As shoppers inch their way toward pre-recession spending levels, they're changing channels again, and May retail results indicate just how elusive defining the "new normal" may be. Big gainers for the month include warehouse clubs, with Costco's same-store sales up 9%, and BJ's Wholesale Clubs up 6.8%, as well as some luxury retailers, with Neiman Marcus up 7.8% and Saks up 5.8%. Gains were more muted at department stores and specialty apparel companies, and many in the teen sector declined.

Video game maker EA Sports looks to bring the excitement of team sports to the usually staid world of golf in a new television and viral campaign promoting the company's Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11. In a new television commercial airing this week, a Ryder Cup tournament is shown with all the pomp and celebration of a football game, including a mascot leading the team through a banner and former NFL coach Mike Ditka strategizing about how to play a hole with Tiger and other professional golfer teammates. At the end of the spot, from San Francisco agency Heat, …

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued a patent to TRA Analytics covering the technology and processes TRA uses to provide single-source audience data to TV networks, agencies, and advertisers.  U.S. Patent No. 7,729,940 (the "940 patent"), entitled, "Analyzing Return on Investment of Advertising Campaigns by Matching Multiple Data Sources" also covers TRA's solutions for integrating other types of media and purchase data as well as TRA's report metrics, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), multivariate analytics, algorithms and privacy solution.

Marketing effectively to U.S. Hispanics requires an understanding of diverse psychographics, identity profiles and emerging segments that goes well beyond the language, country of origin and acculturation level targeting definitions now in standard use, according to newly released research jointly conducted by Starcom MediaVest Group and NBC Universal/Telemundo.

Google said Wednesday it has been working with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to provide bulk patent and trademark data to the public for free. Until now, USPTO's public data in bulk form has been provided solely as a fee-based service. All granted patents and trademarks, and published applications, with both full text and images are free. Google also plans to make file histories and related data available in the future, too. Google Patent Search launched in 2006. At first, not all searches were up to date, but relevance improved over time.

Auto service provider Midas International Corp. is joining with Spin magazine to ask consumers to "Rock the Highway" this summer. The Itasca, Ill.-based company is offering a sweepstakes and a “Search for the Next Great Road Song” contest. Sweepstakes and contest details and Midas’ tips for car care and safe teen driving are available at a new microsite: www.midassummer2010.com. Music fans can vote on their favorite classic road trip songs by visiting www.rockthehighway.com during June, July and August. Each month, entrants can enter to win road trip-related prizes such as …

Fresh off finalizing its acquisition by Google, AdMob has released a new set of advertising tools for developers on the iPad. AdMob's new software developer kit for iPad applications supports a pair of display formats: one featuring text and the other, images. Amazon is among initial advertisers using the new ads to promote its Kindle for iPad app. In a blog post, AdMob also showcased mock-ups of interactive ads built with HTML5 to highlight the potential for iPad ads. "We consider today's launch of text & tile and image ads for iPad native apps to just be the …

Herb Scannell, CEO of Next New Networks and former president of Viacom’s Nickelodeon Networks, has jumped back into cable TV, joining BBC Worldwide America as president.

GroupM's MEC unit has named four new managing partners: Cheryl Di Martino, Mason Franklin, Michelle Gugliemelli and Adam Shlacther.

Helena Snowdon has been named marketing director, a new position, GroupM's Maxus Worldwide unit. Snowdon will oversee all Maxus branding, marketing and communications efforts, both internally and externally.Most recently she was global head of marketing and communications for Omnicom's PHD unit in London.