For an entire month, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide's main offices will be located in China.

The US-based hotelier is planning to open an astounding hotel every two weeks in China for the rest of this year, an agressive expansion that made it almost a necessity for Starwood's CEO, Frits van Paasschen, and other top execs from the company's White Plains, New York, headquarters to relocate to Shanghai.

The commitment to China was in place even before the Beijing Olympics, as Starwood Asia Pacific exec Matthew Fry told Bloomberg in 2008. True to its word, Starwood is now opening its new Chinese properties at a dizzying rate.Continue reading...

Do you think this deodorant ad is too suggestive? A young man, shirt unbuttoned, sprays himself before a visit to the dentist with India's Zatak deodorant brand, which must smell amazing because it drives the dentist to unbutton her blouse. (The kicker — "Just Zatak her" — may offend more than the images.)

This spot, and a spate of other suggestive TV commercials for deodorant brands (including Wild Stone Juice and Denver deodorant brands, below), are certainly getting advertising regulators in India hot under the collar.Continue reading...

Levi's has taken an unusual action that demonstrates the importance of the international market to the very American maker of jeans.

The denim giant is expanding its Asia-only brand, dENiZEN, with a countrywide push in India. Aaron Boey, president of Levi Strauss & Co. Asia-Pacific, told the Times of India that the company "started test marketing the brand in India and China simultaneously last year and now India is the first market where the brand is going national."

The dENiZEN brand was introduced last August in China, India, Korea (which has been running a dENiZEN dance contest), Pakistan and Singapore. Now ready for primetime in Asia with a serious marketing push by Levi Strauss, dENiZEN will replace the company's Signature denim brand internationally, although Signature will remain in the US market.Continue reading...

The world may have been financially struggling in 2010 and the travel industry suffering, but Starwood Hotels & Resorts went ahead and pulled in $5.1 billion in revenue, anyway. After all, if you’re on a trip in pretty much any city in the world, you’ve got a pretty good chance of staying in one of Starwood’s more than 1,000 hotels. And the brand isn’t planning to stop growing just yet.

Now the company is focusing its efforts on India and the country’s second-largest population in the world (approx. 1.2 billion). Hoyt H. Harper, SVP of brand management at Starwood’s Sheraton Group, tells the Economic Times that India is currently the fourth largest market for the company but will move up to third behind China and the United States by year’s end.

And who can spend too much time and energy doubting a company that signed on 72 properties in the course of one’s year worth of work?Continue reading...

Canadian Club is building on its 2010 “Escape” advertising campaign with this summer’s “Here’s to Your Adventure,” which includes TV and billboard spots, peaking during Canada Day celebrations on July 1st. The spots revisit the hero’s adventures as he is pursued through a forest and his sharing of the story with friends over a glass of Canadian Club. The national TV campaign will align with a regional launch of pre-mixed Canadian Club & Ginger and Canadian Club & Cola beverages in Alberta.

“Here’s to Your Adventure” follows in the wake of Canadian Club’s Hide a Case promotion, in which four Canadians and four Americans searched for a case of Canadian Club (and a prize of $100,000) on the island of Tonga. The promotion originally started in 1967 and Canadian Club says it is the longest-running promotional campaign in the spirits industry.Continue reading...

Pepsi India's 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup campaign, Change the Game, has inspired the brand to continue the theme with a new spot — one executed by a new agency, with JWT hired to expand on the original ICC concept by Taproot, according to afaqs!

The Copyranter blog has rounded up some of the wackier uses of Osama bin Laden's image by brand marketers.

Examples of Osamadvertising include Hall's cough drops; Beta express shipping; a condom ad by Doc Morris, a German mailorder pharmacy; Range Rover; for a Samsung musical smartphone; and Belgium's Humo satire magazine.

And at right? That's a public service warning/statue that popped up in India last year.

The stern-looking (and very tall) bin Laden statue campaign was erected by officials in New Delhi to warn locals about the polluting evils of using plastic bags with the message, "Plastic won't die."

American Apparel seeks rescue financing to avert bankruptcy.

Apple revamps MobileMe, sues Samsung over Galaxy phone; Samsung vows to fight back.

McDonald's launches US hiring blitz today.

Asos could be forced to rebrand in Germany.

BMW's DesignworksUSA expands to China with Shanghai office.

Burger King settles with franchisees over Value Menu.

Dish Network will keep 600 Blockbuster locations open.Continue reading...