The New York Times reported today that Pepsi-Cola North America is unveiling a new calorie-free, carbonated beverage called Tava with its own Web site (www.tava.com), banner ads, promotions and sampling events. (Tava will also be sent gratis to tech-happy employees of Google, Apple and MTV).

One of the reasons Pepsi’s approach is so revolutionary: Tava is not supposed to be the new hotness for Paris Hilton compatriots. The caffeine-free, fruit-flavored drink is being aimed squarely at the minivan brigade — the 35 to 49 demographic, The Times reports.

“There used to be an assumption this target was not online,” Frank Cooper, vice president for flavored carbonated soft drinks at Pepsi told The Times. “But there’s a group in that category that’s ‘reborn digital.’ They’ve lived through the change and learned to adapt to it. This consumer spends significant time online, although what they do may differ from the younger consumer. They’re not I.M.-ing their friends; they’re looking at e-mail or looking up information about travel, music, food.”

Tribal DDB Worldwide, the digital arm of DDB Worldwide, is handling the campaign. Banner ads will reportedly appear on AOL, chow.com, CitySearch, oprah.com, People and weather.com, among other sites.

The meeting was the first since Microsoft’s January 31 offer and Yahoo’s February 11 rejection of the offer, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Yahoo has held possible merger talks with AOL and News Corp., but the discussions never went further than initial chats. Last week, Yahoo extended the deadline for the election of directors to its board – a move that bought the company time and (temporarily) prevented Microsoft from launching a hostile takeover.

Sources “close to the matter” told The Journal that the talks between the two companies were not fruitful and that no further meetings have been scheduled.

Joanne Bradford will spearhead Spot Runner’s new division – national marketing services, the unit focuses on national advertisers that aren’t being “served by the traditional agency community,” a release stated.

Bradford leaves MSN on the heels of a management shake-up in the software titan’s online advertising business – and Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo Inc. Many industry vets see the takeover attempt as an admission of the company’s failure to compete with Google Inc.’s online advertising and search capabilities.

“Hiring Joanne is a huge win for Spot Runner and we are tremendously excited about the contributions she can make across our entire organization as a key member of the executive team. Her background in both online and offline media is a perfect fit for us,” said Nick Grouf, chairman and CEO of Spot Runner. “Early on, advertisers that were not served by the traditional agency community identified Spot Runner as an effective and affordable solution to market their business on a national and local level. As we’ve continued to make traction in this area, we saw the opportunity to bring on a seasoned senior executive to lead and accelerate our business with national advertisers.”

Spot Runner has recently gained steam as an advertising shop for smaller businesses. At MSN Bradford will reportedly be replaced by Greg Nelson until a permanent replacement can be found.

A brief recap of recent activity: following the AOL-Time Warner merger in 2001, seven people have helmed the post as head of advertising sales. The latest victim, er president, of ad network group Platform-A, is the highly respected Lynda Clarizio, who replaces Curt Viebranz. He last five months.

Clarizio has the experience and the chops to do the job (most recently, she was in charge of AOL’s high-flying Advertising.com). According to The Silicon Alley Insider, she will be in charge of integrating recent ad acquisitions into Advertising.com – which was a stand-alone company under Platform-A with its own sales force.

But will she succeed? And how much blood will be let? Rumors and quasi-denials abound!

The integration will likely create redundancies and a tipster told the Insider that half of the AOL sales force will be cut. Clarizio responded to the post and the Insider included it in an update.

It reads (in part) thusly:

“I’ve been in the job less than three days. I held a conference call with all Platform-A employees yesterday morning and laid out for them the opportunity I see in consolidating and integrating this amazing collection of assets. While I haven’t finalized all of my plans about the management team or the go-forward structure of Platform-A just yet, I do believe that it’s critical that we move to one sales force. This is what agencies and advertisers have told us they want. You can be sure that moving quickly is my top priority and I’ve committed to the team that I will have answers for them as soon as next week.”

Stay tuned!

(If you have any tips or updates for us, send them to: editor@adotas.com).

China has officially surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest Internet market, Reuters reports today.

The estimate is based on data from China’s Internet Network Information Center. The word is, 210 million users were pointing and clicking by the end of 2007. Nielsen/NetRatings reported that the United States’ online population weighed in at 216 million.

“Based on these sources and the assumption that these markets have continued to grow in 2008 to date at the same rates that they grew in 2007, we can conclude that China has by now comfortably surpassed the United States as the world’s largest Internet population,” analyst Bin Liu said in a statement.

