ST. LOUIS – GMS Local, a service of GroupM and provider of local online services for national brands, announced research revealing a gap in the perceived local digital media activity expressed by national brands with brick and mortar locations versus what is actually being implemented. While 69 percent of marketers surveyed indicate they spend greater than the national average of 25 percent of budgets allocated to local marketing, 33 percent have yet to implement basic local digital efforts that positively impact business performance, such as online business directory listings. An exploration of the research is detailed in the white paper “Perception vs. Execution: Examination of Brands’ Local Business Strategies Reveals Gaps to Act On.”

As the Internet speeds to the forefront of local advertising, marketers are bullish about their current and future investments in local advertising – particularly in local digital media, the research revealed. Eighty-three percent of marketers surveyed expect their local online spending to increase at a greater rate than the projected national growth (25 percent) over the next three years. Such growth supports the expansive consumer activity happening in the local digital marketplace, where up to 20 percent of searches conducted have local intent (jumping to 40 percent on mobile devices), and the adoption of location-based check-in services is happening in the masses, with companies such as Foursquare topping 1 billion check-ins. According to Borrell Associates, local digital advertising is expected to grow 18 percent in 2012, with local online spend projected to surpass all other channels by 2015. This growth, compared to the gap in what marketing executives perceive their brands are doing at the local level and the reality of their execution over the past 12 months – and into 2012 – shows national advertisers are missing the opportunity for sizeable gains.

“Every single data point we see shows consumers becoming more mobile and reliant on digital for their local information. This rapid consumer shift has created challenges for brands as they attempt to keep up, and we are seeing a willingness to invest, as validated in this research,” said Chris Copeland, CEO, GroupM Search. “The research also shows a clear disconnect between what brands believe they are doing with those investments and what is actually being done. We speak to advertisers daily that have enormous blind spots in local digital coverage, and who welcome the education and strategy needed to resolve their willingness to spend and target which is hindered by the inability to determine what to do first and next.”

Additional insights from the research include:

- One of three national brands has yet to invest in the basic local digital effort of online business directory listings.

- Only 55 percent of national brands surveyed have initiated geo-modified paid search campaigns.

- While half of all consumers are making business selections off consumer ratings and reviews, less than 50 percent of national advertisers invest in local online review sites.

- Thirty-two percent of marketers attribute their insufficient engagement to a lack of awareness, with respondents specifically stating they are unaware of offerings, don’t understand them or believe them to be unnecessary.

- Fifty-eight percent indicate that funding prevents them from engaging more in the local digital space.

Brands will continue placing big bets on the online local space given the consumer shift to this space for their discovery efforts, with 70 percent of marketing executives for national brands reporting their local online investments as a percent of total local advertising outpace current national averages. As detailed in the whitepaper, national advertisers can overcome these challenges with deeper education around opportunity in the local digital space and self-assessment of the reality of their allocation and programs.

Additionally, following a three-step action plan will help advertisers reach optimal performance and local digital success:

- Conduct an online local listing business audit

- Diagnose the ‘local storefront’ for your brand by applying social media tools that listen to consumer sentiment at the local store level

- Practice education, innovation and experimentation

“Technology and mobility have opened the gateway for national brands to be able to create personalized experiences with consumers at the local level,” said Steve Scherfy, Local and Mobile Manager for GMS Local. “From business location listings to local social intelligence, managing the entire digital storefront is key.”

For the study, marketing executives and managers of national brands with a minimum of 500 physical locations were surveyed. The comparative study, conducted between September and November 2011, set forth to investigate the challenges that brands within the digital marketplace face, including the ability to understand emerging technology, analyze what is relevant and act on these tools based on their business needs. It also explored how engaged each national brand is with local marketing. Survey questions with local digital marketing averages and best practices from national data were utilized to gain reaction and comparative “self-assessments” against those averages by participating respondents and brands.

About GMS Local

GMS Local is a service of GroupM, and comprehensive digital solution focused on creating meaningful connections between brands and consumers at the local level. Using paid, earned and owned media solutions, GMS Local maximizes local consumer engagement opportunities for national advertisers with an extensive local footprint. Local digital marketing perspective can be found at www.gmslocal.com, or on the GMS Local blog.

New York, NY – When guests attend fashion shows or presentations at MADE Fashion Week with the MADE app on their mobile device, they will instantly receive images of looks as the models walk the runway. Further, users can make notes, tweet images and curate a custom look-book that can be e-mailed in real-time, enabling designers to instantly extend the reach of their designs beyond the runway. This app enables designers’ looks to stand the test of time and fosters commerce into buying season – and beyond.

Viewers watching MADE shows over Livestream on MilkMade.com can also enjoy the same benefits and features, since Sonic Notifyʼs technology, which is triggered by soundless audio signals, will also send content of the app through the userʼs home computer.

The MADE app will also include a show schedule, bios, contact and sales information for each MADE Designer. The app will be available for download on MilkMade.com, the Apple store and the Android Market Site on February 6th 2012.

About MADE
MADE was born from the successful Fashion Week collaboration that started in 2009. Now in its sixth season, MADE FASHION WEEK continues to showcase outstanding design talent and harness the energy of New York’s creative communities. The compelling program of events – over 50 fashion shows and presentations, parties, concerts, panel discussions and an unrivaled online presence (MILKMADE.COM) – has translated to success at a retail level and in the press, as well as in the highly coveted digital arena. MADE is a year-round, dynamic platform for connecting ascending talent in fashion, music, art and popculture with visionary brands to create new cultural platforms and communities.

Its vibrant atmosphere encourages creativity, fosters growth and challenges convention and MADE’s innovators are a powerful voice in the international dialogue who have initiated shifts in their collective industries.

About Sonic Notify
Sonic Notify enables consumer brands, event venues and broadcasters to reach individuals in real-time with highly-targeted content based on a user’s location and interests. Sonic Notify’s first-of-its-kind technology is integrated into a company’s existing mobile app, allowing the brand send multimedia content, like a song, coupon or advertisement, to any mobile device, or likewise, trigger an action on any mobile device. Launched in 2011, Sonic Notify’s technology uses advanced decoding algorithms and readily available, low-cost hardware to transmit imperceptible audio signals, opening up an array of new possibilities for brands, retailers, artists, broadcasters and large-scale event organizers to connect with their target audience using presence-based content. Sonic Notify is based in New York City, NY and was borne from the successful technology development firm Densebrain, as a collaboration between engineer Alex Morgan Bell and Densebrain founder Jonathan Glanz. For more information, visit www.sonicnotify.com.

