One year after the Moscow show that landed Russian punk band Pussy Riot prison time (and global fame), a German lingerie brand is using the anniversary to sell racy undergarments.

Crass commercialism? Of course. But that's not the problem. The problem is backfire. Backfire is what another lingerie brand, Victoria's Secret, also faces with its latest marketing push.

The brand, Blush, debuted a not-so-safe for work video on YouTube, saying, "On the first anniversary of the Pussy Riot concert in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the Berlin based Lingerie label blush supports the free pussy riot movement with a sexy protest march through icy Moscow (-15° C). Support Freepussyriot.org!"Continue reading...

The world’s financial situation isn’t exactly peachy keen just yet, but the global population appears to be up for traveling. Both luxury and budget brand hotels are popping up across the world.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which came in at the top of its category in the recent 2013 Harris Poll EquiTrend, “expects to have enough cash in the next three years to add another global luxury brand bringing their total to ten.” 

Mitzi Gaskins, VP/global brand manager for JW Marriott, noted that the “luxury space is growing a lot” and is “anticipating 50 percent growth over the next four to five years with 79 JW hotels up and running by 2015.” Less than half of the 30 or more hotels that the brand has in the pipeline are in the United States. Gaskins told Fortune that the luxury markets that are growing fastest are “top tier destinations and gateway cities,” noting that the JW brand was opening soon in Cabo, Turks & Caicos, Macao and Hanoi, and had “just launched” in Venice.Continue reading...

As criticism raged Tuesday over surprise news that wrestling would be eliminated in the 2020 Summer Games, another Olympic controversy wasn't getting as much attention: How have so many tickets to the upcoming Winter Games already disappeared?

Tickets for the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia went on sale this week, priced from 500 rubles (about $16 USD) for the ice hockey group games and up to 50,000 rubles (over $1,600 USD) for the opening ceremony. The Games in the Black Sea resort city will feature 98 medal events — 12 more than the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Surely, the Olympics are undoubtedly popular. But some wondered how the majority of a tickets available online could possibly sell out within the first few hours after being made available on Feb. 7.Continue reading...

The relaunching of Vitaminwater in the U.K. relies on the confluence of two big developments: the growth of the Vitaminwater brand in what has become an important new market, and the rise of stevia-based beverages in Europe.

Glaceau is introducing fresh and more nutritionally informative new packaging for Vitaminwater in the U.K. and a new formula including stevia sweetener that cuts calories by 30 and reduces sugar levels by 30 percent. The company also is altering its nutrient blend in some varieties as well, boosting vitamins and minerals. 

"Being able to keep the products tasting great, but with fewer calories and introducing" stevia and more nutrients "is a fantastic step," Philippa Classey, a marketing manager for Vitaminwater, said in a Glaceau press release.

Stevia — the super-sweet extract of a bush native to South America — has been slower to penetrate the European beverage market than the U.S. in part because European regulators were slower to approve the low-calorie ingredient. But major beverage makers also including PepsiCo lately have been ramping up their use of the natural sweetener there.Continue reading...

How low can you go? If you're Carlos Ghosn, you want to build a car cheap enough that Nissan finally can compete in the very lowest-priced segment of auto sales throughout the developing world. So as promised earlier this year, Nissan — up 30 percent on Interbrand's just-released 2012 Best Global Brands report — is moving forward with a plan to delve into the ultra-low-cost car market by offering a model for about $3,000 to $5,000.

And the Nissan-Renault alliance has promised to do so through a revival of the Datsun brand. Nissan plans to offer six Datsun vehicles, beginning in 2014, at a price range lower than all but a handful of smaller car makers in China and India, Ghosn told the Wall Street Journal. A $3,000 Datsun would be about one-third of the price of the currently least expensive Nissan, the $8,000 Tsuru compact.

By not doing so previously, the CEO of Nissan and Renault said that the company has left itself out of about 40 percent of the potential market in countries including India, Indonesia and Russia. "We just see an opportunity," Ghosn explained earlier this year. "Today, in all the markets we are present, there is a level of price below which we cannot compete, we have no offering. The risk is to do nothing."Continue reading...

The future of the auto industry is made of BRICS, so global manufacturers increasingly are getting serious about making and selling their vehicles all over the developing world.

And some are defining BRICS — as in Brazil, Russia, India, and China, which have been "acronymed" into a sort of representation of promising, emergent national markets — more broadly, to include Africa and Southeast Asian nations.

Frustrated by the slow-growing domestic economy, a strong yen, and a problematic North American market, for example, Toyota has decided to build an engine factory in Brazil to cater to increasing demand in the world's fourth-largest auto market, as noted by Automotive News Europe (and Japan's NHK, above). General Motors and Ford have been players in Brazil for many years, and now increasingly Toyota and Nissan are expanding there.Continue reading...

With less than two weeks to go before the Summer Games kick off, London Olympics organizers have suddenly discovered that they’ve got a major problem on their hands: Security. And rain. A backlash to the so-called "brand police." And what to do with thousands of tetchy journalists?

Post-Cool Brittania, We Stand on Guard for Thee

After spending years prepping to make the Olympics a shining moment in the city’s history that should help make its brand shine, London is hurting for security help. Nick Buckles, the head of the firm that is providing what security will exist, G4S, admits that the whole thing has been a “humiliating shambles,” according to the Guardian. Even so, London city officials are hoping that somehow they can turn things around quickly in hopes of rescuing the city’s brand.Continue reading...

(Editor's note: The following has been updated with comment from Ikea.)

About 80 percent of furniture maker Ikea’s revenue comes from its stores in Europe — not the idea place you want to depend on your cash flow these days as the continent’s collective economy struggles to stay above water.

So Ikea is keeping itself busy expanding into – where else? – Asia, where it made $31.4 billion in its last fiscal year, which ended Aug. 31. Ikea had been opening one store a year in China but has now upgraded that to three, according to Bloomberg. And it is waiting to see what happens with legislation in India in hopes of entering that country’s retail space as well.

“Cautiously we are adding new markets,” Ikea CEO Mikael Ohlsson told Bloomberg. “We have big interest in opening in India. When the conditions are ripe in India we can start to prepare for an opening there.”Continue reading...