Brand New World: How Paupers, Pirates And Oligarchs Are Reshaping

To get around a ban on alcohol advertising, a Russian oligarch starts a bank with the same name as his bestselling premium vodka. Russian Standard is still the #1 vodka and is now the largest consumer bank, issuing 77 percent of credit cards in the country. Silk Street market, the epicenter of piracy and counterfeiting in China, launches its own brand. The largest city in South America bans all billboards, posters and signs in a fight against “visual pollution.”

In the hyper-developing “BRIC...