Sometimes a brand blazes a trail, only to find itself outrun by the competition. 

Back in 2006, entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie, who made his name and a small fortune as a contestant on reality TV show, The Amazing Race, came up with a unique proposition for a new brand, TOMS Shoes. The business model: TOMS would donate a pair of shoes to a child who lived in poverty for every pair of shoes sold. The philanthropic concept quickly became a sensation that catapulted the company's brand awareness to superstar status.

Not surprisingly, other companies started to knock off the idea. The most egregious copycat has been a line of shoes called "BOBS" that Skechers introduced in 2010. BOBS not only look exactly like TOMS signature shoe, right down to the logo stitched on a visible exterior label, but Skechers also shamelessly followed TOMS' "one-for-one" model of giving away a pair of shoes for every pair sold.Continue reading...

Ashton Kutcher is happy to flog his own products. This is the Twitter-savvy guy, after all, who invested in tech startups and then gave them some promo space on his sitcom, Two and a Half Men. He did the same thing when he guest-edited the first "social issue" of Details a few years back.

Now he’s got his money invested in a T-shirt company, so consumers shouldn’t be surprised when Kutcher shows up everywhere they look wearing one of his own products—if you can identify the logo-less tees, that is. The online company, Pickwick and Weller, was founded with two other fellas and goes after the “luxury for less” market.Continue reading...

Warby Parker upended the eye glass business and have now set their sights on shaving with their second start-up, Harry’s.  

Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider is relying on his first start-up's magic elixir—“a direct-to-consumer boutique experience for mass-retail prices,"—to make Harry's a runaway hit, FastCompany reports.Continue reading...

True&Co may be every woman’s answer to the sturm und drang of buying a bra.

Joining the growing list of e-commerce breakthroughs—think Zappos and Warby Parker—True&Co has scaled the most personal mountain of buying intimates online. Their model asks new customers to take a 15-question quiz, then selects three different styles for them to choose from. Then, an algorithm interjects to pick two additional bras to send out, giving a customer five bras to try on at home, no obligation to buy, priced from $45 to $62. 

The quiz asks the basics; band and cup size and the brand of her current “best fitting (and beloved) bra,” as well as questions like, “Do your cups runneth over?” and “What is your shape?” with these choices: Well-Rounded, Bottom Happy, Taking Sides and Bottom & Sides. 

“We have an algorithm that defines 2,000 body types,” said co-founder Michelle Lam, who started the company with Dan Dolgin and Aarthi Ramamurthy. 

It’s a brave new world where mathematics and marketing can determine and deliver anything from brasseries to orange juice suited to consumer preference, taking into account countless decision variables. Continue reading...

Samsung mocks iPhone 5 buyers in latest commercial.

Chick-fil-A backs down and vows to stop donating to anti-LGBT groups.

Visa shifts global creative duties back to BBDO.

AOL names female CFO.

AT&T faces backlash over Apple FaceTime restrictions, while CEO explains anti-texting and driving push.

Bed Bath & Beyond beats the odds.

Citibank credit card is coming to China.Continue reading...

New York-based Warby Parker has 20/20 vision when it comes to selling their branded eyeglasses, and brand of philanthropy. Touting "eyewear with purpose" the startup disrupted business-as-usual, bringing comparatively low-priced ($95) but high-quality glasses with a 30-day "no questions asked" return policy online, and the choice of five different pairs of glasses for five days to try at home.

And now with $36.8 million of funding, led by General Catalyst Partners (and partner Joel Cutler joins Warby Parker’s board), they’re getting ready to open their first retail store, in the brand's home turf — NYC’s Soho neighborhood, where they've been testing the retail water with pop-up stores.Continue reading...

BP sells Gulf of Mexico oil fields for $5.5 billion to help pay for spill settlement while Petrobras seeks partner for development of its Gulf sites.

HP expands workforce reduction to 29,000 positions.

AIG will see U.S. slash its stake to become minority shareholder with $18 billion sell-off.

Apple cuts reliance on Samsung for iPhone chips as iPhone 5 mania and rumor mill heat up.

Audi threatens BMW's seven-year luxury auto crown.

Google charges retailers in growing competition with Amazon, as Google Fiber launch site takes off and Google Glasses hit the runway at New York Fashion Week.

NBC faces Paralympic TV deal scrutiny while the UK celebrates the end of the summer of the Olympics with London 2012 parade.Continue reading...

Americans love their gift cards, as the average American adult gives five a year and they are the most requested gift. Now they can turn to Wrapp, a social gifting service that enables F2F (friend-to-friend) marketing on behalf of brands.

The Swedish startup, founded last year, launches today in the U.S. with major retail partners including Gap, Fab.com, H&M, Sephora, the Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn Industries, Warby Parker, WeSC, Gant, Bjorn Borg, with another 15 retailers in the wings.Continue reading...