NEW YORK — Mojiva (www.mojiva.com), the mobile ad network that specializes in making “big idea,” cross-platform mobile strategies come to life at scale, today announced a multi-execution ad campaign with American Family Insurance (www.amfam.com) that emphasizes engagement and awareness with mobile audiences. The leading insurance provider offers auto, homeowners, life, health, business and farm/ranch insurance in 19 states. The campaign, which will run through February and is facilitated by Mindshare, includes mobile web and app buys on the Mojiva network and is highlighted by a sponsorship with a leading social gaming application.

The innovative American Family Insurance mobile campaign has three key executions for targeting all consumers 21+ who are on-the-go and looking for insurance:

· In-App Sponsorship – Through the highly integrated in-app sponsorship between AmericanFamily Insurance and a major social gaming application, players are alerted to a “word of the day” through Facebook and twitter profiles along with text and interstitial advertising in-app. Once the word is played, they are awarded with tips and tricks to help raise their scores when playing the game. American Family Insurance selected relevant words to elevate brand awareness while encouraging interaction.

· Request a Quote – With consumer convenience in mind, American Family Insurance provided consumers with the ability create a calendar reminder to contact agents to request a quote at a later date. This execution encapsulates the focus on making insurance easy and accessible while also leveraging the multi-function capabilities of mobile.

· Survival Guide – With recent extreme weather events, the survival guide execution provides consumers with tips on what to do during a natural disaster, which can be captured by using the phone’s screen shot functionalities, to save for later. The ad unit gives consumers the ability to contact an agent for additional assistance. The intent of this rich media piece was to add value to the user experience and make it easy for them to take the next step in buying insurance.

“With this campaign, we worked with American Family Insurance to identify mobile as a key medium for engaging in-market consumers, because thinking about insurance and actively pursuing a quote can happen almost anywhere,” said Christophe Dilworth of Mindshare.

“Mobile expands our campaign’s reach and influence, while offering an effective way to target appropriate audiences,” said Stephanie Oslie of American Family Insurance. “Because of mobile marketing’s strong demographic and geographic targeting capabilities, we can identify consumers in need of insurance products and services with ease.”

“We are seeing more and more companies from vertical markets such as insurance allocating a higher percentage of their media mix towards mobile as they begin to understand the potential reach, value and brand benefits of influencing target audiences on mobile devices,” said Tony Nethercutt, General Manager of North America for Mojiva. “American Family Insurance and Mindshare are making mobile an important component of their campaign and being extraordinarily creative in both executions and strategy.”

Crisp Media and Theorem Creations, who are members of the Mojiva Mobile Creative Alliance (mojivamca.com), were selected to develop the three different rich media creative executions.

About Mojiva
Mojiva (www.mojiva.com) is a mobile ad network, which reaches more than one billion devices globally and represents 8,000 mobile publishers and apps. Through deep and open integration with all major rich media providers and ad servers, Mojiva provides ad agencies with every imaginable mobile media execution across mobile web sites, apps and devices. Founded in May 2008 and based in New York City, Mojiva is led by ateam of advertising and media veterans from Google, Doubleclick, Yahoo!, Microsoft, AOL and AdMob, with more than 100 years of collective experience in mobile marketing and technology.Mojiva is an independent mobile ad network operating under parent company Mojiva Inc., which has a total of $35 million venture funding from Pelion Venture Partners, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Shamrock Capital.

Website Features that Attract Visitors Include Compelling Brand Value Messages Updated on a Frequent Basis Along with Content that Engages Visitors

RESTON, VA – A groundbreaking study from Accenture (NYSE: ACN), comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), and dunnhumbyUSA aimed at helping consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers better understand the link between consumers’ usage of brand websites and their in-store brand buying behavior found that visitors to CPG brand websites buy 37% more in retail stores than non-visitors to the brand site. The study, Are Your CPG Brands Maximizing the Return on Your Digital Investment?, also concluded, that to maximize impact, website content needs to be updated regularly and contain brand value messaging that both engages visitors while also providing compelling reasons for them to purchase the brand at retail.

“CPG marketers currently invest millions of dollars in their brand websites, and the results of this study confirm the importance of this investment. Brand websites can attract and influence the behavior of the most valuable segments of any brand’s franchise,” said comScore vice president Mike Zeman. “But it’s clear that the content and utilities on these sites need to be highly engaging if they are to attract a meaningful numbers of visitors. Marketers who do this successfully stand to gain an attractive return by growing their brands’ sales in retail stores.”

Brand Website Visitors are Heavier Buyers of the Brand and Category at Retail

The study found that visitors to CPG brand websites are valuable and frequent buyers of the brand in retail stores, completing 41 percent more transactions than non-visitors. As a result, brand websites are able to attract heavier-than-average brand buyers, who spend 37 percent more on the brand in retail stores than non-visitors. Website visitors also are also heavier buyers within a brand’s product category, spending 53 percent more category dollars than non-visitors.

John LaRocca, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships at dunnhumbyUSA, noted: “The Accenture / comScore / dunnhumbyUSA research highlights the significant yet underutilized potential of brand websites and digital communications as key drivers for building customer loyalty and preference for CPG brands. Since website visitors have higher affinity to the brand and the overall product category, there is an opportunity for brand marketers to drive loyalty through personalizing the website experience, catering to the preferences of their best customers.”

Compelling Features of Successful Brand Websites

The length of time that visitors spend on a brand’s website was found to be a key determinant of their likelihood to buy the brand in retail stores. The study identified three important characteristics of brand websites that are associated with a higher likelihood that visitors will buy the brand in retail stores:

1. Brand value messaging that provides a persuasive reason for a website visitor to buy the brand

2. Fresh content updated on at least a weekly basis, such as “pulse surveys”, user generated reviews, status on weight loss plans, etc.

3. Content that engages visitors. This can include promotions, philanthropic appeals, demonstrations, live chat, apps and games.

Jerry Lohse, senior director, Accenture Interactive said, “Marketers who create compelling CPG brand website experiences for consumers are extremely effective in driving incremental and profitable in-store sales.” To illustrate his point, Lohse said, “Analysis shows that consumers visiting the best of the ten CPG brand websites evaluated in the research study, spent over 200 percent more on the brand than non-visitors. Moreover, the research shows that the price paid per unit of the brand at the best of the ten CPG brand websites in the study was two percent more than for non-visitors in brand.”

