Burberry Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey promised back in September ahead of its global flagship store opening on London's Regent Street that Burberry would be stepping up its digital innovation lead even more. He wasn't kidding.

London Fashion Week kicked off Monday with Burberry's autumn/winter 2013 women's ready-to-wear show full of glossy trenchcoats, hearts, animal prints and polished metals. It's also taking a shine to latest in digital personalization: giving consumers the ability to order what they see on the catwalk straight from their mobile devices with a novel twist—customization using the brand's proprietary technology.

It's the latest example of how the Burberry brand is all in on tech, including its Art of the Trench and Burberry World digital platforms, pushing photos to Instagram, making contact with consumers across the social and mobile web. The fastest growing luxury brand on Interbrand's 2012 Best Global Brands list is now bridging social and mobile with its latest move: live streaming its fashion show on its website, on Facebook, on Twitter (a first, the brand believes, according to the New York Times) and in its digital-first flagship Regent Street store.Continue reading...

Brands can ask their fans to do some crazy things to show their love, but Nike Japan has found a new way to get its devotees to make themselves look a little crazy while helping to spread the Nike name.

Their marketing team's latest stunt: Free Face, which asks consumers to, well, load an image of their face that the magic of technology will use to create an oddly similar image of a Nike shoe. This, of course, has led to some hilarious results.Continue reading...

Nike is setting a goal to have consumers be able to get their shoes individually made to perfectly fit them. The shoe giant takes another step toward reaching its vision with this week's release of the second round of its HTM Flyknit collection, which features the brand's innovative new technology for customizing shoes that debuted in February.

The Oregonian reports that the company sees Flyknit as “game-changing technology” (Bloomberg Businessweek calls it "the swoosh of the future") because of two different things. One is that it streamlines production (read: lessens the need for humans). When the day comes that robots can do the whole thing, you can expect Nike CEO Matt Parker (and all of the company’s shareholders) to be doing a jig of joy.

The second reason Flyknit is so radical is that it creates less waste. The uppers of Flyknit shoes are constructed as they are needed (on the fly, if you will) rather than with excess material that ends up being scrapped, thereby living up to the Nike Better World eco-platform.Continue reading...

While regular chocoholics are spending their nickels and dimes on such treats as Kit Kats and Crunch bars, one global leader that specializes in such treats is looking at a new market to make a little extra: high-end, customized chocolates.

Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the Swiss-based Nestlé started inviting “Internet shoppers in Switzerland and Liechtenstein (to) order a taster pack from the Nestlé-owned Maison Cailler line of luxury Swiss chocolates” in January. 

Once the consumer has a taste of the different “Ecuador-sourced chocolate(s)” inside, they can figure out their “chocolate personality,” allowing them to order boxes with the fillings they desire. Chocolate filling choices include peppercorn (yes, peppercorn), vanilla, raspberry, and verbena.

With sixteen pieces of personalized Maison Cailler chocolates costing about $30, can the concept — however delicious — work in these tough times? Mais oui, argues Nestlé.Continue reading...

Less than a month ago, the idea of Nike giving Jeremy Lin his own shoe was completely laughable. Before his breakout game Feb. 4 against the New Jersey Nets, Lin had scored only 32 points in the nine games he had appeared in for the New York Knicks. He hadn’t even stepped onto the court for 13 of the team’s first 22 matchups.

Then, of course, he became the toast of New York and a worldwide phenomenon, rising up from his brother’s couch to seemingly save Gotham and strike a pose for underdogs everywhere (though it’s hard to imagine too many situations where a Harvard grad is considered an underdog). With all that love coming his way, marketers were suddenly calling. And Nike was apparently was early to the phone, especially since they had signed Lin to a deal back in 2010. Now it was time for their payday.

In the wake of last week's early sighting, Nike started to sell “Jeremy Lin-themed shoes” in the New York Knicks' team colors, in time to be worn by Lin last weekend. They can be created by fans online for $130 a pair, based on the basketball sneaks (Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low) the brand built especially for the rising star. Just don't consider it Nike's official Lin shoe — yet.Continue reading...

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.Continue reading...

Not satisfied to set a Guinness World Record, Charlie Sheen clearly feels he needs to be even more "winning." The verbose actor today filed a $100 million lawsuit against Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre and Warner Bros. Television, which produces the hit series for CBS.

Who else is winning from Sheen’s public tirades and manic self-promotion? Consider brands like Zazzle, a Silicon Valley startup whose business — instant customization of 50 or so products — has catapulted overnight to feed a public eager to capture Sheen's catchphrases on t-shirts.

By popular demand on zazzle.com, they’ve been churning out t-shirts with variations on Sheen’s "winning," "tiger blood" and other bon mots at a steady clip, making up a healthy chunk of the 150,000 user-customized products it manufactures daily. Its instant response to the Sheen phenom also garnered it a CNN profile this week.Continue reading...

In a development that should have bourbon aficionados raising their glasses, Knob Creek is bringing to market its long-awaited Single Barrel Reserve, the first new release from the brand since it was introduced by Jim Beam in 1992.

The new bourbon should be on shelves by next month. Ever responsive to consumers, which the brand lets customize its bottle labels, this week an update was posted on its Facebook page to whet fans' appetite:

The master distillers at Knob Creek taste test each batch and then individually select the privileged few to become Knob Creek Single Barrel Reserve. Bringing you this quality and taste requires a significant amount of additional time, but at Knob Creek, we don’t shy away from something that’s Worth the Effort. Only a few short weeks until you can find it on the shelves! Who's excited?

Talk about a rhetorical question.

Judging by the comments, they all are!Continue reading...