HP CEO Meg Whitman pilloried over $8.8 billion start-up acquisition charge for Autonomy as stock plunges and former CEO comes out of woodwork.

News Corp. reportedly eyeing Simon & Schuster as add-on to HarperCollins and acquires 49% of YES Network as former newspaper execs charged with bribery. YES, meanwhile, extends Yankees TV rights through 2042.

Amazon unveils brand pages and looks to reinvent publishing model with Tim Ferriss book.

Apple products top kids' holiday wish lists, while spaceship-like campus delayed until 2016.

BlackBerry dropped by US agency over device reliability concerns.

Big Ten college sports conference brand could be diluted by eastern driven.

Darden CMO defects to Ruby Tuesday.Continue reading...

Apple reports China as its second-largest market by sales after US. Apple stores will close for a few hours today for an employees-only memorial webcast celebrating Steve Jobs' life.

Amazon's IMDb sued for disclosing actress' real age, while digital deal with DC Comics irks rivals.

Audi-Ford price gap is widest since 1999.

Bank of America is no longer America's largest bank.

Deezer to launch music streaming service in more than 100 countries.

Diageo triumphs in alcohol brand battle.

Disney battles environmentalists at parks, while fans crash website in search of princess dolls.Continue reading...

For Brandchannel's product placement tracker Brandcameo, the release of a Sex and the City franchise film is like a holiday. There is Mercedes. There is Dior. And there are names we cannot even reliably spell, like Badgley Mischka, Manolo Blahnik, Lacroix, and Louboutin. There are huge plot twists, like Carrie Bradshaw dumping her trademark Apple Mac for... HP!

The first film in the series logged a stunning 94 visible brands, one of the highest numbers in the decade that Brandcameo has been tracking product placement in movies.

So the question, dear reader, is will the sequel top that tally? Or will this weekend deliver a downsized, frugalista Sex and the City devoid of ostentatious brands? It's been written of the sequel that "every aspect of Carrie’s life is reduced to a vignette that can be monetized." Will that be enough to put it over the top? Could it the most branded Brandcameo-tracked film ever?

Even if the summer thrill ride Prince of Persia tops the box office this weekend, be sure to drop by Brandcameo on Monday for our take on Sex an the City 2's brandstravaganza (or brand desert, given its setting...)

Is that $1,400 snakeskin Michael Kors bag out of your price range? Fear not, because now you can buy the leather version for a mere $695 at Neiman Marcus -- yes, that retail oasis for the wealthy.

Neiman Marcus will continue to sell its violet Halston gown (size 6 only) for $5,500, but the brand is making adjustments as the Neiman Marcus Group struggles through a year that’s pummeling the luxury market. Neiman Marcus is some $3 billion in debt and experiencing double-digit losses at its stores, including Bergdorf Goodman. Longtime CEO Burton Tansky says as a result the brand is “pressing suppliers to produce lower-priced versions of designer styles.”

It might seem presumptuous to ask favored footwear brand Manolo Blahnik for a 43-percent-off version of one of its styles of flats, but that’s exactly what Tansky did. And Manolo, rather than go elsewhere (Neiman Marcus is the brand’s biggest client), is now looking to introduce more cost-cutting styles in the future.Continue reading...

A brand wouldn't be a brand without some support, right? Well, many footwear designers credit their strong heels to Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), a polymer developed by a government team working on synthetic rubber patents. Without it, many women would literally fall flat.

“The most important innovation in high heels is the ABS molded high heel,” said Nicholas Kirkwood, 29, a shoe designer who won the British Fashion Awards emerging star prize last year. “It’s what allows them to be really high and come in multifaceted shapes.”

ABS is responsible for Manolo Blahnik's famous “spindly” heels. Blahnik shoes enforce a central steel rod, surrounded by ABS plastic and a polyurethane tip at the bottom.Continue reading...