The company has put all of its eggs in its advertising basket, spending more than $1 billion on acquisitions and playing a game of musical chairs with its ad chiefs. (Lynda Clarizio is the latest one in the hot seat; she was named president of ad division Platform-A this week, replacing Curtis Viebranz, who spent about five months in the post).

But has the bet paid off?

In August of last year, AOL pledged to expand its ad network by combining all of its acquired ad units and putting them under the Platform-A umbrella. This of course, caused mucho drama and infighting.

“We were ahead of the curve in the creation of Platform A and remain in a great position to compete in this intensely competitive marketplace,” Randy Falco, the chief executive of AOL, told The New York Times. “[T]he trick was to get them working together and integrated in a very meaningful way.”

Yesterday, Bewkes, while speaking at a conference in Palm Beach, Fla., said that AOL shared the non-news that AOL will no longer focus on its dial-up subscription services, the Times reports.

Bewkes tried to merge AOL with Microsoft Corp.’s online business and is now in talks with Yahoo Inc. AOL’s ad revenue was still going strong last year, bringing in $2.2 billion in 2007, up 18% over the previous year. This year may not be so rosy, and AOL may fall short of its goals for the year, executives told the Times.

Daly will report to Riccardo Zane, president of Agency.com. Most recently, Daly was a partner and marketing director at Ogilvy New York – where he pumped up office revenues and led an award-winning interactive team.

“Jeremy has an incredible ability to filter consumer information, distil it to its core insights, and drive clear, synthesized business strategy for brands,” said Riccardo Zane, president of Agency.com New York. “I look forward to partnering with him to drive innovative strategies that charge our clients’ business growth.”

Agency.com’s clients include British Airways, T-Mobile and LG Electronics.

The regulators said Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and AOL present strong and “credible” competition, even in the face of a Google-DoubleClick merger. Microsoft and Yahoo opposed the merger, but the regulators pushed aside their objections.

The Federal Trade Commission approved the $3.1 billion deal in December.

UPDATE: The companies completed the merger immediately after being given the green light.

MyVox users will be able to add audio to an abundance of online applications, including: adding voice notes Google maps, recording voiceovers for online slideshows, turning iPhones into recorders and creating customized widgets that allow friends to leave audio messages on their blogs and social network pages.

“Voice represents a new frontier in the Web experience,” said J. Scott Hamilton, president and CEO of VoodooVox. “The MyVox API handles the complexities of the telephony component by capturing the voice of the caller, empowering developers to easily create the next generation of voice-enhanced applications and services. We fully expect MyVox to lead to a proliferation of voice mashup innovation.”

MyVox also gives mobile developers a new revenue stream. All MyVox call volume passes through the VoodooVox In-Call Network Exchange, an audio ad network comprised of over 500 call publishers. The VoodooVox ICNx inserts targeted ad-supported media directly into the call stream, sharing revenue with its call publishers.

VoodooVox’s In-Call Media process involves the targeting insertion of ad-supported audio content directly into the call stream of any type of phone traffic.

As the country waits for Governor “Mr. Clean” Eliot Spitzer to resign over his connection to a pricey prostitution ring, it turns out that one of the women running the operation also helped operate an online advertising and marketing company called the QAT Consulting Group.

The company was essentially a front for the ring: clients would wire their payments to the QAT Consulting Group or QAT International and Protech Consulting, making it look like their sessions with call girls were actually legitimate business expenses.

Spitzer, or “Client 9,” as he’s known in a 47-page affidavit filed in federal court, allegedly had several conversation with Temeka Rachelle Lewis, 32 — a booking agent for QAT and one of four people charged by federal prosecutors in Manhattan with operating a prostitution ring – in the day leading up to his meeting with a call girl at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The QAT Consulting Group’s Web site claims (among other things) that:

“From financial poiint [sic] view we specialize in all legal ways in arranging suitable and lawful USA offshore structuring both for your business and your private affairs. As our client, you will be protected with ‘attorney- client privilege of information’, as defined and secured by the Law of the United States—your privacy is strictly yours and your business/tax affairs will always remain yours [sic] private matters.

From marketing and promotional point of view we will provide right business connections, assist in promoting your business, and consult you on marketing your products and services.

From design point of view we will assist you in designing your office, website and etc., applying feng shui  principles that should enhace [sic] your profit capability.

Our services are comprehensive and hands on. [Ed. note: gee, they sure are!] We combine our business management and financial expertise with the expertise of our highly qualified associates- investment consultants, lawyers, bankers, independent trustees, marketing and promotion specialists, artists and feng shui masters.”

Who did they think they were kidding?