Pro baseball accessories maker "New Era" has launched a TV ad shot in black and white touting its tie to Major League Baseball. In the ad actors, Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski ("The Office") berate each other's favorite MLB teams (the Yankees for Baldwin and Red Socks for Krasinksi.) Baldwin is in a fancy party but baseball transcends everything. He excuses himself to take a phone call from Krasinski to engage in trash talk.

Some months back Target raised hackles among gay rights organizations when the Minnesota retailer gave $150,000 to MN Forward, which backs an anti-gay-marriage gubernatorial candidate. Since then gay-rights supporters have been boycotting the store, though both sides say they want to resolve the issue. That has been difficult, as neither side has found a way to do fix the rift. Things got worse last month when the company sued a gay marriage group that picketed outside its San Diego store, which led to anti-Target groups on Facebook, and Lady Gaga dropping her album deal with the retailer. The …

The head of Costco may be president of a company with its eye on Paris and Madrid, but he likes hot dogs as well as the next guy. Craig Jelinek could be in line to take co-founder Jim Sinegal's CEO title should Sinegal retire. He also doesn't often speak to the press and adheres to the company's focus on tortoise-style patience. Jelinek started at Costco in 1984, and has opened stores, overseen the Northwest region and led merchandising. In a speech at Seattle University where he became trustee recently, he said he could never replace Sinegal, but that he …

Industry analysts say General Motors has company staffers -- reportedly hundreds of them -- in the U.S. assessing the Japan crisis in terms of its potential effects on the automaker's supply chain. Analysts say effects have so far been small on GM's operations from the quake, which happened a month ago today.

John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, said at Ad Age Digital Conference that in terms of reach, games are bigger than all forms of entertainment, especially TV. He also previewed the coming EA games, "Battlefield 3" and "Star Wars Old Republic."

The PepsiCo snack division will have a snack kitchen in Times Square this week as part of a grassroots effort to tout its snacks as all-natural. Promoting its line of products from Lay's, SunChips and Tostitos, Frito-Lay will show the latest flavors with chefs, branding elements from Hard Rock Cafe, and Electrolux. Also on hand, "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi.

Ad spending in the U.S. is heading up. New forecasts from Publicis Groupe SA's ZenithOptimedia says spending will rise 2.5% to $155.2 billion this year mostly from marketers in financial, retail and auto sectors. But the firm says it will take several years before spend reaches pre-recession levels. The firm predicts that worldwide spending will rise 4.2% to $470.8 billion, lower than the previously estimated $4.6 billion, because of recent events in the Middle East and Japan. The largest increase will be online, per ZenithOptimedia, which predicts a 13% rise in digital media. Second would be cable, with a …

Kia hired German designer Peter Schreyer from Audi in 2006 to give Kia some chutzpah, particularly in the U.S. market. But his new concept electric car, the Naimo, which has debuted at the Seoul Auto Show, is all about a Korean aesthetic, per Schreyer. "This one we did with the inspiration of using Koreaness," he said at that show. "So it will have some clues in it coming from Korean crafts and art." The jade green color is meant to evoke Korean Celadon-style pottery. Other elements suggest Korean oak, hanji paper and architecture.

Charlie Sheen has the best Web strategy going, writes Technorati scribe Iain Alexander. "From breaking a Twitter record, to hosting his own Internet show on Ustream, the actor has done what few in Hollywood have ever achieved," he writes. "Parody videos created by fans and websites dedicated to his one-liners are giving the actor non-stop free promotion and this, in turn, has created an audience of marketers for Charlie Sheen." Alexander says Sheen's ABC interview launched viral video spoofs, which have fueled his Twitter fan growth and other media interview requests. "With so many people discussing and sharing his antics, …

Kudo Tsunoda of Microsoft talked up the benefits of collaboration between marketers and game designers for Xbox 360. The creative director for Kinect spoke on marketing's role in the development of Kinect to launch the M16 Game Marketing Conference in San Francisco. He started by talking about the "weird" tension between marketers and developers. But he then said Microsoft's Kinect marketing team had a big role in crafting the experience and product. He tried to give them props at the conference, acknowledging them and asking them to stand up, which they were reluctant to do. "That's the last time we …