Research Study Design

The study was based on an integrated panel of one million U.S. Internet users who have given comScore explicit permission to have their online activities continuously measured and matched to their in-store brand buying behavior provided by dunnhumbyUSA. This integrated panel provided a single-source, privacy-protected data mart containing each panelist’s online activities and their in-store buying behavior. Using the comScore-dunnhumbyUSA database, the study examined ten individual food and household product brands with annual sales between $40 million and $3 billion. These brands had at least 100,000 unique visitors to their websites and as many as 2.3 million per month. The study covered the time period from September 2010 through February 2011. Leveraging comScore’s knowledge of the digital user, dunnhumby’s shopper understanding, and Accenture’s experience in operating and maintaining consumer packaged goods websites, the study quantified the linkage between CPG brand buying at retail and digital behavior by comparing the in-store purchase behavior of website visitors and non-visitors and identifying the common components of successful CPG brand websites. For website performance scoring criteria, the Accenture Web Evaluator was used for this survey. The Accenture Web Evaluator provides a comprehensive assessment of how well companies use their websites to attract and retain customers, support and reinforce their brand, deliver services and generate sales.

The research was conducted with the endorsement of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI), and the results were presented January 29th at their joint board meeting in Orlando. “Creating a better understanding of the relationship between a brand’s online presence and real-world shopping is important, relevant and timely to our membership and their future growth potential,” noted Denny Belcastro, Executive Vice President, Industry Affairs and Collaboration, GMA. Patrick Walsh, Senior Vice President, Industry Relations, Education and Research, FMI, added, “Finally some tangible observations pointing to a return on our members’ brand digital spend… looking forward to the next phase that adds social media as well.”

Additional Information

To obtain a copy of the study report, Are Your CPG Brands Maximizing the Return on Your Digital Investment? please visit any of the following links:

- www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-cpg-brands-maximizing-return-digital-investment.aspx

- www.comscore.com/cpg_brands_maximizing_return_digital_investment

- www.dunnhumby.com/us/cpg-brands-maximizing-return-digital-investment

A follow up study is planned for 2012 to help CPG brand marketers better understand the difference between brand websites, social networks and other digital marketing channels, including display advertising, in their ability to reach specific types of in-store brand buyers. CPG brand marketers interested in participating in this research study should contact the following:

- Mike Gorshe, Senior Director, Accenture Consumer Goods & Services at michael.a.gorshe@accenture.com or (312) 693-5818

- Mike Zeman, Vice President, comScore CPG Marketing Solutions at mzeman@comscore.com or (312) 775-6630

- John LaRocca, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, dunnhumbyUSA, at john.larocca@us.dunnhumby.com or (513)-632-0613.

Deadline to participate is March 31, 2012.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 244,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. comScore provides syndicated and custom solutions in online audience measurement, e-commerce, advertising, search, video and mobile and offers dedicated analysts with digital marketing and vertical-specific industry expertise. Advertising agencies, publishers, marketers and financial analysts turn to comScore for the industry-leading solutions needed to craft successful digital, marketing, sales, product development and trading strategies. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

About dunnhumbyUSA
dunnhumby is the leader in personalizing the world’s experience of retailers and brands. Analyzing data from over 350 million people in 28 countries, we help companies put customers at the center of every decision. We use our insight to improve customers’ experience of stores and communications to earn their lifetime loyalty. Our work with some of the world’s biggest retailers and brands has demonstrated that companies which deliver value to customers through personalization become and stay their customers’ first choice. This strategic approach to putting the customer first in business improves our clients’ like-for-like sales and profit margins – or, put simply, their brand value. dunnhumbyUSA is a joint venture of The Kroger Company and London-based dunnhumby. Employing more than 1,900 people in 30 offices in Europe, Asia and the Americas, dunnhumby serves a prestigious list of companies including The Kroger Co., Tesco, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kimberly-Clark, Macy’s, Panera Bread Company, PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble. dunnhumby also includes the word of mouth marketing experts BzzAgent and price optimization company KSS Retail. For more information, visit www.dunnhumby.com.

- Mobile Advertising & Marketing was Fastest Growing Sector in 2011, Expanding 53.7%, Led by Advertising Segment’s 60.9% Growth

- Online Social Media Was Smallest Industry Sector at $2.83 billion, with Social Networks the Largest and Fastest Growing Segment

STAMFORD, Conn. – Total U.S. mobile & social media revenue – including consumer and business access, content, advertising and marketing – increased 30.2% to $45.38 billion in 2011, according to new data released by PQ Media (www.pqmedia.com), the leading provider of media econometrics. Mobile & social media revenue rose at a compound annual growth rate of 28.7% from 2006-2011, and is expected to grow at an accelerating 30.8% annual rate in 2012, according to the PQ Media U.S. Mobile & Social Media Forecast 2012-16.

PQ Media released the new U.S. Mobile & Social Media Forecast 2012-16 last week at MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit in Key Largo, FL, where CEO Patrick Quinn provided attendees with an exclusive State of the Industry presentation. A free executive summary and table of contents, as well as the full report for purchase, are available here. PQ Media’s new Forecast goes well beyond other mobile & social media research reports, most of which track only advertising spending. PQ Media for the first time collected, analyzed, defined, segmented and forecast the entire mobile & social media landscape, providing the most comprehensive and detailed perspective on the fastest-growing communications industry segment.

PQ Media identified 3 broad sectors of mobile & social media – mobile advertising & marketing, mobile content & access, and online social media. Within the three sectors, there are seven segments – mobile advertising, mobile marketing, consumer mobile content & access, business mobile content & access, social networks, blogs, and podcasts. Further, PQ Media identified 44 distinct revenue streams, such as mobile search advertising, mobile coupon marketing, paid mobile video downloads, business data access fees, social network advertising, blog marketing, and podcast business content, among many others.

Mobile content & access was by far the largest industry sector in 2011 with revenue of $39.17 billion, up 27.8%, as the business segment accounted for 58% of the total and the consumer segment, 42%. Mobile advertising & marketing was fastest growing sector in 2011, expanding 53.7% to $3.39 billion, as the advertising segment soared 60.9% and marketing surged 46.2%. Among the fastest growing mobile ad revenue streams were in-game, search and video. The marketing segment will grow faster than advertising from 2012-16, fueled by the location-based, coupons and marketing apps revenue streams, according to the PQ Media U.S. Mobile & Social Media Forecast 2012-16.

