor at the Catholic University of Pelotas in Brazil, told Reuters.

As Facebook aggressively stepped up its game, Orkut did not address cultural issues, leverage its local advantage, or offer users games, apps and international connections beyond Brazil. Google appears more eager to build up its Google+ social platform by reaching out to Orkut's user base to combat Facebook, more so than building up Orkut itself. 

As Orkut brings Google (and Google+) to the party, what a party it is! “Social media users in Brazil, China and India were more likely to consider social network sites a good source of word-of-mouth information on brand experiences than were users in the US, at 31%, 23% and 27%, respectively, vs. 18% in the US,” reports Emarketer.com, with over half of total social media ad revenues in 2012 projected to come from outside the US.

“What’s surprising is how gentle the Orkut to Google+ shift is beginning – a huge difference from Google’s other efforts at forcing G+ signups across its platform," writes TechCrunch, adding some free advice: "Google, if you’re going to go all in, don’t flounce around with Orkut. There’s a narrow window to push those Google-loving, social networking holdouts from one Google product to the next."

Converse is continuing its "Three Artists. One Song" musical collaborations with a new single being released Friday: DoYaThing, a "robo-funk" (as NME calls it) track featuring Blur spinoff Gorillaz with guests Andre 3000 of Outkast fame and musician/producer James Murphy in his post-LCD Soundsystem guise.

The track is promoting the brand's limited edition Gorillaz-themed line of sneakers, which includes camouflage Chuck Taylor high top sneakers, designed by comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, who was best known for Tank Girl before he designed the Gorillaz characters.

The co-branded collection/single/video launch is being promoted with a Twitter hashtag and teaser videos, which you can check out below.[more]

Here's a 30-second snippet of the 12 minute single:

And here's a behind-the-scenes peek at the Do Ya Thing video, which is directed by Hewlett:

The launch isn't just U.S. but global, with local event marketing including a street party in Singapore, and billboards in "Gorillaz Central," the UK:

The collection will be available online and at Converse retail distributors in addition to the brand's (modestly) expanding network of stores in the U.S. Following standalone stores in New York and Boston, the iconic shoe company has just opened its first West Coast retail location in Santa Monica, California.

The store is 70,000 square feet and features “the broadest assortment of Converse in the world,” according to Racked.com. But the biggest selling point of the store (as hinted at by its tagline, "Make Something") is the customization station, which allows consumers to take a pair of Converse shoes or apparel and place any design they want on them. As linked to street art and design as it is to basketball and music, Converse has hired graphic designers to help customize kicks to order on the spot.

Like its retail predecessors, the store offers Converse’s “entire shoe range—more than 230 styles,” as well as the brand's clothing, “including skinny jeans, leather moto jackets, tees and hoodies; plus watches, sunglasses, bracelets, key rings and books.”

Showing that it's not just an urban brand, the brand's first California store highlights local connections and environmental concerns to help engage locals, as Transworld Business notes. It features a “new line of men’s and women’s apparel and accessories that highlight designs from the local art community,” Transworld notes, while some of what the Customization Station offers to print on your shoes or apparel are “collaborations with local artists and designs that tie back to the Santa Monica community.”

The store also features three large skylights to bring in some of that California sunshine while wall installations that are made by the never-ending stream of local artists “celebrate the brand’s DNA and reflect the local southern California lifestyle and Converse’s Santa Monica exclusive merchandise,” a company release states. The store also uses discarded high school bleachers to showcase the sneaks, a crafty way of getting some environmental oomph in there to help satisfy that consumer desire. (For more on retail innovation, check out Interbrand's 2012 Best Retail Brands report.)

It's not just musicians who love "Chucks," as Converse fans call Chuck Taylor All-Stars, by the way. Count NBA players such as Atlanta Hawks guard Kirk Hinrich, Chicago Bulls swingman Kyle Korver, and Philadelphia 76ers forward Elton Brand, as fans of the brand.

[Billboard image via]

"This agreement with China will make it easier than ever before for U.S. studios and independent filmmakers to reach the fast-growing Chinese audience, supporting thousands of American jobs in and around the film industry."

