Oscar de la Renta
blogs for Brides.com

Agencies and Marketing Execs:

• Big pharma Merck chose TBWA\GERMANY‘s Hamburg office to manage global comm for three of its labels: Nasivin, Femibion and Flexagil. Campaigns are expected to debut worldwide in 2009.
• Honeyshed, a branded entertainment and online shopping site, inaugurated Stephen Greifer as CEO. Greifer last served as Senior VP-global lead of Digitas' promotions arm.
• Google actively reaches out to ad agencies in hopes of building allegiances and winning more display ad business.
• Bazaarvoice appointed Heather Brunner as SVP of worldwide client services.

Biz Buzz:

• Starbucks panders to Ramadan.

Legal, Government and Regulation:

• Google and Yahoo may go forward with their sponsored ad deal without waiting for formal approval from Federal bodies.
• Microsoft won a patent on the "page up" and "page down" keystrokes.

Music:

• Ad-supported music site We7 has signed its third major record label, EMI, in six months.
• Nokia is launching its "Comes with Music" package in Britain next month. The first unit integrated with the music offering will be sold at Carphone Warehouse.

Mobile:

• Mobileyes launched a Live Traffic Cam application. The service helps iPhone or iPod touch users map quicker routes to their destinations. It is now available on the iTunes App Store.
• MobVision, which operates mobile ad networks Admoda and Adultmoda, joined the Mobile Marketing Association.

Publishing:

• To promote his latest collection, fashion designer Oscar de la Renta wrote a piece for Brides.com, set to be published on September 9. He will expound on wedding gowns, share ideas for city, country and island ceremonies; and provide jewelry advice. His contribution follows Vera Wang's, who served as Brides.com's first guest blogger in June.

Search:

• Google — which seized the media's attention with the release of a web browser — is experimenting with text ads directly beneath search results.
• Matchpoint was dubbed the most ad-friendly search engine at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose. The service connects searchers with local businesses.

Social Networks:

• Diary.com is now in live beta. Positioned as "scrapbooking for the Twitter generation," the service enables users to create "private" diaries with text, photos, videos and links. Young females in the US, the UK and Asia are encouraged to build themed diaries, such as travel and shopping-oriented ones.
• In Scottsdale, Arizona, police departments have begun using Twitter to provide public updates, such as when roads are closed, or when the police are investigating a crime scene in a given neighborhood.

User Experience:

• The Ladies Professional Golf Association now requires that non-English-speaking members be proficient in English before they participate in LPGA-sanctioned events. Bill Imada of AdAge thinks this is bad marketing, not to mention bad form.
• 40 percent of UK webmail users purportedly reject targeted ads.
• Following news that Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain's running-mate on the Republican ticket, has a pregnant daughter, Senator Barack Obama took the high road. "People's families are off limits," he stated, admonishing media members not to use the news against Palin, and expressing indignation at insinuations that his own campaign promoted it to liberal blogs.
• Kevin Horne, who has become a voice of dissent against ambivalent marketing data appearing online, chastised AdAge MediaWorks for publishing a quote whose claims about online advertising were not rooted in fact.
• 88 percent of IT workers admit they would steal proprietary data, and remote access credentials, if they were fired.
• 38.4 million Americans watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the DNC — a larger audience than those drawn to the opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics.