Casa Noble Tequila and Bar Louie, a neighborhood restaurant and bar with more than 50 U.S. locations, have teamed to offer dinersthe opportunity to win a VIP trip for two to a Carlos Santana concert. SpyderLynk's logo-based SnapTag QR codes are being featured on Bar Louie's special fall menu, alongside special drinks made with the tequila brand. Through October 31, diners who snap and send the Casa Noble SnapTag in using their mobile phones receive a video featuring Santana and are entered in the drawing for the concert tickets and other prizes. The campaign was created by …

Wall Street financial firm UBS lowered its organic revenue growth rate estimates for two of Adland's biggest holding companies—Omnicom and Interpublic Group. The move follows UBS's move earlier in the week reducing its estimate on U.S. ad spending growth next year to 3.6% from 4%. For Interpublic, UBS said it was reducing its organic growth estimate to 3.6% from 5% for next year and lowering the holding company's estimated profit (before interest and taxes) to $725 million from $758 million. That equates to a profit margin drop of three-tenths of a percent to 10%, UBS said. For Omnicom, UBS is …

Omnicom Media Group (OMG) has appointed Josh Jacobs president of Accuen, the company's year-old digital platform trading desk based in Chicago. Jacobs will be responsible for planning and executing the strategy for Omnicom's digital media trading business, growing Accuen's client roster, and developing new product offerings, the company said. Jacobs will also be tasked with expanding the Accuen team, adding staffers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He will report to Scott Hagedorn, CEO of OMG's Annalect Group, a new analytics unit formed last year to manage and analyze the reams of data pouring into OMG from its …

Interpublic's Mediabrands has named Quentin George Chief Innovations Officer, a new position at the $32 billion media services agency holding company unit. George, who was Mediabrands' Chief Digital Officer, will report to Mediabrands CEO Matt Seiler, and will be responsible for overseeing its "intelligence capabilities," including "the physical and virtual labs" and Magna Global.

Hyundai Motor America is keeping its "Big Voice in Big Places" strategy going with a new program around college football. The program with 15 universities starts with Hyundai getting presenting sponsorship of "Thursday Night College Football Live" on ESPN for this season's inaugural Thursday game featuring Louisiana State University and Mississippi State. At football games at the fifteen colleges Hyundai will get on-site sponsorship, marketing, media and hospitality opportunities. The automaker will ad nine more schools to its sponsorship roster next year, per a release. Hyundai says it will have 64 experiential on-site displays print, online and local …

While it probably won't be enough to shed its "Whole Paycheck" reputation, Whole Foods Market is going on a price offensive. First, its offer of $20 worth of groceries for $10 has become the fastest-selling coupon on LivingSocial. And second, it's publicizing consumer research that claims it is actually cheaper than other supermarkets. The LivingSocial program, the first national grocery coupon ever offered by the deal site, didn't just sell well, it sold fast. At its peak, consumers were buying about 80 coupons per second, Brendan P. Lewis, a spokesperson for the Washington D.C.-based LivingSocial, tells Marketing Daily. (While …

I'm writing this from a UPS event near Bryant Park. It's a press conference actually and it will be a big enough announcement that the company's CEO is here, along with a phalanx of marketing brass. Big deal they've signed with the NFL. more laterk though Im sure that this is all on PR Newswire as I write.

I saw a series of Citibank poster ads in the subway featuring ecstatically happy people traipsing about their perfectly manicured yards, buying new apartments, dancing through vacations, mortgages paid, traveling to fun places in cool VW microbuses. Um, gee, I wonder if it's just me or are these idiots and their agency completely out of touch? No I guess it's not just me. A new Harris poll finds that the level of alienation (a sense of isolation from a community, or society at large) among Americans has jumped up 11 points in one year, one of the highest single …

Bad news for America and bad news for marketers: the number of Americans living in poverty increased to 46.2 million in 2010, or 15.1% of the total population -- the highest level since 1993.  Meanwhile consumer sentiment, as measured by the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index, was minus 49.3 in the week-long period ending September 4 -- the second-lowest level all year. And as MediaPost's Sarah Mahoney reports, anxiety over the economy and personal financial well-being is at record levels among female consumers.  In conclusion: happy Tuesday!

Social media-based audience targeting platform 33Across has named Matt Arkin president. Arkin, who most recently was chief revenue officer of Sojern, will report to 33Across CEO Eric Wheeler. 33Across also announced that it has hired Allie Savarino Kline as vice president-marketing from a similar position at Brand Affinity Technologies (BAT).