Team owner Mark Cuban has become the first member of the Dallas Mavericks to appear in a post-NBA championship national commercial. The TV spot is a lead-in to the upcoming film, "Transformers: Dark of the Moon." The commercial goes even farther with its promotional tie-in by also featuring ESPN sportscaster Jay Harris. But, as revealed toward the end of the 30-second spot, the main player is the animated movie character Optimus Prime.

Nevada tourism is struggling, so the state will try to create an umbrella Nevada brand. The Nevada Commission on Tourism is launching a $250,000 research and development initiative to try to recharge tourism, which has dropped by 3.1% in the past five years. The group is hoping to create a theme and template that encompasses things like outdoor recreation in Reno-Tahoe or Las Vegas as an "adult playground," while letting the specific markets speak for themselves as well.

Six days after Walmart completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in South African chain Massmart, it has started advertising price cuts and new business opportunities. The company took out an eight-page color ad in the country's Sunday Times newspaper to introduce itself to South African consumers. The advertisement included a letter from "the people" of Massmart and Walmart announcing the merger and price cuts by the group's retailers, Game, Dion Wired, Makro and Builders' Warehouse. Massmart also said it intends to create 15,000 jobs in the next five years.

The Indian unit of Skoda Auto, a part of Germany's Volkswagen Group, will give up its India-specific tag line this year and use its global slogan under a rebranding campaign. The maker of cars like Octavia, Superb, Laura, Fabia and Yeti, will lift "Obsessed with quality since 1895" from the engine compartment and replace it with "Simply Clever." The change happens in the last quarter of the calendar year.

Paul Jankowski, a Nashville-based advertising consultant, has a new book on building brands in the heartland of America. Tennessean columnist Randy McClain says the book "plays a bit too obviously on the theme of how insensitive Big Media have become to real people with real values." How to Speak American: Building Brands in the New Heartland argues -- per McClain -- that small-town America isn't out of touch but big-city ad agencies are. "It's populated by honest, hard-working Americans with money to spend who don't like being talked down to by the companies selling them cereal, real estate …

Fiat, whose U.S. office is in Chelsea, Mich., will launch its first national ad campaign. The effort includes special events on July 4th, the 54th anniversary of the original Fiat 500, said Laura Soave, head of Fiat North America. Until now the brand, whose car in the U.S. is a sub-compact that would compete with vehicles like Mini Cooper, Civic and Ford Fiesta, has been using special events, dealer advertising and the web. Fiat has 70 dealers in the United States, with 130 planned by year-end. Santa Monica, Calif.-based 72andSunny will be digital AOR, working with European …

Pernod Ricard SA plans to increase its market share in Western Europe as the region recovers from the economic downturn, according to slides posted on the company's website Thursday. The Paris-based company, the world's second-largest spirits maker in revenue after U.K.-based Diageo also plans to increase its advertising and marketing investment in Eastern Europe to boost performance in this strong growth area where customers are increasingly favoring international brands. Europe, excluding France and Ireland, represents 30% of Pernod Ricard's total annual sales.

U.S. mobile ad spend will probably hit $4 billion in 2015, up from just $790 million last year, according to the latest projections by forecaster BIA/Kelsey. Driving the growth, at least in part, will be targeted local ads, which will account for $2.8 billion, or 70 percent of total spend, compared to $404 million, or 51% this year.

The electric car company Think, which was once a part of Ford, has gone under. The Norway-based company which was part of Ford's early efforts to get into battery-powered cars, and has been around for more than 20 years was released by Ford Motor Co., which was its owner from 1999 until 2003. Since then it has been rolling downhill. A court-appointed trustee will manage the company in the interests of creditors, the company said in a statement. The all-electric, zero-emission cars can travel 100 miles on a single charge, using lithium-ion batteries made in Indiana, Think said. …

Even though Saab had lined up two Chinese companies, one of them a dealership network, to fund operations, the ventilator is back in at the Trollhattan, Sweden, company. The automaker missed a payday for its 3,800 workers. On Monday, officials met with workers at the Trollhattan plant and told them not to come back to work until July 4. The plant had been down since early June. "Time is a luxury they no longer have," said one analyst. The company is trying to finalize the partnership with Pang Da, the largest Chinese auto dealership network and Zhejiang Youngman …