The first work from Chevrolet's new Commonwealth advertising agency may hit the waves by mid-May. A joint venture between Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and McCann Erickson Worldwide, Commonwealth handles the bowtie in Europe, Asia and South America, while bolstering the brand among young American consumers. Some of the agency's early work will include "promotional opportunities and collaborations and campaigns," said Joel Ewanick, General Motors' chief marketing officer. By mid-May, Ewanick said, Chevrolet will begin to announce "examples of how you can do things globally that we would not have done before if we had managed them in our …

Daryl Fielding is to leave Kraft's Europe division after two and half years, prompting a reshuffle that sees Chrystel Barranger appointed to the newly created role of vice president for snacking and marketing services. Fielding, who joined the Zurich-based Kraft Foods Europe in Jan. 2010 as VP marketing, will return to the UK. Her marketing services responsibilities will be taken on by Barranger, currently vice president for biscuits marketing, who will add oversight of the snacks brands such as Oreo and Cadbury.

Today Procter & Gamble introduces this year's “Thank You, Mom” Olympics campaign focusing on athletes' moms. The latest campaign is its biggest. The effort was first introduced in 2010, via Wieden & Kennedy for the Vancouver Olympics. The new campaign, which includes digital media, print and television ads and a mobile application centers on a television ad lasting a minute and 20 seconds and showing the mothers of young athletes preparing them for their day. The spots feature mothers and children (played by actors) in four Olympic cities past, present and future: Los Angeles, Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro. …

Apple's stock star may be heading down, which could have a deleterious effect on the market. The Cupertino giant's shares dropped 4.1% on Monday, extending their slide to a fifth consecutive day and sparking worries about whether the maker of iPads and iPhones may be headed for a bigger descent. Apple is now down 9.9% from its intraday peak of $644 hit on April 10, just shy of the 10% level that market watchers call a "correction." On Monday, Apple fell $25.10, to $580.13, in 4 p.m. Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.

The interactive Harry Potter site Pottermore has hung out its shingle and is sending out invites. After spending several months in beta, Pottermore is now open to registration. To avoid overtaxing the servers, however, the site will activate accounts a handful at a time. You also can't pick your own user name. J.K. Rowling's interactive Harry Potter site invited a few thousand fans to join the site last August.

The Year of the Dragon is considered to be the luckiest of the Chinese lunar years, with many couples rushing to marry or have a child during this auspicious time. IBM is forecasting a surge in demand for home furnishings in the second quarter of this year. Its forecast calls for in-store sales of home furnishings to rise nearly 8% to $23.22 billion and online sales to surge 28.4%. Combined, the home furnishings market should grow 16.6% in the second quarter.

Toyota Motor Corp. lost the sales war to Volkswagen last year. But the Japanese auto giant is going after the German automaker in Germany.

Policing and censorship on behalf of the London games' sponsors is here. "Brand police" will have the power to force publications to take down signs advertising "watch the games on our TV," to sticker over the brand-names of products at games venues where those products were made by companies other than the games' sponsors, to send takedown notices to YouTube and Facebook if attendees at the games post their personal images for their friends to see. These rules are not merely civil laws, but criminal ones, so violating the sanctity of an Olympic sponsor could invite prison time.

In an effort to bring in bigger streams of revenue from new sources, Spotify is prepared to launch a series of "branded apps" that feature products and brand names in exchange for advertising dollars. Among the companies already being tapped are AT&T, Intel, McDonald's, and Reebok. The apps supply a playlist thematically consistent with the sponsoring brand. One could navigate to a Reebok app, for instance, to get workout music.

Brand investment in the digital channel, the move to solution suites and demand for cross-media measurement are the three biggest trends affecting the online advertiser space, according to Nikesh Arora, Google's SVP and chief business officer, during the company's quarterly results call.