“The mobile media sector alone reached the $1 billion revenue mark faster than any communications industry in history in 2008, taking only five years compared with 16 for the internet,” said PQ Media’s Quinn. “Mobile will also reach the $100 billion mark in 2015 faster than any other communications industry, driven by several key growth drivers, including strong growth in overall mobile device penetration, the transition to smartphones and tablets, the torrent of new mobile content launches and the continued growth of consumer and business time spent with mobile media.”

Meanwhile, online social media was the smallest sector of mobile & social media in 2011, with $2.83 billion in revenues, but grew at a very strong 42.1%. Social networks was the largest and fastest growing segment by far, increasing 45.9% to $2.28 billion in 2011, according to PQ Media.

Together, mobile & social media accounted for 4.1% of overall communications industry revenue in 2011, up from only 1.3% in 2006. Eleven of the 44 mobile & social media revenue streams exceeded $1 billion in 2011, and 23 will do so by the end of 2016, according to the PQ Media U.S. Mobile & Social Media Forecast 2012-16.

About PQ Media

PQ Media (www.pqmedia.com) is the leading provider of global media econometrics and pioneer of emerging media research. PQ Media’s proprietary econometric research methodology and custom consulting services deliver actionable strategic intelligence to help its clients grow their media, entertainment and communications businesses. PQ Media partners with private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson on the VSS Communications Industry Forecast, the U.S. industry’s benchmark for spending, consumption and growth data for 25 years. For more information, contact Gabriella Kallay at gkallay@pqmedia.com, Tabor Ames at tames@pqmedia.com, or call 921-0368.

While 30% of users between ages 18 and 24 like Timeline, only 10% of those over 65 were happy with the new design. When broken down by gender, men and women had exactly the same opinion – 77% dislike Timeline, while 23% like it.

Full poll results can be seen at: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/public-opinion-rejects-facebook-timeline-infographic/question-2429779/

About SodaHead
SodaHead (www.SodaHead.com) is the premier opinion-based discussion community where visitors discover, debate, and discuss today’s hottest issues.  Millions of SodaHeads share their unique views on hot topics, breaking news, and controversial issues and a diverse panel of staff writers provide original and exclusive content daily.  Users create personal profiles and engage with fellow members around shared interests.  Our site offers a wide variety of interactive features including slide shows, profile creation, groups, message boards, and original content.  SodaHead is also the best in class poll widget provider powering the polls for ABC News, Good Morning America, Shepard Smith at Fox News and many others. For more information on SodaHead, visit http://www.SodaHead.com

RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released the report Next-Generation Strategies for Advertising to Millennials, highlighting the results from a recent comScore study that identifies the unique characteristics of the Millennial generation, commonly defined as persons born between 1981 and 2000. The study examined Millennials’ responses to different types of advertising, including TV and digital, compared to older generations, and how marketers can most effectively target this large and important segment. To download a complimentary copy of the report, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/Millennials.

“The 79 million Millennials in the U.S. have an estimated purchasing power of $170 billion dollars per year, making them a highly attractive segment for brands to target” said comScore vice president Bert Miklosi. “Their comfort-level with the Internet and technology in general makes the digital medium an ideal platform for reaching these individuals. But as is typical with younger people when compared their older counterparts, Millennials are generally more difficult to persuade via advertising, amplifying the importance of creative and messaging optimization in driving worthwhile returns from an investment in advertising to this segment. ”

Key findings highlighted in the report include:

- The defining characteristics of Millennials include their comfort-level with new technologies and cultural diversity, as well as being accustomed to on-demand access to entertainment, continual stimulation and extreme multitasking.

- Ad breakthrough via television advertising for Millennials was substantially lower than for older generations. However, Millennials demonstrated a higher propensity than other generations to retain a lasting impression of a television advertisement.

- Millennials tend to be less interested and more difficult to connect with, capture attention, impress, convince and entertain. Millennials also appear to be more price-sensitive, perhaps due to lower disposable incomes.

- Digital advertising performs better in relative terms among Millennials than does television advertising.

- Across generations including Millennials, the presence of key creative elements in advertising, coined by comScore as the Validated Drivers, were shown to relate strongly to successful advertising.

- Millennials are highly engaged with the content that they choose to view, within both television and digital environments. Engagement has been shown to amplify the effectiveness of advertising, so when targeting Millennials, it is important to utilize engaging content to help boost returns from investments in advertising.

To download a complimentary copy of the full report, Next-Generation Strategies for Advertising to Millennials, please visit: http://www.comscore.com/Millennials.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

“Earned media” is inconsistent and famously difficult to value. Jun Group (www.jungroup.com), the premier social video platform, has recently announced a study that provides simple metrics for valuing earned media – and clear evidence that social video programs consistently deliver earned media results. We have spoken to Mitchell Reichgut, Founder and CEO of Jun Group, who kindly shared some of his experience and thoughts on earned media measurement.

Otilia Otlacan: Earned media is notoriously difficult to quantify and value, even when digital. Why is that?

Mitchell Reichgut: Earned media is an outgrowth of “viral video,” which has always been a hit-driven phenomenon, not a consistent distribution strategy. Brands would be delighted when their video “went viral,” but little effort went into exploring the reasons why a video took off or the value of the results. Social video picks up where the viral dream left off. Essentially, it’s brand advertising that is targeted and shareable. Social video is paid media that drives consistent and significant earned media activity, all of which is measured and reported in real time.

Otilia Otlacan: Jun Group has recently announced a set of metrics to assist marketers in valuing earned media. Can you share with us what made you look so closely into this topic?

Mitchell Reichgut: As our targeting and sharing technology advanced, the earned media portion of our campaigns rose dramatically. Eventually it go to a level where we were consistently delivering things like recipe and coupon downloads, Facebook visits, clicks to brands’ Web sites, tweets, sharing, etc. We never charge for this activity, but our clients were increasingly asking us about its value. That was the genesis of the study.

Otilia Otlacan: Would you say that video content is more or less likely to generate earned media, by comparison to other content formats? Why?

Mitchell Reichgut: Video is far and away the most effective way to generate earned media – it’s visceral, emotional, and it’s easy to share. The biggest and most popular social advertising programs have all been video-centric.

Otilia Otlacan: In your experience, what makes a piece of video content a likely candidate to go viral?

