Apple accused of avoiding billions in overseas taxes. 

Hershey launches new brand to get piece of China market.

Foxconn confirms employee deaths.

Best Buy swings to a loss on lower revenues.

Burberry is lifted by China performance.

Chevrolet joins Mad Men buzz on Twitter.

Chris-Craft rebuilds boat maker after recession.

Flowers Foods predicts "record year" after acquisition of Hostess brands.

Giorgio Armani profit is boosted by Asia.

GrubHub and Seamless merge their food ordering services.Continue reading...

Richard the Cat, a.k.a., Pundit of People, remains Home Depot’s meme of choice as the brand welcomes spring some out-of-character humor. 

The orange feline follows a human family as they pursue scores of DIY projects with questionable results and predictable mishaps. Comedy and social media is a pretty disruptive channel in the home improvement category, according to the brand. Home Depot CMO Trish Mueller credits the origin of the feline meme to an internal meeting last year where she proposed the idea. "Everyone has elves, reindeer, Santa, but one of the biggest things followed in the social space is cats," Mueller told Ad Age. "When I shared this with our leadership team, our CEO got it immediately. We're very lucky we have one of the hippest CEOs out there." 

Richard, known for his quick-wit and sarcasm, calls his human family out on Tumblr as "how-to helpless.” Richard’s Meme Generator invites users to create memes starring Richard, in return for Home Depot gift cards worth up to $200 every week until June 3. The brand arguably took a chance on the meme, as Emery has acknowledged that the two are an odd pair; The Home Depot brand is authentic, innovative and attainable, while Richard’s cat-sona is sarcastic, superior and refined.Continue reading...

eBay's latest initiative, Sell it Forward, adds a touch of philanthropy to its recent push to make the service more brand-centric and expand PayPal’s usage.

Sell it Forward lets users sell their new or lightly-used clothes, shoes, handbags and other wares and share the proceeds with Goodwill. If an item is deemed saleable and sells within two weeks, eBay customers receive 50 percent of the proceeds and the other 50 percent helps fund Goodwill's operations and charitable efforts. (If an item is not sold in 14 days, it becomes a straight donation to Goodwill, and customers receive a tax-deductable donation form.)Continue reading...

Western retailers have been completely bombarding China with products and sales pitches in recent years. Having more than 1.3 billion consumers living within its borders can make a country’s citizens targets of such things. 

Starbucks is about to go overdrive in its efforts to get the Chinese populace as dependent on their brand as plenty of Americans are, but the sell may not be so coffee-driven, but leverage the brand's tea drinks and food menu. The chain currently has 700 stores in China but that number will more than double in size to 1,500 in the next three years, according to the Wall Street Journal. That growth will also mean the chain’s employees in China will go from 12,000 today to 30,000 in three years. It also offers regional websites for Eastern China and Northern China.

Coffee sales went up 20% in 2011 over the previous year and brought in $995 million, WSJ notes, but China is still a tea-drinking nation. So Starbucks established a research-and-development unit in the country in order to figure out what it could do to attract a larger audience than those looking for a cup of joe. As a result, Starbucks China is not only celebrating Western customs such as Christmas, but serving up localized beverage and food items including a red bean frappaccino, green tea tiramisu, a Hainan chicken and rice wrap, a shredded ginger pork panini, and a Thai-style prawn wrap. And the Starbucks kiosks that work so well in the States don’t have the same effect in the Chinese market where consumers desire more space.Continue reading...

5-Hour Energy consumption cited for possible involvement in deaths.

Abercrombie & Fitch credits faster reaction times for bump in results.

BBC scrutiny continues as broadcaster celebrates 90th.

BP nears settlement with federal government on Gulf spill.

Best Buy battles skeptics with turnaround plans.

Checkers opens restaurant in a Walmart.

Chick-fil-A ranked No. 1 chicken chain in new survey.Continue reading...

Apple stock plunge concerns Wall Street.

Toyota recalls another 2.77 million vehicles.

Papa John's hit with $250 million lawsuit over unwanted text-message (aka spam) promotion.

BP settles with Russian partner.

Call of Duty: Black Ops II depicts David Petraeus as secretary of defense.

Cisco beats profit estimates.

GM and Peugeot halt talks on deeper tie-up.Continue reading...

China is the second latest economy in the world, every significant brand's future is impacted by its growth (or collapse!); but who's got the time?! Here's a weekly potpourri of ten reads that will make you look like a keen China observer during any conversation about China. This week: Home Depot, dark side of the mooncake, Nike, H&M, branded WeChat, Chengdu Gangnam Style, brand-sponsored pole dancing, and more...Continue reading...

The race for NFC-based mobile payments is heating up with projections for 2013 exceeding $13 billion globally, up from just over $7 billion in 2011, according to Gartner research.

Isis, the mobile-payments joint venture backed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, has signed up Coca-Cola, Macy’s, Aéropostale, Dillard’s, Foot Locker (and its subsidiary Champs Sports) and Jamba Juice, as well as hundreds of local retailers in Texas and Utah who will start accepting Isis payments by this summer.

Both Isis and competitor Google Wallet use NFC chips that store user’s credit card data or pre-loaded digital cash. Both companies are also working with check-out scanners and retailers including Gap, Office Max, Toys ‘R’ Us and Walgreens. 

Google Wallet is currently available on four Sprint handsets and none from the mobile operators backing Isis. Sprint is the only U.S. carrier backing Google Wallet and to that end just released the LG Optimus Elite for Virgin Mobile.Continue reading...