As part of the largest settlement ever for a class-action lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company, Merck & Co. agreed yesterday to pay $58 million with 30 state attorneys general for advertising Vioxx before its effects were understood. The company will also now have to submit all its DTC ads to the Food and Drug Administration for approval before airing. The company's aggressive marketing of the drug "drove hundreds of thousands of consumers to seek prescriptions before Vioxx's risks were fully understood," said Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers. The settlement concludes a three-year investigation. Pre-approval of DTC advertising, …

In its latest attempt to convince the world it is serious about the advertising business, Microsoft has branded all its ad products under a single name. Microsoft Advertising, much like AOL's Platform A, encompasses the growing list of products and tools the software company offers advertisers and publishers. The company announced the new brand yesterday at Advance08, its annual gathering of brands and agency executives being held this week at its Redmond, Wash., campus. The group includes the ad serving tool Atlas, the ad exchange AdECN, the ad platform adCenter, and the in-game ad firm Massive. …

The International Council of Beverages Association, the global advocacy group for non-alcoholic beverage makers, has voluntarily adopted guidelines on how its members' products should be-or not be-marketed to kids. The group's two largest members, Coke and Pepsi, immediately announced they would implement the guidelines in all their marketing around the world. The guidelines say the marketers will stop pushing a wide range of beverages, including carbonated soft drinks, to any audience that is comprised predominantly of children under 12. The policy applies to all platforms, including print, TV, in-theater, Internet and even phone-messaging. The adoption of …

Following the 2005 merger of Federated and May Department Stores, Macy's eliminated regional department store names around the country in favor of its new national brand, Macy's. Now, it is trying to bring back those regional shoppers who may have been alienated by the move by focusing its advertising on local media. The new initiative means Macy's will be spending more of its ad budget on print, radio and newspapers, and less on TV. The move comes only a few months after the company connected with consumers with a splashy holiday TV campaign that featured celebrities such as Donald …

In order to combat the spread of TiVo and other ad-skipping technologies, advertisers are turning to the tried-and-true approach of live commercials. Ads that were performed live, often by the stars of the program itself, were the norm in the early days of TV, but fell out of favor as production values and budgets increased. But in an age when "engagement" is all the rage, marketers are finding the spontaneity and novelty of live ads work to keep an audience from passing the fast-forward button. As of now, most of the live spots have taken place …

Conventional wisdom says advertising budgets are the first to go when the economy heads south. But a new survey from the CMO Club suggests that may not be the case this time. Seventy-one percent of chief marketing officers in the study do not plan on cutting their company's marketing budget, while only 14% said they would. The reason? CMOs may finally be listening to their ad agency executives, who've been saying for years that advertising is more important than ever during a recession. Responses from the survey suggest the message might be getting through. Not surprisingly, online …

What's in a color? More than a name, apparently. As Nutrasweet introduces table-top, single-serve packets for the first time in its history, the company is hoping some familiar colors will give its sweetener a head start. The new packets feature Nutrasweet's familiar red-swirl logo on backgrounds that deliberately trade on years of branding by competitors Equal (blue), Sweet'N Low (pink) and Splenda (yellow). "Sweetener users have been trained to look for the color packet that represents a certain sweet taste profile," said a spokeswoman for NutraSweet. "Consumers use sweeteners by color." Competitors aren't commenting yet, but …