Mitchell Reichgut: The most important thing to understand about “viral video” is that it is not an organic phenomenon. Videos that reach over 1 million users require a mass media component (i.e., AOL, Boing Boing, MSN, etc.). Even homemade videos that rise to prominence don’t do so on a peer-to-peer basis. They come to the broader public’s attention through a feature on one or more mass media outlets. The brand-sponsored videos that reach millions of people are the products of sophisticated and well-funded online media strategies. They may involve PR companies, media partnerships, or distribution firms like Jun Group. Outstanding creative is a critical component, but 48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds, and being creative is by no means a guarantee of success.

Otilia Otlacan: Is there anything else you would like to share with us?

Mitchell Reichgut: Advertisers covet earned media for good reason – it’s perhaps the most powerful form of marketing available. We have deconstructed the myths around “viral video” and provided advertisers with reliable and consistent tools for driving these results. To us, it’s one of the most promising trends in online media.

About Mitchell Reichgut

Mitchell Reichgut is founder and CEO of Jun Group (www.jungroup.com), the premier social video platform. The company’s distribution technology delivers millions of monthly opt-in video views across social networks, mobile devices, premium content sites and YouTube. Jun Group distributes videos from 15 seconds to 3 minutes-long with exceptionally high completion rates and significant post-view activity, such as web site visits, coupon downloads, and store locator usage. The company’s analytics dashboard, Voyeur, provides real time data about views, shares, likes, tweets, ratings, comments, and geographic dispersal down to the state and town. Founded in 2005, Jun Group’s clients include Fortune 500 brands, major entertainment companies, and media and creative agencies

Prior to founding Jun Group, Mitchell headed up the New York interactive division of Bates Worldwide Advertising. As General Manager/Creative Director, he helped grow Bates Interactive into a 70-person integrated unit, with clients such as Perrier, Moet & Chandon, and Warner-Lambert.

Earlier, as Creative Director of the New York office of Think New Ideas, Mitchell supervised Web development for clients such as Budweiser, Chrysler, Sony, and Continental Airlines.

A graduate of Boston University’s College of Communications, Mitchell began his career as an Art Director at Grey Advertising where he created print and television advertisements for clients such as Procter & Gamble, Parker Brothers, and Stride Rite.

Mitchell wrote and directed The Scene, a 20-episode online drama that was viewed over 8 million times in 90 countries. He has published two national comic book series, and he recently wrote and produced an online drama entitled Stream, starring Whoopi Goldberg.

NEW YORK – Social media has dramatically altered the way that agencies and their clients approach consumer engagement campaigns, and in most cases, changed the way in which businesses connect with their target audiences. WORLDCOM Public Relations Group (Worldcom), the world’s leading partnership of independently owned public relations counseling firms, recently asked its Consumer Practice Group partners to share insights on the evolving role of social media as a consumer engagement tool, as well as trends that will potentially change the way in which social media is incorporated into consumer outreach campaigns in 2012.

“Consumer PR, like all forms of public relations and marketing, is fundamentally changing as a direct result of social media and other disruptive online communications channels,” said Will Ostedt, chair of the Worldcom Consumer Practice Group and vice president at The Pollack PR Marketing Group in Los Angeles. “Consumers are expecting to receive and acknowledge communication that is only relevant to them — anything else is ignored or disregarded. The future of consumer PR is to find ways to make messages relevant to consumers and to reach them using the right channels.”

The discussion revealed five emerging trends partners from the (EMEA) European Middle East Africa, Asian Pacific and America’s regions all agree will dramatically effect their approach to consumer engagement campaigns on behalf of their clients.

Location, Location, Location: Worldcom’s Consumer Practice Group is seeing a shift to more localized social media programs that are better able to target consumers and key into their unique values and cultural circumstances. These programs are not only aimed at engaging consumers and encouraging them to share their “brand love” with others, but also encouraging them to share their dollars with their local retailer.

Filtering the Noise: Consumers are learning how to maximize social media tools to fit their personal needs, first and foremost, by eliminating noise. A fundamental need to filter information combined with emerging filtration systems such as Google+ in which the information one sees is increasingly determined by past behavior and/or personal desire, means organizations will have to continually find new ways to permeate permission-based news streams in order to be seen and heard. More importantly, organizations will need to make themselves and their content relevant to a more defined audience.

Depth Over Breadth: The onset of social media has sent most consumers scrambling to widen their social networks, in an effort to secure the most friends and followers in complete disregard of boundaries, privacy and relevancy to their interests and belief systems. Beginning in 2011, a noticeable shift occurred where the depth of consumer networks became more important than their breadth. As consumers increasingly look to better meet their thirst for information that is relevant to their interests and lifestyle, the Worldcom Consumer Practice Group sees consumers limiting their engagement to the people and brands that best connect with their personal lifestyle in the confines of niche social networks, customized specifically for their interests.

Mobile is the New PC: The dramatic and disruptive rise of smart phones, tablets, eReaders and computerized mobile devices over the past two years has fundamentally changed how consumers interact. The result of this disruption is that the modern consumer is always connected, interacting in real time and vetting the relevance of bite-sized information on an ongoing basis. The Worldcom Consumer Practice Group identifies that due to this dramatically upward trend of mobile computing, brands and products will also need to be connected at all times and deliver real-time response and interaction with their consumers.

Twitter Surge: The launch of Apples’ iOS 5 in 2011 was met with much fanfare as the new operating system’s “bells and whistles” delighted current Apple mobile users and served as the impetus for others to make the switch to devices running iOS 5. But, buried in all of the “Cloud” talk, is the fact that iOS 5 provides consumers with direct Twitter integration. Having the social network woven into the fabric of mobile OS’s should lead to a broadened acceptance of Twitter as a part of everyday functionality, and increase users’ activity on the service.

“As social media continues to evolve in 2012, communication pros have the best opportunity and the most relevant skill set to guide organizations to build meaningful consumer engagement versus being purely content pushers,” added Dawn Doty, co-chair of the Worldcom Consumer Practice Group and vice president/partner of Denver-based Linhart Public Relations. “As the new year begins, we encourage all communication pros to continue to muscle into the discussions that matter within their organizations to maximize the channels that now allow this authentic consumer engagement.”

