NBA commish David Stern said Laurel Richie will be the new president of the WNBA. She was most recently senior VP and CMO of the Girl Scouts of the USA. She has also been with Leo Burnett Worldwide and Ogilvy and Mather overseeing accounts like AmEx and Pepperidge Farms. ESPN columnist Mechelle Voepel says the league missed a nice opportunity by making the announcement two weeks after the women's Final Four and a week after the WNBA draft. She points out that Donna Orender said she would leave as president December 3, with the league saying it would start looking …

Brandweek may be gone, but the new sexier Adweek -- in an article whose headline starts by asking "Kate and William Condoms?" -- brings us a rundown of tie-in merchandise for next week's Royal Wedding.  Sales of such goods in the UK could top $42 million.While government guidelines call for all these souvenirs to be "in good taste," Adweek thinks not. Former Rolling Stone intern turned Adweek staff reporter Emma Bazilian takes us from a British kitchen (where a full-sized Kate and William-emblazoned refrigerator holds a Dunkin Donuts Royal Wedding Donut) to the loo (commemorative towels and toilet …

With a Montgomery, Alabama law firm dropping a lawsuit disparaging both Taco Bell's advertising and the quality of its meats, the Yum Brands chain has launched a new ad campaign -- disparaging the law firm.  One of the campaign's first volleys --- a full-page print ad -- appeared in The Wall Street Journal, and the paper's law blogger Ashby Jones noted that "most large corporate clients would use the voluntary dropping of a lawsuit as an opportunity to do, well, nothing. To quietly let the matter drop and move on with other matters at hand."But Yum's anything …

Hoover got lots of publicity earlier this week when it announced the pulling of all its ads from ABC to protest the cancellation of daytime soap operas "All My Children" and "One Life to Live."  But publicity was precisely the point of the move, writes Jim Edwards in BNET's ad industry column "The Tagline." And that, according to the BNET headline, made a "mostly bogus boycott" into an "act of PR genius."Using figures reported by Ad Age's Brian Steinberg, Edwards points out that the vacuum cleaner marketer's total annual spend on ABC is only $353,000 ($243,000 on soaps). But, …

What do Apple, Burberry, Old Spice and Abercrombie & Fitch have in common?  Yep, they're all brands that were once down in the dumps, but have since enjoyed healthy resurrections.Janet Fowler provides brief summaries of nine such marketing turnarounds, often the result of new product lines or image overhauls. She also includes Nintendo, Mini Cooper, Lacoste and two lines of athletic shoes - Puma and Keds, the once-fading 100-year-old brand which boomed back in the '80s as trendy footwear for teenage girls, then went into a decline, and has now come back via designer styles like wedge heels. The bottom …

Food marketers, "rewriting the rules for reaching children in the Internet age," are using online games and other new media to blur the lines between entertainment and advertising, reports Matt Richtel in an article that ran on the front page of the Times print edition.General Mills shows up a lot in the article, from the lead about a 10-year-old girl playing and sharing a Honey Nuts Cheerios game...to the recent closing of the company's Millsberry virtual world in compliance with an industry-wide pledge "to reduce marketing of their least nutritious brands to children"...to comScore's reporting that the Lucky …

It is introducing Coupon Network by Catalina at Couponnetwork.com. Advertisers with offers on the Web site include Campbell Soup, General Mills, Kellogg, Kraft Foods, Nestlé, Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever. Coupon Network is an addition to the decades-old businesses that Catalina calls shopper-driven marketing, intended to help advertisers more efficiently and effectively reach target audiences. Catalina estimates that it distributes more than $6.5 billion in coupons to shoppers each year through its printers at store checkout counters, writes Stuart Elliott.

Ford Motor has significantly modified its big Taurus sedan, the brand's flagship, only three years into the slow-selling current model's life. The revised car is due out early next year as a 2013 model, and the most dramatic feature is the speed at which Ford has changed the engine lineup, suspension, front and rear styling, power steering, brakes and trim. The car will be unveiled today at the New York International Auto Show.

Domestic sales of MillerCoors fell 2.6% in the last fiscal year, including a 1.4% decrease in the fourth quarter, endingt March 31. MillerCoors is the Chicago-based joint venture of London-based SABMiller PLC and Denver-based MolsonCoors LLC. SABMiller's global volume grew 2% for the full year, helped by 3% growth in the fourth quarter.

Boca Raton, Fla.-based Office Depot has chosen Fort Lauderdale-based Zimmerman Advertising as its agency. It has been a rough couple of years for Office Depot, as a weak economy took a toll of sales and profits. Last fall amid deteriorating results, the company announced the departure of Steve Odland as chairman and CEO and a search for a replacement is now in its six month.