In the third and the final chapter of our Brands and the City overview, we focused on brands’ projects which helped enrich city canvas and add more elements to the metropolitan life. Here we collected both projects with a social twist, revolving around the idea of making a city a better place to live, and works with a vivid advertising component, such as branded bus shelters, giant interactive billboards and shop windows, which broadened physical borders of the cities.

Eat the city, drink the city, wear the city. Is it possible? With brands, there’s nothing beyond the bound of reality. The second part of our Brands and the City review is championing brand’s editions dedicated to metropolitan areas and smaller locations around the globe. Vodka, soft drinks, travel guides from luxury makers, burgers, accessories, coffee products, sneakers and a range of other goods, which pay tribute to various destinations, are now in the spotlight.

Yesterday, February 3, Chinese people around the world celebrated the Year of the Rabbit, and Starbucks, which has been present in China since 1998, just couldn’t miss the opportunity to congratulate its fans on the colorful and boisterous holiday. The brand released a compilation of eastern music titled ‘World Is China’ as a precious gift to those who adore the eastern culture. The set comes as a valuable addition the globally-themed collection started by ‘World Is Africa’ and ‘World Is India’ CDs, which represent a diverse selection of recordings by several generations of local music artists.

As part of its promotional campaign for Tazo teas, the busiest Canadian Starbucks restaurants located in Toronto and Vancouver are now attracting passers-by with the newly-installed interactive storefronts. These projection devices invite people to play an interactive game by guiding a creature of their choice (a hummingbird, a dragonfly or a butterfly) through a journey aimed at collecting all the ingredients for Tazo teas merely as they touch the screen and move their hand around it.

UK-based Fairtrade Foundation announced it would be running Fairtrade Fortnight between 28 February and 13 March. Fairtrade Fortnight is the annual event organized by the Foundation in an effort to promote all kinds of assistance it provides to people in developing countries. This year’s event is dedicated to cotton industry and millions of cotton growers.

Today Starbucks introduced its latest offer—Starbucks VIA® Taste Promise— encouraging consumers to discover the taste of Starbucks VIA® Ready Brew. Starbucks VIA® is a natural roasted arabica coffee in an instant form that, according to the manufacturer «is rich and full-bodied just like a fresh-brewed cup of Starbucks coffee.»

Starbucks VIA® is manufactured based on U.S. patent-pending microgrind technology that preserves the coffee’s taste and quality.

Starbucks is offering an easy way to share the gifts with friends on various occasions. Launched today, January 26, the all-new Starbucks Card eGift program provides digital-savvy consumers with an opportunity to send their family and friends a greeting card, which serves as a traditional off-line Starbucks card for purchasing beverage, food or merchandise within the chain or/and earning My Starbucks Rewards benefits.

On weekend Starbucks announced a really BIG news: the company plans to introduce the biggest cup to the customers who are most in need of energy boost. The 31-ounce ‘Trenta’ (which means ‘thirty’ in Italian) will become part of the Starbucks menu and will be served in all its U.S. coffee shops by May 3, 2011. On January 18, the Trenta size debuted in 14 states, including Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Hawaii and Arizona.