Move over, Two-Buck Chuck, as the Charles Shaw wines sold by Trader Joe's are called. Here comes another Chuck, seeking a lot more than a couple of dollars. This Chuck is Chuck Schwab, a k a Charles R. Schwab, who is the centerpiece of a campaign started this week by the brokerage firm he founded. The campaign, for the Charles Schwab & Company unit of the Charles Schwab Corporation, has a budget that would buy an avid oenophile about 17.5 million bottles of Two-Buck Chuck.

In an effort to boost its fashion credibility, Wal-Mart is reportedly considering the acquisition of Tommy Hilfiger. Although the embattled apparel marketer is operating in the red, to Wal-Mart it represents a chance to draw more upscale shoppers and better compete against Target Stores, which features fashion lines by well-known designers such as Mossimo Giannulli and Isaac Mizrahi. "Just like Martha Stewart at Kmart for home fashions, Tommy could do the same thing for Wal-Mart in fashion," said Marshal Cohen, a fashion and apparel analyst with NPD Group.

Billed as "advertising's own Broadway showstopper," a procession of ad icons that was to work its way through Times Square and up Madison Avenue was put to a stop by the New York Police Department due to concerns about stopping traffic.

You didn't miss them. They just haven't been recorded yet. Earlier this year, McDonald's Corp. unveiled plans to enlist rap artists to produce several songs that would integrate the Golden Arches' iconic Big Mac sandwich into lyrics. The move, as first reported by Madison & Vine in March, was to be part of the company's ongoing strategy to court the youth market, especially young men, through hip-hop.

Get ready for dramatic change in automotive marketing in the next 18 months, including a big drop in ad spending from SUV brands. As hurricanes hammer the U.S. Gulf Coast and send gas prices soaring, industry watchers anticipate hard times ahead for Detroit, and a sharp acceleration away from gas-guzzling SUVs, which until last year were the auto industry's darling. Instead, marketers are touting fuel efficiency and consumers are beginning to look with new interest at smaller cars and hybrid vehicles.

After months of wooing, Brett Gosper turned down an offer just last month from McCann Erickson, the agency he left a year ago. An impassioned show of support from Jean-Marie Dru, himself the subject of a recent whirlwind recruitment effort by Havas, convinced him to stay at TBWA. But in the weeks that followed, Gosper would second-guess himself.

Viewers shift away from NBC, with UPN's 'Everybody Hates Chris' beating out 'Joey.'

Jeff Zucker has made a very fast climb almost to the very top of television's very greasy pole. Five years ago, he was just a producer?a famously smart, focused, cocksure TV-news Barnum who had recast, remade, and revived Today, yes, but still just a news producer, and at 35 no longer quite so precocious. But now he's a 40-year-old wunderkind without any recent wunders to his credit, apart from his own ascension.

It is not yet clear how well Martha Stewart's new television shows will do, but one thing has become apparent: since the shows began to air, a lot of investors in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have been selling.

As the ANA's Annual Conference: Masters of Marketing approaches, I would like to share Joe Tripodi's (CMO, Allstate) thoughts with you on strategic marketing.