Category: Brands

Something that was impossible to see before 1991 and during the cold war, now American brands invaded Russia, how cool the old communist leaders you think are feeling now ???

Starbucks opened its first coffee shop in Russia yesterday, two years after it won a legal battle to protect the right to its brand in the fast-growing Russian market.

The newest Starbucks in the worldwide chain of about 10,000 outlets is in the Mega shopping mall in Khimki, just north of Moscow.

Starbucks plans a second store in Russia on Moscow’s historic Stary Arbat street before the end of the year.

In 2005, the Seattle company won a trademark fight over the Starbucks name. A “squatter” had registered the right to use the name in Russia and was asking $600,000 from Starbucks to relinquish it.

The company successfully proved in Russian courts that it was the rightful owner of the name.

Alyona Mikhailova, 34, placed Russia’s first official Starbucks order, for a venti, or medium, cappuccino.

Maestro is the debit card from MasterCard. Previously it was MasterCard Electronic, then they started promoting and pushing their new brand Maestro which is confusing lots of people because they are considering it as a credit card while it is a debit card, it provides PIN-based, direct cash access from your bank account.

Gillette is promoting heavily its Mach 3 Power Nitro shaving system in the Middle East. Below is a branded public bus strolling in Beirut.

On our way back from Skopje to Lebanon, we had to stop one day in Istanbul as there were no flight to Beirut. So we went strolling in the famous Eminönü Square. Eminönü is Istanbul’s crossroads. Located on the south side of the Golden Horn at the southern end of the Galata Bridge, it’s a major transportation nexus for trains, trams and buses, and the Eminönü ferry docks are always busy.
It’s a major shopping area and has been for centuries with many crowded streets, each street has almost its own specialty: toys, clothes, homeware, electronics, textiles, softwares, DVDs, etc…

One of the streets has also its very own specialty: Viagra and Cialis among many other generic brands. You can easily buy these products down the street as if buying a simple chewing gum. Placed on small handy kiosks, easy to close and run away when someone not welcomed is in the neighborhood. Every walker is welcomed in many different languages to come closer and check the “original products” as the kiosks owners say.

Turkey wants to enter the European Union, I think they need quite a good load of time until they fix many issues.

Adriana is one of C-Food International (my employer) brands, already present on the market in Macedonia and with the positive energy of our distributor there, hopefully it will be the market leader soon in the canned tuna category.

Maher, this posting is dedicated specially to you with all the nice things you said after you came back from Egypt, let’s keep it up!

I arrived this afternoon to Bratislava in Slovekia (map), went out few streets behind my hotel for food and came back with this picture.
The funny thing is that few meters away, on the other side of the road, there is a McDonald’s!

I am sure many of you remember the Polaroid brand from the US and its instant cameras and films.
In October 1985, after nine years of patent litigation with Polaroid, Kodak was banned from making and selling instant cameras and film.

After this win, the market was left to Polaroid for quite some time till digital cameras arrived, but I have discovered today that some people are still taking the Polaroid business seriously and still stocking their goods and are sold online at unbelievable “out-of-this-world” prices, I am not sure how many sales they are generating monthly.

Take a look here www.unsaleable.com

Justerini & Brooks (commonly known as just J & B) the scotch blended whiskey, owned by multinational Diageo, are having a poster campaign in the Parisian metro.