News Briefs

NESTLÉ:

may sell some unspecified brands and a factory in Brazil in an effort to keep local chocolate company Garoto amid anti-trust concerns. Nestlé bought Garoto two years ago for $230 million.

DELTA: has partnered with the German-based Sixt Rent a Car, a rental-leasing and limousine service. The agreement allows members of Delta's SkyMiles program to earn 500 miles for each vehicle rental booked with Sixt Rent a Car and Limousine services worldwide. To celebrate the launch of the partnership, Sixt will offer SkyMiles members triple miles or 1,500 miles per rental at any worldwide location from now until May 31.

TNT: has partnered with Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox for the 2004 NBA Playoffs. Universal is collaborating with TNT to promote the May 7 premier of Van Helsing and 20 Century Fox is partnering with TNT for the May 28 release of The Day After Tomorrow. The marketing partnerships will include on-air billboards, promotional tune-in spots, on-air advertising, customized vignettes and online integration.

UNITED AND SONY CONNECT: will feature singer and songwriter Sheryl Crow live onboard a United Airlines flight next month from Chicago to Los Angeles to celebrate the partnership between the airline and the new music service Sony Connect. Passengers on the May 4 flight will be invited guests by the host companies. The program enables United Mileage Plus members to earn and redeem Mileage Plus miles for music at www.connect.com. Sony Connect features more than 500,000 tracks available online for 99 cents.

LATINA MAGAZINE: joins with retailer Hudson News for a May promotion that puts 6,000 covers of Latina's May and June issues in the windows of 430 Hudson News stores in airports and commuter locales nationally. Latina Media Ventures, New York City, publishes 350,000-circulation Latina.

LOKERA MAGAZINE: begins publishing in south Florida in May, covering the urban Latin music culture. Published by On 5 Media Group, Miami, the English-language magazine targets Latinos 16 to 35. First run of 30,000 copies extend On 5 Media's 19-month-old Web site Lokera.com. "Lokera" is Latino slang for "craziness."

CLAIRA CORP.: Redwood City, CA, hired D. Reed Freeman as chief privacy officer and VP-regulatory and legislative affairs for the online marketing firm. Freeman had been a partner with Washington, DC law firm Collier Shannon Scott and previously was a staff attorney at the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection.

FIRSTWAVE TECHNOLGY: will provide database integration and fan analysis to the Arena Football League through its Firstwave Sports CRM service. The AFL will obtain a single view of all data pertaining to an individual fan, including demographics, purchasing history and preferences. In result, the AFL intends to use this to deliver more value to its fans.

MYNAMICS, INC.: and sister portfolio companies Txt Talk and Knowledge Point Solutions have combined to form Mobilopia, a mobile-phone marketing services company. The new entity will be headed by Jim Hood and Wes Bray, both former executives of Mynamics.