Subway is now the world's largest restaurant chain in terms of units. Subway had 33,749 restaurants around the globe at the end of 2010, while McDonald's had 32,737 at year's end. As of Monday, Subway has 34,218 locations globally -- all of which are owned by franchisees. About half of the company's unit growth is overseas. Subway now has more than 1,000 locations in Asia, and it just opened its first store in Vietnam. Other high-growth nations include Brazil, Mexico, India, China, Russia and France.

AirTran, which used to have Michael Vick, formerly of the Atlanta Falcons, as pitchman, now has a contract with Peyton Manning, quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts. Analysts say that with the economy recovering, such deals are likely to become more prevalent, as marketers in the travel industry try to reach sports fans, who also tend to be frequent travelers

Android recently topped iPhone and BlackBerry smartphones in the U.S. for the first time in a consumer survey by Nielsen. That's not good news for Research in Motion, which makes the latter device. And now analysts say that the departure of CMO Keith Pardy only makes matters worse for the company, which is trying to roll out its newest project, the BlackBerry PlayBook, a 7-inch table computer which is reportedly slated for an April 10 launch.

Ken turns 50 this week, and he still wears the same belt, and he looks like George Hamilton. Barbie, for what it's worth, came into being three days after the editor of this daily newsletter was born (no joke) in Karl Hospital, Urbana, Ill. To celebrate Ken's 50th, the Museum of Lifestyle and Fashion History in Boynton Beach, Fla., has a new display, "Barbie: History, Fashions and More." And Mattel is preparing a marketing campaign of its own, with Ken tweeting and updating his Facebook page.

Since bankruptcy procedures, Chrysler has been a comparatively small voice in the U.S. media market, but the automaker plans to increase its ad budget by nearly 70% this year to about $2.9 billion. The company spent $1.72 billion last year. "No matter how good or bad the new products are, it's about perception now," said an analyst. "The challenge is to engage consumers." New vehicles include the Fiat 500, Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Durango.

Now Skype comes with hype. The company said it is allowing brands to advertise on the application. The company says ads will appear in the Home tab starting this week. The Luxembourg-based Internet communications company's first advertisers will be Groupon, Universal Pictures and Visa, with ads first appearing in the U.S., U.K. and Germany. "You may only see ads occasionally," said Doug Bewsher, Skype's CMO. "Our initial plan is to show an ad from one brand per day in each of the markets where advertising is being sold."

Tim Schottman, former director of North American operations at Starbucks, knows about opening stores, as he opened half a dozen stores a day in the U.S. He is now applying coffee principles to human eyes, for SightLife. As SVP for global programs, which finds organ donors, collects the corneas from the newly deceased and prepares the tissue for surgery, his goal is to open 900 eye banks around the world in short order.

The Food And Drug Administration has delayed advertising guidelines for pharmaceutical social media marketing, and pharma companies are twiddling their thumbs. Twice last month, the head of the FDA's division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications suggested that little will change. "The process is taking longer than we thought," he said in a New York conference. He said part of the delay had to do with the agency's concern that social media companies might be ephemeral.

Tommy Swanson, serial digital entrepreneur and social media maven at fundraising company KMA, says new search engine algorithms have tried to make it harder for search-engine optimizers to game the system. But it's an arms race and SEO's always find a way around it. Nowadays search engines are more likely to focus on relevant links from well-trafficked sites, rather than keywords and the like, as a way to get around SEO's manipulating their pages to get top ranking. But SEO's have figured that out, too, with "white hat SEO" and "black hat SEO" techniques. The next step for search …

Pest control company Orin is mixing creepiness with humor in a new campaign that extends its "Big Bug" platform where giant bugs invade homes. The new one features giant rats and termites. The effort is via Dallas-based The Richards Group. One ad has a woman waiting for her blind date, arranged by Internet dating service. Her date, though, turns out to be a giant termite that is intent on going home with her.