That's U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's summary of a groundbreaking new deal between the two nations that will relax the controls on China's movie market. The agreement came at the end of leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping's visit to the US, an image-polishing visit for China at a time when worker conditions and Apple dominated U.S. headlines.

The agreement included a deal with the Dreamworks Animation studio for a filmmaking joint-venture based in Shanghai. But it's also good news for one of the few industries America still excels at, while easing access to China's billion-strong audience for the product placement industry.[more]

The deal opens China to an additional 14 U.S.-produced films on top of the 20 non-Chinese movies okayed for the market. Per the agreement, the films must be produced in 3D or IMAX formats, which calls into question how much the new agreement will, in Biden's words, help "independent filmmakers." China now has just over 2,500 screens capable of handling 3D films and will soon have around 50 IMAX-capable screens.

Sweetening the deal for the US is a provision of the deal that increases the percentage of Hollywood's distribution take.

A case study in the kinds of films that will benefit is last summer's blockbuster (and 2012 Brandcameo Product Placement Award winner) Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The latest installment in the Transformers movie franchise premiered in Shanghai and was one of a limited number of 2012 US films to be screen in China, where it became a huge hit.

China was Transformers 3's most profitable market after the US, and its opening weekend set the all-time China record of a $46.8 million box office. It went on to become the second-highest grossing film ever in China ($168 million) of all time, second to James Cameron's Avatar.

The (not totally) secret silver lining for China in Transformers 3 was all the Chinese product placement that made it into the film. 

China homegrown brands Lenovo, Meters/Bonwe, TCL and Yili Milk all scored major roles in the film. The upshot: record numbers of Chinese filmgoers watching an American film featuring Chinese products. Gotta love Hollywood, baby!

The agency that set up all of those placements was the legendary branded entertainment group Norm Marshall Associates. Marshall, who has an office in Beijing, had tested the waters of placing Chinese brands in US films a few years before when it worked with Meters/Bonwe in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the second in the series. Marshall told brandchannel that the partnership was a bonanza of both brand building and profitability and has opened the door to Chinese brands seeking to land product in Hollywood blockbusters.

But it wasn't just the Chinese brands that benefited. Thanks to the Transformers franchise, the Chevrolet Camaro is the muscle car of choice in China. The Transformers Camaro is so popular in fact that GM released the special bumblebee-yellow, Autobot-decaled edition Camaro model to the China market via last year's Guangzhou Auto Show. It retails for about 475.800 yuan ($75,000).

While the U.S./China trade deal creates an opening for 20 more US films, it also represents a secondary opportunity for 20 more multiples of product placement for brands looking to piggyback on blockbusters to reach a huge, hungry consumer group.

Finally, the deal was negotiated at the tail end of China's soon-to-be leader Xi Jinping's visit to the US. Perhaps it was Xi's time spent in Iowa in 1985 and his exposure to American movies and entertainment that made the deal possible. News reports have already noted that one of the sons of the Iowan family Xi stayed with was a big Star Trek fan.

What movies were playing in theaters that Xi might have seen during the first two weeks of May 1985, when he visited Iowa? Police Academy 2, Porky's 3 and more:

Pinterest has crossed the digital divide of 10 million, attracting 11.7 million monthly uniques in the U.S. “faster than any other standalone website in history” as TechCrunch commented earlier this month.

More than 100 brands are now on Pinterest, which has popped up in Facebook Timelines by more than 60% daily thanks to integration with Facebook Open last month. Facebook has helped fuel its meteoric rise as "Pin" has joined "Like" in the social media lexicon. It's so popular that even the U.S. Army released an introduction to Pinterest. So it should come as no surprise that the visual bookmarking site is standing at attention these days.[more]

With the brand’s popularity, a rise in speculation about users "pinning" copyright-protected images has surfaced. Concerned, Pinterest has responded with an opt-out option for website owners to disable access with a metatag function by adding a string of html code.

