If you’re sick of incessantly staring at your mobile while madly pushing buttons to virtually chuck wingless birds at pigs in various structures with giant slingshots, Angry Birds Live is here.

If you were lucky enough to be in Singapore over the weekend, you may have caught the debut of the Angry Birds live crowd game. Rovio, in partnership with Singapore telco SingTel, worked with Uplause Ltd. to turn 50,000 Formula 1 Grand Prix fans into live controllers in a gigantic game of Angry Birds.

The co-branded event (see shaky video footage here) was the first in an ongoing partnership between Rovio and Uplause that's coming to major events around the world. Rovio CMO Peter Vesterbacka commented, “We think this new form of gaming will give fans a great opportunity to form a strong emotional connection with the characters.”

And on the unlicensed live Angry Birds front, trust China to take this to a new level.Continue reading...

Panasonic earns its number 10 spot on Interbrand's Best Global Green Brands list, partnering with the government of Singapore to develop Asia’s first public-housing green community. Since the August 1 kickoff of the brand’s collaboration with Singapore’s housing board, the town has gained attention as a “living laboratory for green technology.”

The project will take over Punggol, a former farming and fishing village, starting with 100 households. Using surrounding elements of wind, sun, and rain, Panasonic is providing the technology to enable the community’s total energy solutions. Continue reading...

What to make of Fidelity International's appropriation of Chinese Cultural Revolution propaganda imagery — replacing Mao's Little Red Book and a gun, there are golf clubs and an iPad, for example — to pitch its China investment fund?

The digital campaign — generated by its Singapore office, where its agency must have made one helluva convincing pitch to equate the Chinese "consumer revolution" with the Cultural Revolution, in which an estimated 30 million people died — can be dismissed as creative expression based in ignorance. Still, it shows a surprising insensitivity to the region where the fund is based.Continue reading...

An animal rights organization is using sex to sell activism and for once it isn't PETA.

A local print flyer delivered to residents in Burleigh Heads, Australia, from a local beauty shop asks "What's New Pussycat?" and depicts a cat… placed strategically between the spread legs of a scantily-clad woman. 

It's an ad that's drawing controversy (the good kind) and controversy (the bad kind). And for one brand, it's not the first time this has happened.

The ad, from the Recreate Yourself Hair and Beauty Salon, states that for every wax service, the salon will donate $1 to the Animal Welfare League (AWL).

As should have been expected, some have reacted poorly to the ad. The salon owners have defended the ad and, for its part, the AWL has publicly embraced it.

On its Facebook page, the salon posted a picture of the controversial ad in the paper and commented: "Just had a phone call from a lady who works at the Animal Welfare League to say that she loves the flyer and its amazingly done, she also said thanks to the team and our clients for raising money for their cause! book in today and we'll donate $1 from every wax to the AWL. They need the money and you prob need the wax)"

But the real controversy may not be what the ad suggests, but that it's been done before, almost exactly.Continue reading...

Singapore is a hotbed of fashion, innovation and culinary excellence. Now this independent Asian city-state that sits at the tip of the Malay Peninsula wants the rest of the world to get a taste of what it has to offer.

The Singapore Tourism Board has created "Singapore Takeout," a unique pop-up restaurant housed in a custom-fabricated shipping container, to allow consumers around the world to sample Singapore's famed cuisine.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...

Well, that was fast. Yesterday, NASA announced a new toxic (arsenic-based) lifeform; Purell's response, above. More fun with Brand Bites, after the jump.Continue reading...

Like so many other industries, the hospitality industry has been scrambling to reposition itself to be more competitive in a tough economy. Interestingly, a number of hotel chains are looking to the upscale traveler for future revenue opportunities. Marriott just announced the "Autograph Collection," high-end hotels that will retain their existing identities but become part of the Marriott family.

Chains are also opening new hotels targeting the well-heeled. For example, Millenium and Copthorne Hotels' new brand, Studio M, will launch in Singapore next spring.Continue reading...