Apple loses iPad Mini trademark, and finds a fan in Kim Jong-un as North Korea rattles saber and tensions rise with U.S., while increased China headaches include hacking threat and iPad regulation.

Discovery Communications expands global channel reach and launches scripted programming.

Novartis loses cancer drug patent battle in India.

Amazon buys Goodreads community-driven user reviews website.

AMC reveals new tagline and logo.

Armani hires Cate Blanchett for $10M campaign.

AT&T scores with March Madness Twitter campaign.Continue reading...

It’s the kind of coincidence that can’t be let alone. The same week that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer banned working from home in a move that caused major upheaval among the media and the public, “Makers: Women Who Make America,” premiered on PBS, telling the story of the last 50 years of the American women’s movement.

Beginning with the publication of Betty Friedan’s book “The Feminine Mystique,”— which is credited with codifying women’s ennui as housewives and mothers—the three-hour documentary puts the iconic Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. Magazine, front and center discussing the 70s. “It was heady and exciting and naïve, imagining that if we just explained it to people, that it was so unjust, that surely it would change.” 

Makers is a very modern model of a truly cooperative effort. The project is funded by many companies and organizations including AOL, PBS, Unilever's Simple skincare brand, the Charles H. Revson Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Narrated by Meryl Streep, the film focuses on the famous and infamous from Steinem and Abzug to Barbara Walters, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and barrier-breaker’s like tennis legend Billie Jean King.Continue reading...

Aston-Martin sells stake to Italian private-equity firm.

Citigroup sees CMO depart for Gilt.

YouTube relaunches site to feature original channels.

Coca-Cola relaunches Glaceau Vitimanwater in the UK.

Daily Beast considers charging for web content as Washington Post also plans paywall.

Delta faces California suit over app.

Ford finds opportunities in "social shifting."

Google to rein in free Google Apps.Continue reading...

Starbucks is certainly feeling bullish these days. Just a few years after scaling back its US retail footprint in a rocky economy, the coffee giant is now eyeing "accelerated global growth" with plans to open thousands of new locations. It's even offering a luxe "superpremium" gift card that'll cost $450 to put in a Christmas stocking.

In a presentation at the company's biennial investor conference today, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz glowed with the news that he plans to boost the number of Starbucks cafes in the Americas by more than 20 percent — opening more than 3,000 new shops over the next five years, including 1,500 in the United States, still its biggest market.Continue reading...

There's good news and bad news when it comes to AIDS, and ONE wants to make sure the world's population is aware of both this December 1, the 24th annual World AIDS Day.

The ONE Campaign, the global advocacy organization co-founded by U2's Bono, just released a new report on the global fight against HIV/AIDS. The good news: Scientists now have the tools to "turn the tide" on AIDS, and the world should be heartened that the UN set targets for the "beginning of the end of AIDS" to be met in 2015. The bad news: Unless "sufficient funding, coordination and political will" are brought to bear in the fight against AIDS, it will be 2022 before the "beginning of the end of AIDS" can be reached.

With America mired in a heated national debate over how to fix the debt and the looming fiscal cliff, Bono has been personally lobbying U.S. lawmakers to urge them not to cut U.S. foreign assistance and aid funding. ONE is stoking up the urgency through a variety of actions in conjunction with World AIDS Day 2012.Continue reading...

New York-based Gilt Groupe, the billion-dollar, members-only flash sales website, has just launched its first TV campaign. Two commercials (above and below) play up the Gilt brand of designer deal-shopping (in a cab, and in a gunfight that plays on Gilt's noon deal-posting) in time for holiday 2012. The Gilt campaign comes as Groupon, a rival deals website that relies on email to publicize a more general range of local daily deals, is struggling financially.Continue reading...

P&G sees profit soar and revenue drop in latest earnings report.

Kimberly-Clark pulls back in Europe.

Twitter encourages brands to find and use their authentic voice.

Apple earnings report on Thursday will be closely watched.

AT&T sees slowing in wireless-subscriber growth.

Barbie CMO looks to Royal Caribbean cruise experience launch in new year.

Best Buy shakes up management.Continue reading...

The Liz Claiborne brand name was sold in November to J.C. Penney so it was inevitable that its parent company, Liz Claiborne Inc., would shed the brand from its name. The inevitable is now official. The 34-year-old fashion company is changing its name to Fifth & Pacific Companies, and will start trading under the ticker symbol FNP in mid-May, in addition to replacing its zippy liz.com corporate domain with fifthandpacific.com.

Claiborne unloaded its Mexx brand in September and then sold its namesake brand to J.C. Penney, along with its Monet brand, two months later for $267.5 million. It also got rid of its Kensie and Dana Buchman brands this fall as it attempted to right its own financial ship. Now FNP is left with three core brands in Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand, Kate Spade, and a sibling in the mens fashion/accessory brand of Jack Spade line, to focus on.

The new corporate identity may recall Gap's Forth & Towne, Gilt's Park & Bond, and Nordstrom's Treasure & Bond, but CEO William McComb argues that the name is a perfect synthesis of the east coast/west coast stable of brands, as it's "where California cool meets New York chic."Continue reading...