The smartphones market welcomes a new product—yesterday, January 30, RIM launched “the re-designed, re-engineered, and re-invented BlackBerry platform” at the event, which was held in six cities—New York, Toronto, London, Paris, Dubai, and Johannesburg—at the same time. Along with the unveiling of the new platform and product, the tech giant has made another major announcement—the company’s name was changed from RIM to BlackBerry to build a stronger connection between the product and the manufacturer.
international
Europe welcomes a new low-cost airline on interregional routes, HOP!, which is a combination of three Air France group’s regional airlines—Brit Air, Regional and Airlinair. Brand and design agency Brandimage has developed visual identity for the brand, whose name is synonymous with mobility and action.
The legendary motorbike brand Harley-Davidson teams up with “American Badass” Kid Rock to mark its 110th anniversary, which will be celebrated with a series of events across the globe this year (the brand even received Pope Benedict’s blessing for that). As part of the partnership, the brand has become the title sponsor of Kid Rock’s Rebel Soul tour and has also tapped the musician to co-create a range of limited-edition branded «rebel» merchandise.
YouGov has released its BrandIndex Rankings for 2012, which compares BrandIndex Buzz scores of brands across major consumer categories in 10 countriest: the USA, the U.K., Denmark, Finland, France, Mexico, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and the UAE. Along with determining which brands generated the most buzz throughout the last year, the study also reveals the most improved brands of 2012. YouGov asked its respondents just one question, “If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?”. The score of each of the brands was calculated by subtracting negative feedback from positive feedback. View some highlights from the research below.
Facebook believes that analyzing the users’ activity on its platform can help determine who of the Facebookers might be thinking of committing a suicide. The social media giant has teamed up with Save.org (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education) to study activity of suicide victims on the platform in the days before their deaths.
H&M continues to commit to a more sustainable fashion future with a new eco-friendly seasonal collection, presented by Vanessa Paradis. In the promotion of the H&M’s Spring/Summer 2013 Conscious collection, which is launching internationally in two months, the French celebrity is wearing very feminine and spring-inspired clothing items in the settings, inspired by a spring garden.
For its Spring/Summer 2013 promotion, Benetton has focused on people’s differences, which should not be hidden, but highlighted and supported. In the new multi-channel (online, press, out-of-door, in outlets) international campaign dubbed «Faces of Color,» the brand features nine ambassadors, who are the living examples of what is to be not similar to most of others—Lea T, trans-sexual Brazilian model, Matias Perdomo, Uruguayan chief, who combines diametrical cultures in his restaurant, Mario Galla, differently-able German model and others. While the theme is potentially provocative, the new advertising effort turns to be quite smooth and moderate unlike the award-winning Benetton’s UNHATE initiative, which generated much buzz. Prejudice is so yesterday, Benetton and tolerance are so now.