About the Worldcom Consumer Practice Group

The Worldcom Public Relations Consumer Practice Group is a multi-national partnership of PR firms who cumulatively have the broadest experiences and expertise across the spectrum of consumer products and services. Partner agencies create a powerful professional entity, affording clients a local, national, and international industry perspective, resulting in a competitive advantage for clients.

About Worldcom Public Relations Group

Established in 1988, Worldcom Public Relations Group is the world’s leading partnership of independently owned public relations counseling firms, with 107 partner agencies worldwide, in 91 markets, in 46 countries, across six continents. With more than 2,100 employees, and revenue of more than US $260 million, partners collectively serve national, international and multi-national clients seamlessly, while retaining the flexibility and client-service focus inherent in independent local agencies. Through Worldcom, clients have on-demand access to in-depth communications expertise from professionals who understand the language, culture and customs of the geographic arenas in which they do business.

SAN FRANCISCO  – Bizo, the global leader in business audience marketing, today announced that Frannie Danzinger has joined the company as director of marketplace development.  A well-known creative media strategist with a local and national skill base in media research, strategic planning, media placement, creative idea development and media negotiations, Danzinger brings more than 20 years of experience in the business-to-business and consumer media environments to Bizo.

Prior to joining Bizo, Danzinger spent more than 14 years at gyro (formerly HSR Business to Business and GyroHSR), a leading business-to-business advertising agency. Most recently, she led gyro’s global media strategy practice as the senior vice president of media.  Danzinger was instrumental in gyro’s media business expansion, growing overall media revenue by more than 250 percent and building a global media team of 20.   Key media clients included Lincoln Financial Corporation, Dymo, Pitney Bowes and PNC.  Prior to this role, Danzinger founded ProMedia LLC, where she served as president and media director.  While running ProMedia, Danzinger was instrumental in establishing first-to-market media ideas for clients such as Flight Options, Avantair, Cleveland Grand Prix and Duke Energy, while exceeding expected ROI benchmarks.  Before launching ProMedia, Frannie was associate media director at Wyse Advertising in Cleveland.

Danzinger joins Bizo during a time of explosive growth for the company.  Bizo also announced today that the company ended 2011 with an annual run rate of over $18 million, increasing its year-over-year Q4 run-rate by 133 percent, and recorded its 6th consecutive month of accelerating growth.   Over 400 leading brands are now using the Bizo platform to reach their target audiences online, and the company also grew its targetable audience of online business professionals to 100 million uniques each month, through the addition of more than 800 new publisher partners including Forbes, Crains B2B, PC World and Thomson Reuters.   Last quarter, the company was ranked the fourth fastest-growing private company in the Bay Area by the San Francisco Business Times.

“Over the past few years, the brands we support have grown increasingly hungry for new and better ways to reach their audiences and build their brands online.  Given our position in the business audience marketing ecosystem, Bizo is uniquely positioned to help marketers access and reach precisely targeted business audiences at scale,” said Russell Glass, CEO of Bizo.  “Attracting heavy-hitting industry talent such as Frannie is a testament to the company’s momentum and the huge opportunity we see to extend our leadership in the market over the coming years.”

About Bizo

Bizo is how marketers reach and engage business professionals, wherever they travel online.  Bizo can precisely target more than 100 million professionals around the world, including more than 80 percent of the U.S. business population. This unprecedented reach and targeting gives marketers cost-effective access and insight into business professionals – the most valuable online audience segment.  Simply put, Bizo knows business audiences. More than 400 leading brands including AMEX, Monster, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, and FedEx count on the precise display ad targeting, social media measurement, and deep audience analytics that the Bizo Audience Marketing Platform provides to successfully execute their branding and direct response initiatives.

For more information on Bizo, or for a free look at the Bizographic make-up of your website audience, visit www.bizo.com.

Infographic:
-          Top: Summarizes mention of players names

-          2nd Down: Compares stats with twitter volume by player (yardage/points attained)

-          3rd Down: Volume of mentions of the team vs. the coach

-          Bottom: Word cloud of conversation for each team

Insights:
-          Quarterbacks captured the majority of the conversation buzz – most of which was football related (though Tom Brady also has some conversation around his personal life mixed in)

-          Tom Brady generated the most conversation and yielded more yards than Eli Manning

-          Receivers for both teams also generated a fair amount of buzz primarily due to their own activity on the channel and we did not see any correlation between the volume of Twitter traffic and statistical performance on the field

-          People like to talk about the Giants, but the Patriot players individually get more attention, including the coaches.

About Banyan Branch
Banyan Branch, based in Seattle, WA, is a full-service social media agency that provides end-to-end marketing services including strategy, creative, execution and analytics. With a holistic approach that integrates Strategy, Social Media Creative, Engagement and Research & Analytics, Banyan Branch delivers social media programs unmatched by smaller agencies, while providing more personalized service and quicker response than large-scale digital firms. Dozens of the world’s leading brands, including FOX, Viacom, Paramount, Hartz, Univision, Gilt Groupe, Microsoft and Windstar Cruises have partnered with Banyan Branch to implement a wide variety of social media campaigns. Any company ready to connect with its customers where they live and breathe, can contact Banyan Branch via www.BanyanBranch.com

BOISE, Idaho – Balihoo (www.balihoo.com), the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs, today announced the most significant local marketing trends and related key strategic initiatives for national brands in 2012. The insights are based on developments, research and observations working with national brands, such as Kohler, Pearle Vision, Geico and 1-800DOCTORS.com. Balihoo helps these companies raise visibility and increase sales through local outlets such as dealers, agents, distributors, retailers and franchisees.

“Local marketing is quickly emerging as one of the biggest opportunities in the shifting marketing landscape, delivering impressive results for national brands who rely on reaching consumers at the point of final preference and purchase,” said Shane Vaughan, vice president of marketing for Balihoo. “As this shift happens, marketers need to be prepared to execute their local campaigns across a growing, integrated ecosystem of new media and social channels – the Local Web – in order to deliver greater customer relevance, response and return on their marketing investment.”

According to the recently released 2011 CMO Council Report, “Localize to Optimize,” 30 percent of marketers have embraced local marketing automation software platforms and 27 percent are currently evaluating them. Further, BIA/Kelsey estimates the overall local advertising market growing from $136.3 billion in 2010 to $153.5 billion in 2015, representing a 2.1 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and coinciding with a 14.4 percent CAGR for online/interactive ad revenue. Based on this data, Balihoo predicts Local Marketing Automation will become a mainstream marketing tool by the end of 2012.

