Cites a Likely Legal Battle and Tension With

Ad Partners as Reasons for Dropping Out (Google)

Google has opted out of its search deal with Yahoo, according to a company blog entry posted yesterday morning. It blamed regulator and advertiser concerns about the agreement and said that going through with the deal could have resulted in a protracted legal battle and damage to its relationships with partners.

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AdMarket 50 Takes the Plunge With Falling Dow

WPP, Omnicom, Interpublic Stocks Hit 52-Week Low; Yahoo Only One to Rise

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — The Dow on Wednesday plunged 514 points, or 5.7%, amid weak earnings reports and mounting fears of prolonged recession. The AdMarket 50, meanwhile, slumped 5.2%, with 49 of the leading marketer, media and agency stocks heading lower.

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Arm & Hammer’s New Cleaners Not Only Greener, They’re Cheaper But Can Shoppers Be Convinced to Try Refillable Dispensers?

BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — While many green cleaners have hit the market in recent years, Church & Dwight Co. is putting a decidedly different twist on the concept, with a kind of mix-it-yourself line. It’s introducing Arm & Hammer Essentials, cleaning products boiled down to their active ingredients and stripped of water. The marketer promises a 25% lower cost and 80% reduction in packaging than conventional cleaners.

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No Recession Yet in Apple Stores, but Cloud Over Holiday Sales

Company Boasts Plenty of Cash and Zero Debt, as Quarterly Profits Jump 26% Over Last Year

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — If consumers are pinching pennies, it isn’t happening at the Apple Store — at least not yet. The maker of some of the tech industry’s best-loved luxury goods reported a strong quarter, including the sale of 6.9 million of the new 3G iPhones, a figure that crushed estimates, and 2.6 million Mac computers, a quarterly record.

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Hit by Downturn, Yahoo to Lay Off 1,400 Employees Disappointing Quarter Attributed to ‘Increasingly Cautious’ Advertisers as Display Advertising Slows Further

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Yahoo is cutting 1,400 employees in an attempt to goose its cash flow after a quarter when its net income dropped 64% due to what President Sue Decker attributed to pullbacks from major brand marketers.

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Google’s Upward March Continues — but for How Long?

Search Giant Reports 26% Increase in Quarterly Income, but Is Vague About Category’s Strength Going forward

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — The good news: Search is still a bright spot. The not-so-good news: There’s no clarity going forward. Search giant Google on Thursday indicated there’s still growth in the online ad space during a tough economy, notching a healthy third-quarter net income of $1.35 billion, up 26% from $1.07 billion during the year-ago period. But the company begged off any questions about what the outlook for search advertising could be.

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Microsoft, Once Again, Officially Not Interested in Yahoo Despite CEO Ballmer’s Continued Public Flirting

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — “Our position hasn’t changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo; there are no discussions between the companies,” said a Microsoft spokesman in an e-mail. This latest statement, sent to Ad Age on Thursday, regarding the on-again, off-again courtship came just hours after Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told the audience at a Gartner conference in Orlando, Fla., that the deal still makes “economic sense.”

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Will Video Search Ads Be YouTube’s Money Mint?

Google’s Video-Sharing Site Is Racking Up as Many Queries as Yahoo

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Google is borrowing from its most successful money-minting product, search ads, to goose revenue on its video-sharing site YouTube. The move comes just as YouTube’s search traffic has passed that of the No. 2 search engine behind Google, Yahoo.com.

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Martin Cass Replaces Scott Sorokin as Carat U.S. President Will Remain on Media Agency’s P&G Business, Which He Led Globally

LAS VEGAS (AdAge.com) — Carat announced it has named Martin Cass president of the media agency’s U.S. operation. The former exec VP had been running Carat’s Procter & Gamble business globally, as well as serving as head of communications planning domestically.

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Yahoo Introduces New Ad Platform, but Will It Need AOL?

CEO Yang Says Apt (Not Apex or Amp) Will Be First Stop for Advertisers, Doesn’t Answer Acquisition Rumors

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Jerry Yang responded to the question of whether his company is again interested in AOL with a big, fat maybe. The Yahoo CEO was on hand to announce the deployment of his portal’s new ad platform, initially nicknamed Apex when it was first disclosed in February before it was unveiled this summer as Amp, only to be rechristened today as Apt.

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Cadbury to Consolidate Chocolate Brands at SSF Group $200 Million Win Is First Multiregional Account for Year-Old Alliance

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Cadbury said it is consolidating its estimated $200 million chocolate portfolio at SSF Group, the year-old alliance formed by Publicis Groupe agencies Saatchi & Saatchi and Fallon.

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GM to ‘Pull Back Slightly’ on All Media in 2009

For First Time in Years, Decreases Digital, Won’t Advertise in Super Bowl

DETROIT (AdAge.com) — General Motors Corp. plans to cut its digital-media budget after dramatically increasing it in the past few years, the automaker’s North American marketing chief told Advertising Age.

