Mercedes-Benz USA has tapped Razorfish, a unit of Microsoft, for the online component Of a new marketing campaign, which is trying a different way to get customers to buy cars as it introduces its updated E-Class Series. The ad campaign for the midsize car, available as a sedan or a coupe, is the company's biggest in two years, estimated at $75 million. It does not talk about great value or good deals. Instead, it focuses on the cars' technology and heritage, a somewhat standard approach for the brand. The online campaign will include home page advertisements on …

Thought MySpace as a marketing vehicle was so yesterday? Not for Sacha Baron Cohen, or "Bruno," who wants you to "freund" him on "MeinSpace." Cohen's new movie will have close ties to the social-networking site, as shown by the de facto home page for the film, MeinSpace.com, hosted by MySpace. Execs close to the deal tell Ad Age that it's part of a wide-ranging integration between News Corp.'s social network and the film, which is financed by Media Rights Capital and distributed by Universal Pictures and opens July 10. The deal is said to include an integration …

Blurring the lines between TV and online advertising, NBC Universal and Microsoft on Thursday announced a partnership to sell NBC Universal's broadcast and cable advertising using the software goliath's automated planning and buying tool, Admira. The software lets advertisers efficiently buy and target commercials to specific segments of the population, improving their return on investment in a manner similar to what is available in the realm of online advertising. NBC Universal properties include the NBC Television Network, USA, Bravo, Sci-Fi Channel and MSNBC. NBC also owns a number of television stations in such major …

Looks like Yahoo's economic situation could be even worse that many suspect. The beleaguered Web giant is reportedly embarking on a desperate money-saving strategy to sell off Web domains, industry blog TechCrunch reports, citing an unnamed tipster. "That's exactly what it has done with Contests.com, which sold during a live auction last night." More remarkable are the bargain-basement prices Yahoo is offering for its owned Web domains. Contests.com, which TechCrunch considers "a killer domain name," sold it for only $380,000. By contrast, in February, Toys.com sold for $5.1 million in auction, while a few weeks ago, Candy.com …

WordPress parent Automattic has partnered with widget maker SocialVibe, PaidContent reports. As a result, Wordpress bloggers can now sign up for a SocialVibe widget, choose a specific charity and corresponding brand sponsor, and then embed the ad unit in their blog to start earning micro-donations from the brand once readers interact with the sponsored units. Interactions include things like watching and rating a video. Progress gets displayed right on the widget with a note like 'My blog has provided 17 books to students in need'. SocialVibe currently donates 100 percent of the proceeds to the charities, but …

Across the pond, European privacy regulators could be about to throw a spanner into the works of attempts by social networking sites like Facebook to find new ways to increase profits as they try to restrict the way internet groups release personal data. The European move marks the first attempt by regulators to address the "open" Internet platforms that the social networks, led by Facebook, have rushed to create, The Financial Times reports. "By letting other applications ride on top of their systems, tapping into personal data about their members, the networks have sought both to tie in users for …

For brands -- along with celebrities and everyone else -- staking out and protecting their names and trademarks online has become a seemingly never-ending battle, The Times reports. With the rise of social networks, registering a simple Web address like pepsi.com or mileycyrus .com is apparently no longer enough to plant one's flag firmly in the virtual terra firma. When domain names first became hot properties in the '90s, it was mostly companies that worried about claiming the right addresses. But in this more narcissistic Internet era, people who were once happily anonymous view themselves as online …