Christopher Saunders

Sony Corp. is looking toward video games to extend its on-screen franchises, with a plan to develop games for online distribution centered around upcoming titles. The first title slated for release through the strategy is “Men in Black II: Crossfire” — a game designed to support the sequel to the company’s 1999 Columbia Pictures hit. […]

Online auctioneer eBay has renegotiated its extensive advertising deal with AOL Time Warner , reducing its commitment to the media conglomerate in response to continued weakness in ad pricing. Under the previous, three-year-old agreement, eBay had agreed to pay $18.75 million per year for advertising on America Online and other AOL Time Warner properties through […]

College discount marketer Student Advantage is striking an alliance with New York-based teen marketer Alloy , selling off a unit in return for a joint promotion deal. Through the agreement, Alloy will pay up to $6.5 million to acquire Boston-based Student Advantage’s Events and Promotions group. An undisclosed portion of the payout will be made […]

Office Depot will promote America Online Latin America’s through a new joint marketing alliance. The deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, will see AOL Mexico advertising goods and services sold by Office Depot de Mexico, the local unit of one of the world’s largest office products retailers. In return, Delray Beach, Fl.-based Office […]

It might seem a no-brainer, but e-tailers often ignore the fact that they have to keep existing users happy to reap the benefits of new client referrals, according to a study by Taylor Nelson Sofres. The research firm found that while viral marketing efforts could provide enormous benefits to e-commerce sites by bringing in new […]

Two privacy groups are challenging DoubleClick’s proposed class-action settlement, claiming the agreement fails to require the Web advertising giant to significantly alter its consumer data policies. Earlier this week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Junkbusters, Inc., jointly filed a formal objection to DoubleClick’s settlement proposal for several pending class-action lawsuits in U.S. District Court […]

L90 Concludes Internal Investigation, Restates Web ad network L90 has concluded the internal investigation of its accounting and said it plans to restate results for third quarter and full-year 2000, as well as first, second and third quarters of last year. In February, the Los Angeles-based firm announced that the Securities and Exchange Commission and […]

Yahoo! is teaming up with consumer healthcare product manufacturer Kimberly-Clark Corp. in another victory for its recent vertical focus. A new advertising agreement Yahoo! and Dallas, Texas-based Kimberly-Clark, will see the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based portal distributing health information created and sponsored by Kimberly-Clark, which manufacturers baby products like Huggies, Pull-Ups and GoodNights, as well as family-oriented […]

Ford is turning to rich media ads in an effort to promote its 2003 Ford Expedition sport utility vehicle, and tapping America Online, Yahoo! and Microsoft’s MSN for the effort. The executions, developed by the portals in conjunction with Ford’s agency of record, J. Walter Thompson, continue the messaging of the vehicle’s television spots, which […]

Two highly sought-after demographics — mothers and Hispanics/Latinos — are becoming more numerous online, according to research from America Online’s Digital Marketing Services unit and comScore Networks. According to America Online DMS, a unit of AOL Time Warner , mothers who use the Internet now spend up to 16 hours and 52 minutes per week […]

Pay-for-performance search engine LookSmart will expand its relationship with content and search syndication firm InfoSpace . The move will see LookSmart’s paid search listings being extended to Bellevue, Wash.-based InfoSpace’s new meta-search product. On Monday, the company began distributing meta-search to the Excite Network’s excite.com and WebCrawler.com. Terms of the arrangement were not disclosed. Prior […]

Charles Schwab’s online brokerage CyberTrader is poised to launch a new campaign designed to help it stand out from the competition in a tightening market for individual investors. The campaign, designed by Austin-based GSD&M, will use television, print, online and direct components to position the site’s users as individualistic and sophisticated. The pieces will use […]