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Two news bits about the Nintendo Wii snuck out during yesterday's Christmas Day lull: Nintendo announced that the Wii would finally be getting video downloads, and Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) said that the console topped its holiday best-seller list.

Big Four ad agency Publicis is now buying in to Latin American digital advertising, acquiring Sao Paulo-based Tribal to add to its Digitas online ad group. Digitas CEO Laura Lang said Tribal is "fundamental" to expanding in the growing region. Publicis bought Digitas back in 2006 and has grafted on various international digital acquisitions in the UK, India, Singapore, China and its native France, so this will be a foothold across the Atlantic.

-Jerry Yang is stepping down as CEO of Yahoo; News Corp. president Peter Chernin is said to be a candidate to replace him. [Portfolio]

-Pepsi has dropped its ad agency of the last 48 years, BBDO Worldwide, and shifted its business to the hipper TBWA/Chiat/Day. The money will still end up in the same place, though: Both agenices are owned by Omnicom. [NYT]

Agencies and Marketing Execs:

Japanese ad agency Dentsu purchased McGarryBowen, a six-year-old independent firm on Madison Avenue.
Droga5 won Puma's $100 million global marketing account, which...

In a move the company calls a strategic transaction, the Nielsen Company Tuesday traded media rates and data provider SRDS to U.K.-based ad agency the WPP Group in exchange for the remaining 50 percent stake in AGBNielsen Media Research, making Nielsen the group’s sole owner.
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SpotRunner, the heavily backed online and TV ad agency based in Los Angeles, is laying off about 115 people from its company, which is 30 percent of staff, we have learned and confirmed by the company. Rumors to this effect started circulating last week, but no decision was made until the internal announcement today. The company CEO Nick Grouf told me that the company is still in a strong financial position, with significant cash in the bank.

These are tougher times for car companies, but Honda feels it's only more necessary to ramp up its digital advertising. The company hopes that a big, splashy campaign across all online and mobile ad space held by Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures Television will do the trick of at least getting consumers' attention.

-As the credit crisis peaked Monday, Fox Business finally passed the viewership threshold where its audience became measurable to Nielsen. It averaged about 81,000 viewers that day, versus 900,000 for CNBC. Come Tuesday, Fox Business was back in the unmeasured zone. [NYT]

As behavioral targeting has moved in the past few years from novelty toward necessity, many marketers have come to realize that behavioral technologies, like consumers, are unique, and that one size does not fit all. As Web developers, optimizers and advertisers attempt to apply an ever wider array of behavioral approaches, Elizabeth Apelles, CEO of Greater Than One, an ad agency widely deploying behavioral solutions, explains, the task of understanding the multi-dimensional impacts of behaviors on results, becomes more and more central.

The more I see of Microsoft's new ad campaign starring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, the more I wonder: What were they thinking?