Who says Fidelity isn’t fun? Speaking at OMMA Social, the investment firm’s digital marketing head Chris Needham previewed a pre-roll spot debuting this week before “Dancing with the Stars,” online video. The spot shows various people walking up to an ATM that presents them with the option of paying $3.50 for a transaction or dancing for 10 seconds for free. After their initial bafflement, the different people are shown in succession pulling their own special dance moves to avoid the $3.50 fee. Needham said the spot was created …

The out-of-home media industry is poised to begin developing new research to develop "commercial ratings" for ads on digital billboards. The initiative, which was unveiled this morning by the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB), represent an enhancement on the out-of-home industry's current ratings system, which is also managed by the TAB. "For the oldest medium to be taking on such an initiative says a great deal about how far we have come as an industry," states Joe Philport, President-CEO, of the TAB. "The real breakthrough here is our ability to report audiences of people seeing each ad rotated on a billboard, …

Yahoo on Monday confirmed it will buy blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion in cash. The deal is by far the company’s largest since CEO Marissa Mayer came on board last July to reverse the company’s sagging fortunes and revive growth. Under the agreement, and its “promise not to screw it up,” Yahoo said Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business, with founder David Karp remaining as CEO. Through their combination, Tumblr would be able to use Yahoo’s personalization and technology and search capabilities to help users discover content, while Tumblr’s 50 billion blog …

Yahoo will incorporate selected tweets into the news feed on its redesigned home page through a new partnership between the Web portal and the microblogging service. “As users explore our nearly endless stream of content, we will seamlessly include relevant and personalized Tweets alongside stories from Yahoo! and our other sources. With this greater breadth of compelling content, we’re excited to give our users even moreopportunities to learn and connect,” stated Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, in a blog post today.

Android ran on three quarters of the smartphones shipped in the first quarter, up from 59% a year ago, according to new data released by research firm IDC today. iOS was a distant second, at 17.3%, followed by Windows Phone (3.2%), BlackBerry (2.9%) and Linux (1%). Windows Phone more than doubled its shipments to 7 million in the quarter, pushing the Microsoft platform past BlackBerry into the No. 3 spot for the first time. IDC senior research analyst Kevin Restivo said the gains help validate the approach taken by Microsoft and hardware partner Nokia. But the …

Larry Yu, Facebook’s director of communications for the last five years, is leaving the social networking giant to join startup The Pranama Collective.  In a Facebook post today announcing his departure, Yu called the company “a project-focused communications consultancy that works with cool companies.” TechCrunch, which first reported Yu’s move, noted The Pranama Collective was launched this spring by Brandee Parker, who led Facebook PR from 2006 to 2008, Brian O’Shaugnessy, who previously led communications at Skype, and Sean Garrett, former PR head at Twitter. With Yu, it adds another high-profile figure toward becoming …

Mike Sheehan is stepping down as CEO of Interpublic's Hill Holiday and is being succeeded by Karen Kaplan. Kaplan, a 30-year vet of the Boston-based agency, had been president. Sheehan will move into the role of chairman.

Karen Kaplan, president of Interpublic Group's Boston-based Hill Holliday has been promoted to CEO, the agency confirmed Monday morning. Kaplan succeeds Mike Sheehan, who has been in the role for a decade, having succeeded agency co-founder Jack Connors. Sheehan will assume the role of chairman of the agency, a post he's expected to hold for two years before exiting the agency. Kaplan has been the heir apparent since 2007 when Sheehan promoted her promoted her to president. Kaplan has spent her entire professional career at HH. She joined the agency 1982 as a receptionist, billed as "something to do before …

Mobile ad network Millennial Media on Monday announced expanding operations to Japan with the opening of a new office in Tokyo. Heading the office is John Greiner, previously president of MonkeyPaw Games, who has 18 years experience in the Japanese market. Millennial, which launched a Singapore office in 2011, said the move into Japan was a natural step as it looks to work with brands, agencies and developers across Asia. Its international presence also includes an EMEA headquarters in London, as well as offices in Paris, Hamburg and Jakarta. Millennial last week reported first-quarter revenue of …

Facebook on Thursday released a new version of Facebook Home, its software overlay for Android phones. The update was rolled out along with a new Facebook app for Android in the Google Play store.   Receiving less than enthusiastic reviews following its launch last month, Home has been installed on Android devices 1 million times to date, according to Facebook. Meanwhile, HTC has slashed the price on the HTC First—which served as a showcase device for Facebook Home—from $99 to 99 cents.   In contrast to the HTC One, the First was …