Consumers are "positively engaged" and "highly loyal" to the brands they choose to follow and "like" on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others, but they also have "high expectations" that brands should offer them unique experiences, savings, promotions, games and other incremental elements as part of their social experiences, according to findings of "Variance in the Social Brand Experience" study, released this morning by the Chief Marketing Officer Council.

Sprint on Wednesday said Publicis agency Digitas will serve as the new primary agency for the wireless brand, managing brand strategy, advertising, digital, offline media, digital buying and analytics. In connection with the move, Publicis is creating a dedicated unit for the company dubbed Team Sprint that will be led by Digitas President Tony Weisman and that will include sister agency Leo Burnett as a key partner. “We are focused on continuing to build the Sprint brand, bringing value and simplicity to customers across all segments,” said Bill Malloy, Sprint chief marketing officer,” in a statement. “Team Sprint, a brand-dedicated …

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hold a hearing on Thursday about the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number's controversial plan to allow companies to purchase brand names and other words as top-level domains.

Yahoo Wednesday said it was awarded a $610 million default judgment against spammers in connection with a fake Yahoo lottery email scheme. The scam involved messages sent to Internet users to trick them into believing they had won a lottery prize offered by Yahoo in order to obtain credit card data and other personal information. In the case dating back to 2008, a New York federal court judge found the scammers jointly and severally liable as participants in a conspiracy under New York common law. The judgment handed down Monday comprised statutory damages for trademark infringement of $27 million, …

Chase Carey, deputy chairman, president and COO of News Corp., echoed much of what other senior TV executives said about the TV advertising market recently: It's soft, but overall not alarmingly so. Carey, speaking at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference, said that News Corp. was in a good place, however, because it sold a heavy amount of its commercial inventory during upfront in June. Right now, going forward, he says there has been few cancellations for any of TV advertisers' long-term 2011-2012 broadcast year media buys. Though down somewhat now in the fourth quarter, he sees somewhat of …

Buddy Media and comScore are partnering to provide mutual clients improved measurement for social marketing campaigns. The move combines the former’s social media marketing tools with comScore’s audience-tracking service geared to social media.  Under their agreement, the companies have agreed to integrate comScore’s panel-based data into the Buddy Media product suite to allow “seamless social marketing optimization and performance measurement.” Besides bolstering their own social media properties, the joint offering promises to help clients gauge the impact of “earned media” through metrics such as reach and frequency, demographics, online behavior and benchmarking of competitive brands in the social landscape. …

Cox Communications has selected MediaVest as its media planning and buying agency of record. MediaVest will plan and buy all online and offline media for Cox for both residential and business services and will assist Cox with planning Cox's owned media including cable television advertising via Cox Media.

Dunkin' Donuts is running a"Get GifteDD" promo in the NY metro market. The sweepstakes, which runs through Dec. 23 is meant to get consumers to check in through Facebook or Foursquare at a Dunkin' Donuts in Metro NY for a chance at prizes like a $1,000 American Express Gift Card merchandise from 1800-Flowers and Travel Pro Luggage

San Francisco agency Catalyst S+F just unveiled "Good Buys Media," which it describes as a "Gilt Groupe-Like service offering media buyers exclusive, discounted media inventory deals.

AMC Network isn't the cable network of a few years ago, mostly one of old movies. With new original award winning series like "Breaking Bad", "Walking Dead", and "Mad Men" it expects a lot more more --  from advertisers in particular. Speaking at the recent UBS Media and Communications Conference, Josh Sapan, president/CEO of AMC Networks said versus other cable networks: “We are hardly at full justice... There is certainly opportunity over the next [years] to be rewarded for what we put on the air today.”