Above, Hitchcock H7N9 bird flu poster featuring Shanghai's skyline, via Weibo.

China is the second largest economy in the world and every significant brand's future is impacted by its growth (or collapse)—but who's got the time?! Here's the week's reads that will make you look like a keen China observer in case you find yourself immersed in a cultural conversation.

This week:  What's haunting Weibo?... Chicken woes for KFC... North Korean beer... New Zealand product placement... Audi's new branded film... Car plates... Skinny Uniqlo goes bigger... Inflation... Diaosi Mike Sui... Fan Bingbing for booze... Disneyland... Jordan gets countersued... Chinese spending in Europe... Former Google China head picks a fight with a 13-year-old... and more.Continue reading...

Disney CEO and chairman Robert Iger has spent 15 years trying to make Shanghai Disney a reality and now he’s only two years away from walking through its gates. He shared an image yesterday with 450 of the company’s stockholders of what the central 11 acres of the park will look like, including the park’s signature castle. This one, just to put a little exclamation point on things, will be taller than any of the castles in Disney’s five other parks, the Phoenix Business Journal reports.

What Iger didn’t get into is that the new park is close enough to serve as some competition to the one on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, that opened in 2005 and only just turned a profit last year, the L.A. Times reports. Close to half of the visitors to the park—which is 52 percent owned by the Hong Kong government and 48 percent owned by Disney—come from mainland China. Continue reading...

Facebook details ding Zynga shares as partnership ends.

CNN needs more vibrancy in programming, incoming CEO Jeff Zucker says.

Lipitor generic cholesterol pill production halted by Ranbaxy following glass contamination.

Amazon tops Walmart with wealthy Americans, study says.

AT&T named best 4G network in Consumer Reports annual ranking, but places last for voice/text quality to #1 Verizon.

Chevrolet partners with Dailybreak for holiday push.

Chuck E. Cheese sees revamped mascot lose consumer appeal.

Cool Whip breaks new ground with frosting.

Duke Energy forces out CEO in settlement.Continue reading...

Google’s Android mobile operating system is #1 on the top 20 brands favored by the LGBT community, according to the researchers at YouGov BrandIndex. Last year, Google's YouTube topped the annual LGBT ranking.

The 2012 LGBT buzz list includes four Apple-related and several other tech and social media brands, and looks quite different from last year’s ranking, with 12 new brands making the top 20: Android, iPad, Target, Samsung, Aleve, Kindle, Advil, PBS, LG, Starbucks, Comedy Central, and Skype. Disneyland and Disney World share fourth spot, reflect the parks' annual LGBT days and outreach to the gay community.

“Gay consumers number 15 million and counting, spending $743 billion annually” in the U.S., according to LGBT marketing agency Prime Access. Falling out of the top 20 this year: Google, Amazon, Whole Foods, Claritin, HBO, Lowe's, Cheerios, Food Network, M&Ms, Nike, Trader Joe's and Bose.Continue reading...

The above video is going viral on YouTube, if only for the comical sight of Darth Vader in Disneyland. You might ask why Darth Vader is wandering around Disneyland with two Stormtroopers.Continue reading...

With China forecast to be the top source of tourism by 2015, the construction of the world's sixth Disney amusement park is being closely watched, particularly as it pits two key Chinese cities against each other in a bid to "own" the Disney brand with the country's population.

The third Disneyland in Asia after Hong Kong and Japan, Disneyland Shanghai park is slated to open in five years, part of a $4.4 billion Disney resort that will include hotels, a commercial and restaurant complex, a lake, and two subway lines into the city. 

As much as it's a huge branding opportunity for Shanghai, it's an even bigger opportunity for Disney, whose CEO Bob Iger tells today's Wall Street Journal that the company's ambitions in China extend far beyond the Shanghai theme park.Continue reading...

Here's an idea: With the national debt at (CLICK HERE for latest), our federal government should be looking for any and every opportunity to get money flowing into the treasury. Well, just a suggestion, but how about selling a branding opportunity for the annual Presidential turkey pardon?

Just think about the media exposure! On the day before thanksgiving, the President pardons one lucky bird and every suffering-a-slow-news-day media outlet in the nation runs a story and photo of the event. And after the event itself, the highest bidding brand would have the right to use the pardoned bird at media events and as a spokesbird for its products: "I was lucky to be spared. But if I had to be eaten, I'd want to be a Butterball bird!"

And, at the very least it would force Disney to pay the government for all the excellent exposure and endorsement it gets from the President of the Free World™ saying, every year, that the lucky turkey was going to Disneyland:

"'There are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office,' Obama added. 'And then there are moments like this, where I pardon a turkey and send it to Disneyland.'"

Just sayin'.