Tiffany & Company’s iconic blue box has long carried the tradition of revealing the quintessential diamond: a gift of timeless beauty, elegance, and world-class quality expected from a luxury brand with roots dating back to 1837. But the Wall Street Journal reports that not every Tiffany diamond is making the cut these days. Often, the precious gems are now being crafted by “the industry's least-experienced hands”:

In a windowless factory in this African village, Tiffany is teaching more than 80 workers to transform raw diamonds into gems for Tiffany engagement rings. As novices recently pressed pea-size stones against whirling blades, a visiting Tiffany executive spied a problem.

"You can see the polishing lines!" said Mark Hanna, an Antwerp, Belgium-based vice president of Tiffany's diamond unit. "Tiffany diamonds can't have polishing lines."

Earlier this decade, the diamond industry saw a surge in demand. Fearing the diamond supply was dwinding, and with mining giants like De Beers moving into the retail space by joining forces with LVMH, Tiffany felt it was necessary to move its operations further down its supply chain in order to compete.Continue reading...

If Mom's told you once, she’s told you a million times: “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Of course, some teens have trouble accepting the value of this age-old adage. But in today’s economy, as the Wall Street Journal reports, teen-clothing retailers like Aeropostale, Buckle Inc., and Old Navy are listening to Mom, their primary customer, and even catering to her shopping needs.

It makes sense to “TTM,” or target the mom, a term internalized by Aeropostale, as reports show teen spending power rapidly shifts from allowances to parents’ budgets. "You need to make that mom feel comfortable, because ultimately she's writing the check," says Richard Jaffe, apparel and softlines director at brokerage firm Stifel Nicolaus & Co.Continue reading...

MySpace is aiming for a comeback. The Wall Street Journal reports the once-dominant News Corp-owned social network convened its global ad-sales staff to strategize ways to use its still-potent brand equity in entertainment to lure back visitors and kick-start advertising revenue.

Despite being eclipsed by Facebook, MySpace retains strong brand identity and remains a popular resource for music and videos. It's still a necessity for bands. This cultural positioning -- and the tagline, "a place for music" -- makes viable the site’s new shift.Continue reading...

Carrefour, the French retail giant, is tailoring its stores after Wal-Mart, with everything from groceries and fishing rods to eye-catching shirts on sale at rollback prices.

With over 15,000 outlets worldwide, Carrefour is the world’s second largest retailer (behind Wal-Mart). The brand, starting near Paris in 1968, pioneered the hyperstore format, a combination of supermarket and department store, targeting bargain-seekers.

Carrefour’s first private label, Produits libres (free products), was a line that included fifty low-cost food products, sold in plain white packages. When new French laws forbade retailers from competing solely on price, Carrefour switched to a best-in-class approach.Continue reading...

Detroit's year of bad news just got worse: the car industry isn't only losing sales from current buyers depressed by the economy -- it's losing the future.

A new J.D. Power report says teens and twenty-somethings lack what was once thought to be the genetic desire to own a car.

The study, which analyzed hundreds of thousands of conversations on blogs and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, showed young people have a poor image of the auto industry. The bad economy and high gas prices could be to blame. But J.D. Power blames social media itself: "with the advent of social media and other forms of electronic communities, teens perceive less of a need to physically congregate, and less of a need for a mode of transportation.”

Of course, research done among social media diehards that finds social media is more popular than driving may be suffering from an echo-chamber effect. People chained to Facebook and Twitter may indeed be too busy to go out. But the trend is real, and has been building: The New York Times reported last year that fewer 16-year-olds now rush to get their licenses as soon as they're eligible.Continue reading...