Another English soccer legend is retiring. David Beckham announced his retirement from pro soccer not long after his former coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, made the same announcement.

After two more games, Beckham will be hanging up his cleats, but the star athlete was sure to rack up a few more titles before he cleans out his locker. Thanks to Paris Saint-Germain' s recent win to claim the Ligue 1 title, Beckham is now the only person to have won four national club championships in four different leagues in four different countries. He's also the first English player to score at three consecutive World Cup finals, and he's been honored by the Queen of England. Not a bad rap for a guy that kicks a ball around for a living, but there's a lot more to Beckham's success than what simply lies on the field. 

"If you had told me as a young boy I would have played for and won trophies with my boyhood club Manchester United, proudly captained and played for my country over 100 times and lined up for some of the biggest clubs in the world, I would have told you it was a fantasy," he said, the BBC reports. "I'm fortunate to have realized those dreams."Continue reading...

American Express, Walmart co-branded Bluebird debit card gets FDIC insured.

T-Mobile finally gets the iPhone.

Abercrombie & Fitch set to open their first Middle Eastern store in Dubai next year. 

Bankrupt Atari plans to auction off gaming empire in May.

Victoria Beckham launches self-branded e-commerce site.

BMW named best overall luxury brand by Kelly Blue Book. 

Danone latest brand to partner with couponing app Shopitize.

GM introduces new Buick LaCrosse in effort to appeal to younger drivers.Continue reading...

The list reads like a Who’s Who of A-list celebrities: Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Victoria Beckham, Swizz Beatz, will.i.am. But it's not a concert bill.

Instead, it's a list of stars who have recently agreed to serve as creative directors for brands — a trend that seems to blur the lines between star bling and business acumen.

Bud Light Platinum is the latest, announcing this week that it's inked deal with Justin Timberlake “to provide creative, musical and cultural curation for the brand.” The collaboration is to debut at Sunday’s 55th Grammy Awards via an ad, "Platinum Night," which features his latest single, "Suit & Tie." "Bud Light Platinum brings a refined, discerning aesthetic to beer that plays well with what I'm doing," Timberlake stated in a press release.Continue reading...

News of the 10-year-old Romeo Beckham's debut ad campaign — for Britain's iconic Burberry brand — broke in December. Above, watch the full spot, which Vogue UK calls fun.

Call it Babes in the Woods — Burberry is wooing fans to its Autumn/Winter 2012 collection with a new "Woodland Adventure" trailer, featuring models parading its fashions along with "magical woodland creatures" and a sprightly sountrack: "Numb" by Marina and the Diamonds.

The British luxury brand revealed its new face for Sping/Summer 2013, the offspring of two of Britain's biggest brands in their own right: Romeo Beckham, the second son of Victoria and David Beckham:Continue reading...

Sergio Marchionne got Chrysler dealers from across America fired up this week by pulling the wraps off dozens of potential new models and variations of vehicles that are in the pipeline for the next few years, including aerodynamic versions of current best-selling nameplates for Jeep, a vastly improved Chrysler 200 sedan, and an all-new Chrysler 100 subcompact that would fill a niche where the brand hasn't had a credible entry for decades.

But most of the hardware that the Fiat and Chrysler CEO showed off in Las Vegas is for the future. Right now, with double-digit sales increases each month, Chrysler has been doing a great job of selling just a very few all-new or substantially overhauled models along with others that are mainly reskinned. And one reason they've been so successful is some innovative marketing.

Chrysler launched a new initiative in that regard during Fashion Week in New York, introducing a new Chrysler 300C John Varvatos Limited Edition and a Chrysler 300C Luxury Edition featuring the stylings and touches of the menswear (and now kids) designer. A native of Detroit, Varvatos was featured in a TV campaign for his 300 collaboration with the automaker.Continue reading...

Victoria Beckham's lower priced spring/summer 2013 ready to wear collection hit the runway at New York Fashion Week with a collection of accessories that belonged to her main collection, including a shoulder bag named after her daughter Harper and another with a detail caught by Huffington Post's resident fashionista, Jim Shi — a series of V's for Victoria. It was her second NYFW show following Sunday's runway show. Watch the RTW runway show below.Continue reading...

Tata Group long has been one of India's most successful enterprises, a family-owned industrial conglomerate with its fingers in many aspects of a booming Indian economy. That included Tata Motors, which made (mostly) inexpensive little cars, including the "world's cheapest," the Nano.

But when Tata took over Jaguar Land Rover by buying the double-headed bastion of Britishness from Ford for $2.3 billion in June 2008, few western analysts gave the company a chance of succeeding where a huge American auto company had not been able to. Previous forays by powerhouse companies from emerging markets buying western outfits hadn't fared well, including Tata Steel's own acquisition of Corus Steel in 2007.

Doubters sniffed that Tata Chairman Ratan Tata, a car buff, had become too enamored of buying global brands, as Tata acquired Tetley Tea, Daweoo Commercial Vehicles, and the Pierre Hotel in New York. But Tata Motors has confounded those skeptics.Continue reading...