Michael Cooke, the editor in chief of the Chicago Sun-Times, has resigned after five years with the city's second-largest newspaper to take the top newsroom job at the New York Daily News.

Following a review of holding companies, pharmaceutical marketer Schering-Plough has consolidated its estimated $400 million global creative business with Omnicom Group and Publicis Groupe, the marketer said.

A consumer group that has frequently criticized food advertising, especially as it pertains to children, today proposed banning commercials for nutritionally poor foods from shows watched by children up to the age of 18.

Viacom yesterday named Brad Grey, one of the most prominent talent managers in Hollywood, chairman and chief executive of its troubled Paramount Motion Picture Group.

The Advertising Council is responding to the tsunami disaster in Southern Asia with an alacrity that may be the fastest reaction to urgent need in its 63-year history.

WPP Group's chief talent officer Beth Axelrod is to leave the company after three years to take up a top job at online auction company eBay. Axelrod joined WPP in April 2002, after 12 years with management consultancy McKinsey, where she lead McKinsey's "war for talent" research efforts and leadership practice.

US rock star Madonna is to be the new face of an advertising campaign for the Italian fashion house Versace, according to a spokeswoman for the fashion-house, confirming a report in the magazine Women's Wear Daily.

For the Super Bowl's "game within the game" - the high-stakes commercial competition among big-spending advertisers - rookies such as MBNA, GoDaddy.com, CareerBuilder.com, Volvo Cars of North America and Ciba Vision - are emerging to challenge veterans such as Anheuser-Busch and Pepsi. Also in is camera giant Olympus, which might as well be a rookie: Its last Super Bowl ad was in 1981.

When James Truman was plucked from the relative obscurity of Details magazine at the age of 35 to be editorial director of Condé Nast Publications in 1994, it was widely predicted that he would not survive the company's cutthroat environment and mercurial ownership. But the British-bred Mr. Truman lasted 11 years. He left Monday morning, when he walked into the office of S. I. Newhouse Jr., the company's chairman, and said that he was quitting.

Can the organizations behind ambitious campaigns intended to change behavior rather than sell products - which helped put across concepts like the designated driver and a National Mentoring Month - persuade baby boomers to consider becoming community volunteers as they begin looking at retirement?