Chief Marketer Staff

• Agencies

  Audi Showcases Varied Driving Experiences

  Audi is launching a national driving tour this month to give consumers in five major markets a chance to do more than kick the tires on a range of its cars.

• Agencies

  WWE and Gold’s Gym Pump up SummerSlam

  World Wrestling Entertainment and Gold’s Gym are pumping up WWE’s annual SummerSlam pay-per-view event with an online sweepstakes.

• Academy of Country Music Forms New Marketing Group

  The Academy of Country Music has created a new in-house marketing, publicity and creative team.

• Everlast Inks Worldwide Licensing Deal with AIBA

  Everlast has signed a global licensing deal with the International Boxing Association (AIBA) to supply gloves and headgear for Olympics or world championship events.

• News Briefs

  FOXSPORTS.COM: signed San Diego Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson as spokesperson for its Fox Fantasy Football on MSN.

• Blog Commandments: To Build Traction, Thou Shalt Comment and Link

  In this excerpt from his new book “The New Influencers—A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media” (Quill Driver Books; www.newinfluencers.com) author Paul Gillin shares some thoughts on blogging etiquette.

• Digital

  At Your Service: Mentos Assigns Summer Intern to Market Fun

  (Promo) Call it “Subservient Intern.”
  Mentos maker Perfetti Van Melle USA has put its summer intern, Trevor, at the center of an online campaign reminiscent of Burger King’s landmark Subservient Chicken.

• Agencies

  E-mail’s Image Problem: Should DMers Worry About Image Suppression?

  (Direct) Developments surrounding blocked e-mail images and links have been causing a great deal of consternation among marketers lately. Experts, however, say the growing trend is nothing to get confused or worked up about.

• Digital

  E-News to Go

  Ask.com is partnering with “Ask A Ninja” in a campaign to promote the search engine’s capabilities. The Ninja character, which stars in a popular online video series, will invite viewers to go to Ask.com and search for secret Ninja words.

• Email

  FTC Spam Summit One Big Snooze-O-Rama

  The Federal Trade Commission held its Spam Summit last week