As the Love Infographics chart below shows, Pinterest ended 2011 more popular in the U.S. (nearly 12 mm) than in the U.K. (200,000 userse). Give it time.

Above, guests at Monday's rain-making Burberry Prorsum women's Autumn/Winter 2012 collection at London Fashion Week including will.i.am praise the brand for being not only fashion- but digital-forward, while Vogue's Anna Wintour praises designer Christopher Bailey for bringing polish and global sophistication to British fashion. Check out the runway show below.[more]

When Bob Marley died in 1981, he was worth around $30 million, Forbes reports. He’s worth a boatload more now and his descendants are happy to profit from his worldwide fame.

As Forbes points out, the lack of a will by Marley has helped create a lot of legal infighting over the years. However, it has also led to the Marley name being spread to new audiences in all sorts of new ways, whether it is, as the Jamaican Observer notes, “caps, lanyards, T-shirts, rolling papers, handbags and purses, belts and buckles, incense, beach towels and knapsacks,” among other things.

Now fans of Marley will get to go swimming with the legend as his oldest daughter, Cedella, will be launching a line of swimwear in March called High Tide.

Cedella has also profited from the Marley name by churning out children’s books, such as Smilin’ Island of Song, and putting the Marley name on a few clothing lines (Catch a Fire, Nice Time). And she’s worked with such companies as Puma and Barneys New York.[more]

Her brother Rohan also got into the Marley merchandising business when he introduced a coffee line called, naturally, Marley Coffee, which features beans grown in Jamaica’s Blue Mountains, with each variety named after a different Marley tune.

Dad would be so proud.

Amazon's brand value soars 32% in Interbrand's 2012 Best Retail Brands report.

Apple's iPad challenger Proview is open to a settlement as Apple extends checks on Chinese suppliers. Apple also signed China Telecom as second iPhone seller.

Cabela's expands and rolls out smaller-store format.

Coca-Cola sponsors teen parties in Tanzania.

FedEx may be eyeing TNT Express.

Ford signals moderate growth and expansion in China.

Gap teams with fashion bloggers for Be Bright global launch.[more]

Home Depot earnings rise on strong U.S. sales.

Magic Johnson plans to launch a cable channel on Comcast aimed at African-Americans, while Sean Combs plans to start a music channel called Revolt.

L'Oreal halts stock options.

Lions Gate places franchise bet on The Hunger Games.

Maserati prepares to debut GranTurismo Sport.

Mazda needs new capital to execute strategy as it scores product placement in Dr. Seuss's The Lorax.

McCormick chooses Indian scent to apply to its annual reports this year.

McQ by Alexander McQueen makes triumphant return to London Fashion Week.

Microsoft claims Google is snooping on IE users.

NBC scrambles to promote Awake.

Omnicare ends hostile bid for PharMerica.

Pinterest enables websites to block image-pinning.

Post, spun off from Ralcorp, looks to boost cereals vs. Kellogg and General Mills.

RIM releases updated PlayBook operating system.

Sears reaches out to African-American entrepreneurs but cuts headquarters staff.

Starbucks opens first ski-through store.

Subway expands to Romania.

Twitter partners with Yandex, the huge Russian competitor to Google.

Universal Music Group seeks EU approval to take over EMI.

Walmart profit trails estimates as low prices hurt margins.

Wynn Resorts goes to war with co-founder.

Yum's serves up new growth plans.

On Friday, Apple's week of bad news from China got the proverbial icing on the cake in the form of an initial report from The Fair Labor Association about Apple's manufacturing partners. The report had a number of points but the single bite the media latched on to was "tons of issues."

From its lost iPad trademark to working conditions to a smoldering conspiracy theory about the brand punishing The New York Times, Apple stands on the verge of flipping from the brand we love and hold up as an example to emulate, to the brand we love… begrudgingly.[more]

Apple is the most valuable company in the world, thanks to a market capitalization in the neighborhood of $465 billion. A recent Forbes Customer Loyalty Engagement Index study points out exactly why this is:

"Apple was #1 (Tablets) and #2 (Smartphones) when it came to delighting their customers. That’s what a combination of a brand loaded with values and meaning and products that continually deliver meaningful experiences gets you.

