There was a time when you could not walk through a major shopping mall – from Vienna to Shanghai to Los Angeles – without being pulled in by the shimmer of a Swarovski store. Glass cases glowing, crystals catching the light. A brand that promised a slice of luxury without the intimidation of velvet ropes […]
It looked perfect on a map. A bridge between Europe and the Middle East. A fast-growing economy. Rising energy demand. Strategic pipelines. Political relevance. For Austrian oil company OMV, Turkey was not just another market. It was supposed to be a hub. By the late 2000s, OMV had a clear strategic ambition: build a dominant integrated […]
In 2017, Full Metal Jacket quietly disappeared from Netflix’s Vietnamese catalog. There was no dramatic announcement, no public dispute, only a quiet a removal at the request of local authorities. For most viewers, it passed unnoticed. For Netflix, however, it should have been read as an early warning: Vietnam would not be just another emerging […]
The pink packaging is instantly recognizable. Walk into a duty-free shop, a European delicatessen in New York, or a souvenir store near Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral and you will likely find a stack of Manner wafers. For more than a century, the company behind them – Josef Manner & Comp AG – has built its […]
For companies built on operational perfection, expansion often feels less like risk and more like geography. If the formula works in Austria, Germany, and the UK, why wouldn’t it work somewhere sunnier? By the late 2000s, Aldi Süd, operating through its Austrian subsidiary Hofer – had turned discount retail into a science: fewer products, lower […]
Fix Dessert Chocolatier never set out to build a global category. Founded by Sarah Hamouda in Dubai, the company created a handcrafted chocolate bar inspired by personal creativity and regional flavors—pistachio cream, knafeh, and a story rooted in place and authenticity. Then social media intervened. A viral TikTok video transformed the “Dubai Chocolate” bar into […]
British multinational retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) has a range of cosmetics and body care products called China Blue. One can’t help but see the irony in the branding when thinking of M&S’s China blues, which it must have felt in China over the last decade. M&S, known to the Chinese as Ma Sha Bai […]
In 2011, US retail giant Target decided to enter the Canadian market. It seemed like a logical move because of the geographic and cultural proximity, and the fact that Canadians frequently drove across the border to shop in Target’s stores in the US. Ultimately however, Target’s rapid move into Canada was one of the most […]
Wizz Air, Hungary’s leading low-cost airline, built much of its growth on a bold strategy: opening local hubs in different countries. By basing aircraft and crews abroad, it could connect new markets without relying only on Budapest. Over the years, this approach took Wizz Air into Poland, Romania, Italy, and the UK. In 2025, the […]
In 1959, Marcel Fournier dreamed of a new kind of retail store. Fast forward to 2025, and you are looking at Carrefour, a global retailer with more than 14,000 stores in more than 40 countries, nearing $ 100 billion in annual revenues. The company had its share of setbacks globally – for instance in Hong […]
Few brands are as globally recognizable as Starbucks. Its green siren logo and store designs have become shorthand for a particular style of urban coffee culture. But such ubiquity comes with an inevitable problem: copycats. From Shanghai to New Delhi, smaller chains have tried to borrow Starbucks’ aura by tweaking its name, logo, store design, […]
At some point, China was one of the most promising country markets for the booking platform AirBnb. And China seemed to embrace the concept – initially. However, in 2022, the company decided to shut down its business in the Middle Kingdom, after only five years of trying to establish a foothold. What happened, you might […]