Execs & Accounts for March 26, 2007

Branded blog ad network Federated Media Publishing has hired Neil Chase away from the New York Times to run its author services group. Chase is the editor of continuous news at the Times, prior to which he was deputy editor of NYT Digital. He’ll start at FM next month.

Crispin Porter + Bogusky has broken things off with Miller Lite and Miller High Life brands, for whom it produced the unpopular Man Laws effort and accompanying digital work. CP+B has been agency of record for Miller Lite for just over a year and won the High Life account more recently. The companies will continue working together for three months to smooth the transition to a new agency.

“We just have fundamental differences over creative and strategy,” said Alex Bogusky, chief creative officer of CP+B, in a statement. “And although we made every attempt to find common ground, the process of multi-layered approvals of creative and strategy has made doing work we can be proud of increasingly difficult.”

Behavior Design hired four in visual design and software development positions. They include Lacy Gene Garrison, Matthew Armendariz, Alison Zack and Nick Keppol.

New in-game advertising company JOGO Media Inc. and independent computer games developer 10tacle Studios tapped in-game ad company Jogo Media to represent ad inventory in upcoming releases. 10tacle’s titles include “GT Legends.”

Ad Infuse appointed Brian Cowley as president and chief executive officer. The personalized mobile advertising solutions provider hired Cowley away from Infospace where he was vice president of mobile advertising. Cowley will replace founder Ian Johnson, who will now serve as executive vice president, business development.