Additional Balihoo predictions and recommendations for 2012 local marketing strategies include:

Continued Dramatic Increase in Localization of Media Channels. With the decline in effectiveness of analog media, marketers have new and improved options for reaching consumers at the local level on digital media. However, national brands must identify resource-effective processes for researching, buying and tracking localized media, and local affiliates will need education and training on the new channels.

National Brands Demand Integrated Marketing Analytics. While marketers largely believe that localized efforts are essential to business growth and profitability, only a small portion of them have a formal plan for monitoring their impact. Brands need to share their expectations with their vendors, partners and internal teams, and require integrated marketing metrics across all mediums, segments and geographies in order to enable enhanced decision making and budget justification.

Content Marketing Moves Downstream to Local Businesses. As social media and content marketing adoption continues to show growth and effectiveness, local businesses will look to their national counterparts for a regular stream of fresh content customizable with geographic details.

For the complete list of Balihoo Local Marketing Predictions for 2012, please visit our series of blog posts, starting here: http://bit.ly/ypJQ3t.

About Balihoo

Balihoo is the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation (LMA) technology and services to national brands with local marketing needs. By automating local marketing, Balihoo gives national brands unprecedented control over local marketing execution and the ability to control the customer experience closer to the point of purchase. Additional information about Balihoo is available at www.balihoo.com.

NEW YORK – Solve Media, the TYPE-IN advertising company, today announced it has added Ian Schafer to its Board of Directors. Mr. Schafer is the founder and CEO of Deep Focus, a full-service digital engagement agency. Formerly a vice president of new media at Miramax Films, he is one of the most influential voices in the industry, and a recognized leader in interactive marketing and social media. He will provide senior counsel to Solve Media executives as the company continues to change how brands and publishers advertise online.

“The future of advertising lies with innovative and creative approaches like Solve Media’s TYPE-IN that can capture a user’s attention in a powerful yet unobtrusive way, and deliver measurable results in lift, recall and participation rates,” said Mr. Schafer. “Solve Media has grown quickly because they are addressing a critical market need. I look forward to helping Solve Media reach its next stage of growth.”

Mr. Schafer has received a number of industry recognitions including being named a ‘Media Maven’ by Advertising Age and one of Adweek’s“Young Ones.” He also serves on the executive board of the Social Media Advertising Consortium. He joins Chris Fralic and Scott Johnson on Solve Media’s board.

“As one of the industry’s foremost experts, Ian has an uncanny ability to anticipate trends in the creative and media agency landscape,” said Ari Jacoby, CEO of Solve Media. “His leadership, knowledge and strategic insight will be invaluable as Solve Media continues to seek innovative and impactful ways to drive true engagement for brands.”

Since its launch in 2010, Solve Media’s TYPE-IN platform has been delivering performance-based campaigns for leading brand advertisers seeking superior engagement, awareness and recall. Unlike traditional engagement metrics that essentially measure ad exposure, TYPE-IN ads create lasting memories that benefit brands beyond clicks and drive loyalty and sales. The company’s approach has attracted more than 3,000 publishers and leading advertisers, including Toyota, Microsoft, Universal Pictures and AOL.

ABOUT SOLVE MEDIA

Solve Media was founded by veteran entrepreneurs and technologists focused on innovative Internet advertising solutions. The Company’s proprietary online advertising system, the TYPE-IN™ was designed to create new and highly effective opportunities for brands to advertise online. The platform leverages CAPTCHA authentication for brand messaging to bring unprecedented consumer engagement. With the platform, Solve Media: guarantees brand message delivery and increases recall rates and return on investment for advertisers; creates new revenue opportunities for publishers; and simplifies the authentication process for consumers. Backed by First Round Capital, New Atlantic Ventures, AOL Ventures and prominent angel investors, Solve Media is based in New York City and Philadelphia. http://www.solvemedia.com

Dozens of clients and partners have adopted Krux technology, including leading media companies such as The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and NBCUniversal.  Further, the company continues to expand its global footprint, with additions to its client roster including major European media companies, such as Financial Times and Sanoma, and the Japanese publisher Recruit.  Krux is also driving key partner relationships outside the US, such as the recent integration of its technology with the leading European Supply-Side Platform, Improve Digital.

One of the key drivers of the rapid adoption of Krux solutions is the increased focus on transparency and control when it comes to how companies manage consumer web data.  A number of Krux clients have recently reported on their success with the company’s data protection technology, Krux Data Sentry.  As Peter Naylor, EVP Digital Media at NBCU explained, “With a network as broad and diverse as NBCU, combined with the partnership complexity that comes with running the Universal Ad Platform, I sleep much better at night knowing we have Krux in our corner and a solution like Data Sentry protecting our most critical asset: our audience data.”

Most important, as of January 2012, the company saw its global reach grow more than 300% over the course of the previous year.  Through widespread adoption of Krux’s solutions by leading premium publishers around the globe, such as The New York Times, Recruit, Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal, Krux has rapidly become the Internet standard for web data protection.  Having developed durable reach of more than 200 million Internet users worldwide, Krux is ideally positioned to drive further adoption of its end-to-end services for consumer data management.  Today, anyone with a website can put data to work making every content, commerce, and advertising interaction feel more personal and more relevant.  Through its growing client, partner, and user reach, Krux supports this shift to a more personal web.

“I’m thrilled to see 2011 investments in our team, our technology, and our US and EU market presence catapult us into 2012,” said Tom Chavez, co-founder and CEO of Krux Digital.  “We’re deepening partner relationships and adding to our client roster almost daily, all while continuing to advance our technology lead, delivering cloud-scale Big Data solutions for some of the consumer web’s most pressing challenges.”

About Krux:
Founded in 2010, Krux delivers data fabric for the consumer web.  The company’s platform helps websites capture, control, and connect data across screens and sources.  With Krux, companies deliver cooler, safer, faster, smarter web experiences.  With Krux, consumers gain confidence that their favorite websites are operating under the plain light of day.  Dozens of website operators in the US, Europe, and Asia have adopted Krux technology, including companies like NBC Universal, Sanoma, Recruit, Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.  Find out more at www.kruxdigital.com.

San Mateo, Calif – BrightEdge, the leading global SEO platform, today released analysis showing that brands in the Retail, Financial Services and Technology verticals are leaving upwards of $112 Million in unrealized sales on the table, that could be secured by more aggressive or effective search optimization activities.

