Reports broke late last week alleging that Bloomberg reporters were using the Bloomberg terminal to track (some might say stalk) employees at its financial services clients such as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, all the way up to high-profile individuals such as Ben Bernanke and Tim Geithner — even, apparently, the new company's namesake founder, Michael Bloomberg. 

Following a company-wide email on Friday and a Buzzfeed report that this ability was disclosed by a Bloomberg TV reporter two years ago, Bloomberg L.P. CEO Dan Doctoroff acknowledged in a story published by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the a firewall should have prevented its journalists from accessing such user data long "earlier":Continue reading...

JCPenney's brand-resuscitation efforts continued today with a digital-era form of a classic corporate move: the mea culpa.

The company launched a virtual apology tour on Facebook, YouTube (watch below) and Twitter to get the message out to customers—those same customers that now-ousted CEO Ron Johnson in large part ignored for more than a year—that the brand is sorry and wants them to come back.

According to Bloomberg, the campaign was developed on Johnson's watch and implemented by Sergio Zyman, the former Coca-Cola marketing executive who will go down in history as the architect of the New Coke fiasco.Continue reading...

China's state-run media including CCTV went into the weekend bashing Apple and came out the other side doing the same. Tech writers and journalists agree China's smear campaign against Apple has backfired because the effect China's smear campaign is having on Apple's brand is worse than you think in some quarters, and not such a big deal in others (depending who you read).

China's "attack" on Apple certainly doesn't have a simple black or white outcome. The impact will be seen after the dust settles, and it will (especially now that CEO Tim Cook has reportedly apologized), with one Citi analyst projecting that the showdown could cost the company up to $13 billion in sales in the market.Continue reading...

It has to hurt when your chief competitor tweets, "We empathize with our @BurgerKing counterparts. Rest assured, we had nothing to do with the hacking."

The LulzSec pranskster hacktivists are claiming credit for Monday's hacking of the official Burger King account, which entailed subbing in McDonalds' golden arches and changing the name of @BurgerKing to McDonalds at a little after noon ET on Monday. BK confirmed to the Associated Press that it asked Twitter to take its @burgerking account offline while it repaired the damage.

Update: @BurgerKing went back online around 10pm EST Monday night, leaving a few of of the hackers' retweets intact:

Other fake BK tweets during the hack included, “We just got sold to McDonalds! Look for McDonalds in a hood near you," and the background picture changed to McDonald's new Fish McBites menu item. And subsequent tweets used the hashtag #OpMadCow and, "if I catch you at a wendys, we're fightin!"Continue reading...

IKEA is in hot water in Thailand for its holiday campaign that aimed for the funny bone and ended up hitting the Adam's apple — and offending some viewers in the process. The TV commercial, released on Dec. 25th and promoting an end-of-year sale, shows a couple strolling through the store, only the gentleman doesn't realize his companion is transgender.

As Reuters reported, "The 20-second commercial shown on YouTube and on Bangkok's trains in December and January entitled 'Luem Aeb' ('Forget to Keep Hidden'), was disrespectful to transsexuals, according to the Thai Transgender Alliance, which demanded an explanation from IKEA. Transgenders, or "Ladyboys" as they are often referred to, are widely accepted in Thailand and are commonplace in the fashion, beauty and entertainment industries, but are not officially recognized as women."

According to Reuters, a letter of apology from the company to the transgender group is now in the works. See the commercial, along with other holiday spots from IKEA Thailand, below.Continue reading...

You know things are bad when the BBC is covering itself under the banner, "Crisis at the BBC." The British Broadcasting Corp. has fallen from its venerable pedestal, with its latest embarrassment triggering the resignation of senior executives, who are taking the fall for the corporation's newsgathering operation failing to maintain the ethical and journalistic standards at the heart of its brand promise.

BBC director-general George Entwistle resigned on Saturday, after only 55 days in the role, holding himself responsible for "unacceptable journalistic standards" on the BBC's flagship current-affairs program, Newsnight, after it failed to verify an accusation it aired against Lord McAlpine, a former Conservative Party treasurer, of child sex abuse in Wales. The BBC's director of news, Helen Boaden, and her deputy, Stephen Mitchell, have also stepped down.

No wonder Chris Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, is calling the network a "ghastly mess."Continue reading...

One of the most famous landmarks of colonial era Shanghai was a sign that hung in The Bund park reading "No Dogs and Chinese." That sign never existed, although the urban legend persists because such rules did exist. Now, nearly 100 years later, with Chinese consumers growing more powerful every year, a luxury fashion designer has opened old wounds with a statement so colonially racist it would be comfortable on the streets of the French Concession circa 1921.

In a statement to WWD, the founder of high-end fashioner Zadig & Voltaire said that its new boutique hotel slated to open on the Left Bank in Paris in 2014 "won’t be open to Chinese tourists." Outrageous, for sure. But does the sentiment reveal an uncomfortable relationship between the world's haute fashion houses and their nouveau riche Chinese patrons? Just a week after D&G needed to explain its "Moorish" earrings, Thierry Gillier, fashion brand Zadig + Voltaire's founder, told WWD of the brand's new Paris hotel:

“It will be a slightly private hotel, not open to everybody, with 40 rooms. We are going to select guests. It won’t be open to Chinese tourists, for example. There is a lot of demand in Paris — many people are looking for quiet with a certain privacy.”

Through the weekend the story lit up Chinese social media networks including Weibo. Needless to say, reactions were swift and scathing.Continue reading...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has apologized for the iOS 6 Maps kerfuffle, following the brand's eviction of Google Maps and proprietary (but glitchy) maps function — one of the key features consumers demand from their smartphones. Google, meanwhile, just upgraded its maps app with high-resolution aerial views.

A contrite Apple posted the apology online (read the full text below) in a mea culpa that the Financial Times calls "a rare moment of contrition from the world's most valuable company," and — unexpectedly — suggested installing rivals' map apps "while we're improving Maps." Cook's personal apology for "mapgate" also raised comparisons to how Steve Jobs handled the iPhone 4 "antennagate," for which the company — but not Jobs personally — apologized.Continue reading...