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New York Flash-Mob Group Partners With Yahoo A 3 Minute Ad Age Video Report

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Improv Everywhere, a flash-mob organization whose dramatic events have drawn high-profile attention in New York, has signed its first commercial partnership — with Yahoo. In one of its happenings earlier this year, more than 200 members of the art group infiltrated rush-hour commuter crowds in Grand Central Terminal. And then at precisely the same instant, all 200 froze in place for five minutes. As part of the Yahoo sponsorship deal, Improv Everywhere will be organizing happenings this fall in New York, Toronto, Chicago and San Francisco.

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Joanne Bradford Decamps for Yahoo

Joanne Bradford is back at a portal.

After seven years at Microsoft, Ms. Bradford jumped ship to join start-up agency-services firm Spot Runner in March. Six months later, she has been lured by Yahoo to lead sales.

Sales and market development
As senior VP-U.S. revenue and market development, she will oversee sales and market development for advertisers, small business and Yahoo HotJobs, reporting to Hilary Schneider, exec VP-Yahoo U.S. Ms. Bradford replaces David Karnstedt, who has left to assume an entrepreneur-in-residence role at a Silicon Valley start-up.

In a statement, Yahoo President Sue Decker said, “Yahoo and Joanne have a shared mind-set about the strategic role that Yahoo and online marketing can play to both build leading brands and drive customer acquisition for the world’s leading marketers.”

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State AGs Open Look Into Google-Yahoo Ad Deal

Latest Scrutiny Comes on Heels of Congressional Hearings WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) — Several state attorneys general have started their own examination of Google’s deal to supply search ads to Yahoo even as a congressional committee in the Senate and House hold hearings Tuesday to examine the potential antitrust implications of the deal. FULL ARTICLE

InBev Acquires Anheuser-Busch in $52 Billion Deal The World’s New No. 1 Brewer Wants to Cut $1.5 Billion in Costs — and Marketing Could Be a Fall Guy NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Anheuser-Busch has agreed to sell itself to Belgium-based, Brazilian-run InBev for $52 billion. The brewing behemoth will boast a portfolio led by Bud Light and Budweiser, the world’s two largest brands, as well as other brands with significant scale, such as Stella Artois, Beck’s, Bass, Michelob, Busch and Brahma. FULL ARTICLE

Creativity Weekly Top 5 Tina Fey and Martin Scorsese Meet Cute at the Airport, Monster’s Underemployed Toys and Other Work Watch the Video In this week’s episode of Creativity’s Top 5, Great Works and TBWA/Chiat/Day, New York, offer online users Kanye-fication on behalf of Absolut; PES animates a tasty meal; Tina Fey bumps into Martin Scorsese for American Express; Monster.com and JWT, Hong Kong, show the sad state of underemployed toys; and 4Creative gives a behind-the-scenes look at “The Shining” for Channel 4. FULL ARTICLE

The Good, the Bad and Ugly Answers to Recent Questions Our Editor Riffs on ‘Voyeur,’ ‘Somers Town’ and the Recession Commentary by Jonah Bloom I revisited a handful of questions that have popped up in my e-mail, on my Facebook page or even in good-old booze-based human conversation, in case any of them inspired a column. They did. Sort of. FULL ARTICLE

What Starbucks Can Learn From a Canadian Competitor Tim Hortons Pushes the Frontiers of Fan Fanaticism Commentary by Pete Blackshaw Assuming, for a moment, that Facebook fan clubs serve as a good proxy for overall brand advocacy, let’s ponder why Canada-based Tim Hortons pushes the frontiers of fan fanaticism. Why all the intense loyalty and evangelism over a fast-food joint named after a former hockey star? We’re just talking coffee, donuts and sandwiches, right? Can’t we just settle for McDonald’s or Dunkin’ Donuts or even Starbucks? FULL ARTICLE

Younger Generation Fighting Diversity Battle From Within Government Intervention Isn’t Our Only Weapon The Big Tent This installment of my blog is not necessarily a thank-you letter to the “weary and rightfully angry” generation of diverse professionals who have come before me, but a letter of support to the current generation of diverse professionals who were characterized in a public meeting of the New York City Commission on Human Rights as “uninformed and naive” because we have the audacity to hope for change in an industry that is trying to. FULL ARTICLE

Meet the Powerful and Real Women of the ‘Mad Men’ Era A 3 Minute Ad Age Video Report NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Although AMC’s hit show “Mad Men” portrays its advertising era as one of total male dominance, the truth is there were powerful women in agencies back then. This is one of the core themes of The One Club’s extensive new exhibit at the Science, Industry and Business facility of the New York Public Library. “The Real Men & Women of Madison Avenue” focuses on the individuals who created some of the century’s most iconic and industry-changing ad works. FULL ARTICLE

Ad-Spending Battlefield Takes Shape McCain, RNC Hope for Close-Quarters Fight With Cash-Strong Obama Campaign Trail With 115 days left before the election, it is now clear what ad strategies the two candidates are going to use in the race for the White House. Sen. Barack Obama will attempt to expand the playing field, while Sen. John McCain will try to contract it. FULL ARTICLE