When we look at individual categories, Apple was #1 in Laptop Computers too. And, logically, Tablets and Smartphones. They used to be #1 in the MP3 Players, but we had to stop measuring that category. Virtually nobody mentioned a brand competitive to the iPod, and even when they had a competitive brand, consumers insisted upon calling it an “iPod,” so we unofficially ceded that category to them too."

But just as a Republican nominee for president, it's punishing to be the frontrunner.

And has Apple ever been punished lately. It all goes back to its relationship with China, now the brand's second largest market (even though Apple's slipping share of the China smartphone market is worrisome).

In the Chinese courts, Apple lost its iPad trademark battle with a small Shenzhen-based company named Proview Technology. Apple claims it licensed the iPad trademark from the company, and now it's reportedly threatening to sue for defamation. So what happened?

Some evidence can be found in the correspondence attained by Dow Jones-owned tech blog, All Things D. These memos and emails show Apple's negotiations with the Taiwain-based Proview over rights to the "iPad" name. Apple may not have realized, or may have taken on faith, that the Taiwan-based Proview owned the iPad trademark for the mainland People's Republic of China. And though the Taiwan-based company applied for the trademark, it appears that it may have been rejected and instead come to be owned by the Shenzhen-based affiliate, with which Apple had no deal.

The case is by no means over and Apple could still win back its trademark for the nation. Then there are China law insiders, such as those at China Hearsay, who smell bad lawyering and conclude "Apple’s best shot here is still the Shenzhen appellate case that will begin on February 29."

Indeed, anyone with business experience in China may smell the stink of shakedown a mile away. A Wall Street Journal estimate (see the video at top) puts the "true value" of the iPad name at $2 billion.

As some have pointed out, there is a ripe political angle here too. As Apple looks for a solution — by way of the courts or through a rename of the device — some Chinese, sick of being the copyright-violation whipping boy of the US, have used the opportunity for a little Schadenfreude. A China Daily op-ed titled "Biting Back at Apple" smirks:

"Chinese rules allow trademark owners to request seizure of goods that violate their rights. These rules were enacted partly in response to foreign pressure for the Chinese government to stamp out the unlicensed copying of foreign goods.

As the defendant, Apple can now better understand the purpose of intellectual property rights protection is to promote innovation and it is against the spirit of innovation to use IPR protection as a business strategy for grabbing market share."

In the meantime, the controversy allows media as respected as The Economist to write juicy headlines such as "End of the iPad?"

While the iPad trademark story is a headache for Apple, the story about the working conditions at its manufacturing partner Foxconn is a genuine brand threat.

Following years of bloggers slamming Apple over working conditions at Foxconn, The New York Times weighed in with a couple of long reports on the subject in January. One result of that reporting? Apple's media relations team may have blacklisted the Times in retaliation. It's a snub for the Times just when Apple has launched a massive charm offensive, warming up to a media it has usually kept in the dark.

This week will see a massive "Inside Apple" reporting campaign with ABC's Nightline airing on Tuesday night (watch a preview below, and click here for more from reporter Bill Weir).

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Another result of the reports? It appeared that the noise was finally loud enough for Apple to act. Apple supplier Foxconn, shopping for a little public relations love of its own, has announced it will "sharply" increase worker pay. Meanwhile, Apple itself entered into an agreement with the Fair Labor Association to audit the facilities.

So the "tons of issues" found by the audit, which is also manufacturing the 10-inch Kindle Fire for Amazon? Not so much:

"After his first visits to Foxconn, [FLA's auditor] van Heerden said, 'The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm.' He spent the past several days visiting Foxconn plants to prepare for the study.

'I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory," he said. "So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. It's more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps.'"

If the FLA reports are any indication of what's to come, it would seem that Apple's new warm heart and open arms may pay off for the brand. And with that kind of momentum neutralizing the negative brand impact from its Foxconn relationship, the (rumored) upcoming introduction of the iPad 3 could be Apple's biggest day ever.