A small part of the financial regulation passed last year is central to a lobbying and ad push around debit card fees that pits retailers against banks. Currently, retailers pay a fee to the bank as well as to Visa or MasterCard whenever a person swipes a card to make a purchase. These interchange fees make banks big money and cost retailers about $16 billion a year. The new legislation is meant to fix that, but banks and Visa and MasterCard are hoping to delay the rule. Both sides are advertising heavily in Washington, D.C.'s Metro and other spaces to …

Prestige watchmaker Tag Heuer is to be title sponsor of a Formula One racetrack in India, near Goida. The company spends about a quarter of its marketing budget on auto racing. Its marketing media mix around auto racing in the country will comprise outdoor, print, digital and grassroots efforts in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore, around "India Limited Edition" watches.

Is R/GA a digital agency? It would like to make that question irrelevant. The Interpublic firm will soon do event marketing as well, a practice to be led by alumnae from Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Lime Public Relations. But that's not all. It is also expanding into data visualization, a research practice that aims to make market data visually comprehensible through graphic interpretation. The agency now also does brand development, and relationship marketing, plus social media and mobile. CEO Bob Greenberg said the firm plans to add staffers and open more offices. "The real reason we need …

It owns sports teams, sponsors groups of extreme-sports and adventure junkies, and events, and airplane racing teams. Now Red Bull is getting into magazines. The Red Bulletin will be at newsstands for $4.99. To promote it, the company will insert a copy in Sunday editions of major dailies like the New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald. Tag: "An almost independent monthly magazine."

Robert Stempel, who led GM in the early 1990's, has died at age 77 in Florida. Stempel spent 34 years at GM. He reached the corner office in 1990, where he was involved in the development of GM's EV1 but was ousted in 1992 and replaced by Jack Smith.

Just off his latest one-sided win (this past weekend against Shane Mosely) the best-known boxer worldwide since Muhammad Ali -- Manny Pacquiao -- now also has marketing muscle. Boxers don't typically get the kind of super-lucrative deals one sees in other sports, and part of that is endemic to the sweet science. But, in Pacquiao's case, an added problem was that there was no single person in his corner making decisions and taking calls from brands. No longer. His camp has hired Lucia McKelvey, its new EVP handling business development and marketing for the Filipino phenomenon. Ironically, she …

Doug Sweeney, VP-global marketing at Levi Strauss & Co., is departing the apparel company to be president of WPP's Y&R West Coast. He will oversee the agency group's San Francisco and Irvine offices with Y&R CCO Joe Kayser.

The leading luggage company will spend 1.5 billion Rupees in India on marketing and expansion as part of its global repositioning. The effort to turn the brand into a lifestyle marque, includes a focus on Samsonite eyewear, an addition to such products as shoes, luggage, wallets and belts. The program includes a new campaign for the country, "StepOut" aligned with the company's global lifestyle campaign.

The royal wedding netted two billion viewers and was the fifth-most discussed event on Facebook. Prime beneficiaries seem to have been The Goring Hotel, Alexander McQueen and Aston Martin. Google trends show a big boost in searches for each. Other British brands benefited as well, says columnist Laurence Green.

Some 60,000 2004 and 2005 Mini Cooper cars are under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration microscope over power steering problems linked to three vehicle fires. The agency says it has reviewed 519 complaints alleging loss of power steering assist while driving.