Talk about chutzpah: In a presentation to the Association of National Advertisers' Masters of Marketing, BP's CMO Luc Bardin explains how the company's involvement in the London 2012 Olympics has helped move its battered brand forward. "I'm a big believer in the adage, 'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger,'" he told attendees. "And what we've learned is to ask ourselves, 'What can go wrong and are we ready?'" But it's worth noting that Bardin, who shared the stage with John Seifert, chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather North America, its ad agency, was the only conference presenter who …

Sprint confirmed it is in talks with Japanese mobile carrier Softbank, in which the latter would make a "substantial investment" in the former, and that such a transaction "could involve a change of control of Sprint," according to a brief, two sentence statement.

American’s used 1.1 trillion MB of data in the year ending July 12, up more than double from the prior 12 months, according to the semi-annual data traffic survey by CTIA—The Wireless Association. Among other findings, the study showed smartphones made up 131 million (or 41%) of the almost 322 million wireless subscriber connections. The number of tablets increased to 22 million, or almost 17% of all wireless connections. At the same time, the trade organziation said the average monthly wireless bill decreased 7 cents to $47.16. For more highlights, click here.

 A ray of light for the CW?  "Arrow", a new CW drama -- one geared to pull in more male viewers -- took in a big Nielsen 4.02 million viewers on Wednesday. (So far this season, CW has been averaging just 900,000 viewers).   The network says this is the best result for any CW single episode in three years since  "The Vampire Diaries" took in 4.1 million in November …

About one in 10 people who watched the presidential debate last week were two-screen viewers, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Dual-screen viewers skewed younger, with 22% of those under 40 following the debate live both on TV and online via a computer or mobile device. Overall, 85% of viewers watched the debate on TV only. Looking at social media use, only about a third of those who viewed the debate in real time online—5% of the overall debate audience—say they shared their own reactions to the debate …

For marketers, the age of disruption is over, says Kimberly Kadlec, J&J's worldwide of the global marketing. Addressing the more than 2,000 attendees of the ANA's Masters of Marketing conference, Kadlec spotlighted some of J&J's most successful recent efforts, "showing that we really can make connections that change the world."

Sunnier days in Orlando: The Association of National Advertisers kicked off its annual conference, this year called the Masters of Marketing, with more than 2,000 attendees and upbeat predictions. Bob Liodice, the ANA's president and CEO, talked about media growth, with digital up 17%, mobile up 97%, and social, now at $4 billion, predicted to grow to $10 billion by 2016, as well as 6% gain in plain old television.

Cross-platform ad technology firm Tapad has expanded its sales force nationally with the hiring of two new executives. P.J. Miele, previously at AOL Advertising, has been named vice president of West Coast sales, launching the company’s presence in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Miele has also held national sales roles at Experian and Yahoo. Leading Tapad’s sales operations in the Midwest is Kimberly Waichulis as vice president of the Central region, based in Chicago. Before joining Tapad, she served as regional VP at MediaMind, and before that had senior roles at TradingPartners and VisaNow. Both Miele And Waichulis report …

New menu offerings drove 7% same-store U.S. sales gain in latest quarter.

Apache's software for publishers will no longer override Microsoft's do-not-track headers, researcher Jonathan Mayer reported on Twitter this week.