BrightEdge analyzed terabytes of page rank, social signals, keyword, backlinks, ranking and CPC data from their cloud database to identify the real dollar opportunity available to specific vertical market segments. BrightEdge found that on average, Retail companies could drive more than $51 Million in potential revenue, followed by Financial Services at $51 Million. Hardware and software solutions are coming closer to the mark with leaving more than $5.4 Million in potential annual revenue.

“Search marketers are a part of the revenue generating organization, but they have lacked a forecasting tool to define the revenue opportunity for their company. Our research shows that there is a tremendous opportunity for brands to grow their revenue through search engine optimization,” said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “With the unveiling of these findings BrightEdge is excited to announce that we are also introducing the ability to accurately forecast the business opportunity for SEO as part of our S3 platform.”

BrightEdge’s search opportunity forecasting, which is currently available in limited release to BrightEdge clients and agency partners provides a complete solution to allow search marketers to build a solid forecast for themselves.

To join the discussion about BrightEdge’s data, please visit www.facebook.com/seoplatform, or follow BrightEdge on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brightedge.

About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the leading global SEO platform helping more than 1,100 of the world’s largest brands stay ahead in the rapidly evolving Internet landscape. BrightEdge S3 drives more than $4 billion in organic search across industries, harnessing the power of analytics to drive revenue from web sites, search engines and social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA and is privately held with financing from Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures.

For more information, please visit www.brightedge.com, friend BrightEdge on Facebook at www.facebook.com/seoplatform or follow them on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brightedge.

LONDON, UK – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of Internet usage in Europe, showing that 379.4 million Europeans went online in November 2011 for an average of 27.8 hours per person. This release highlights Internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated into the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. Amongst its findings, the study also showed that 47.8 percent of Europeans visit Newspaper sites, with a notable percentage of visits to the top 5 Newspaper sites preceded by a visit to Facebook.

Nearly 1 in 2 Europeans Visit Newspaper Sites
In November 2011, 181.5 million unique people in Europe visited Newspaper sites, an increase of 9 percent from the previous year. The Daily Mail continued to attract the largest audience at 20.1 million unique visitors, followed by the Guardian at 15.7 million unique visitors. Turkish newspapers Hürriyet and Milliyet and German newspaper Bild rounded out the top five Newspaper properties, with each attracting approximately 10 million unique visitors.

An analysis of the sites visited by Europeans prior to visiting the top 5 Newspaper sites shows that Google Sites preceded at least 12 percent of visits to the top 5 Newspaper sites, with a significantly higher percentage seen for the Daily Mail and the Guardian (more than 23 percent of inbound site traffic). At least 10 percent of visits are preceded by a visit to Facebook, second only to Google Sites. (This data includes both direct referrals from Facebook links and visits initiated by direct user navigation following a visit to Facebook.)

Interestingly, the percentage of traffic to these sites preceded by a visit to Facebook has significantly increased in each case, highlighting both Facebook’s growing prominence in the European web landscape and its increasing ability to drive referral traffic. The percentage of inbound site traffic preceded by a Facebook visit was highest at Turkish site Milliyet, where it accounted for nearly a fifth of traffic (18.9 percent). Facebook visitation also preceded a significant percentage of inbound traffic to the Daily Mail and the Guardian, with both sites at approximately 13 percent, while German newspaper site Bild.de saw an even higher share (14.8 percent). Milliyet, the fifth largest European Newspaper site, demonstrated the highest point change in such traffic (9-percentage point increase), followed closely by the Guardian (8-percentage point increase).

Google Sites continued to rank as the top European web property in November with 347.3 million unique visitors, reaching 91.5 percent of the total European Internet audience. Meanwhile, Russian social network VKontakte continued to display the highest average engagement amongst the top properties, with European visitors spending 438.9 minutes (7.3 hours) on the site. Amongst the fastest growing properties in Europe from October to November were the home improvement retailer Kingfisher (up 21 percent), followed by French film property AlloCiné Sites (up 19 percent). Social networking site LinkedIn.com and daily deals site Groupon also ranked amongst the fastest growing properties, exhibiting a 6-percent month-on-month increase and a 4-percent increase, respectively.

* Amongst the Top 100 online properties

European Internet Usage by Country
Below is a snapshot of European internet usage in the 18 reportable markets for which comScore provides individual reporting. The Russian Internet audience continued to grow and surpass Germany as the largest online market in Europe. The UK continued to show the highest engagement, with users spending an average of 38.2 hours online during the month.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

SES New York 2012
NEW YORK – SES New York 2012 announced today that Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google and Author of Web Analytics 2.0, will present the keynote address at the conference to be held at the Hilton New York on March 19-23, 2012. At SES New York Kaushik, whose keynote is entitled “Business Optimization in a Digital Age,” will present his latest insights on designing multi-channel digital marketing programs to achieve maximum economic value.

The largest search and social media event of its kind, SES New York attracts 3,500 to 4,000 online marketers. Incisive Media is offering a pre-agenda savings of up to $800 for those who register by January 20, 2012.

“We promise our attendees they will hear from the most innovative experts – the most creative minds in the industry – and who could personify this better than Avinash Kaushik,” said Matt McGowan, Managing Director of Americas at Incisive Media. “Even though the surge of social media has caused search marketing to become much more complicated, he’s promised to convince us that the right integrated digital marketing strategy can pay off with big returns on investments.”

“SES New York is always a high point in my conference year, and I’m preparing to add to the excitement with my keynote on balancing the many digital marketing channels across the four most important business drivers,” said Kaushik. “Metrics play a significant role in multi-channel digital strategies and I will, as usual, be discussing how to leverage key metrics for optimal campaign results. I’m really looking forward to meeting old friends and meeting new colleagues at the show.”

About SES New York

The five-day SES New York conference includes informative presentations and panels, intensive training workshops and a large exhibit hall. Each day is choreographed to leave plenty of time for networking opportunities with industry peers. Its real-time case studies provide attendees with best-practice knowledge that can be immediately applied to their marketing programs, and its classroom-style learning offers a high degree of interactivity.

The SES New York agenda, programmed by the SES Advisory Board, is designed to help online professionals do their jobs better. This year, specific consideration has been given to Demand Gen, SEO, PPC, RTB, mobile, local, as well as both earned and paid social media.

Until end of day January 20, 2012, Incisive Media is offering a pre-agenda registration savings of up to $800.

About Avinash Kaushik

Avinash Kaushik is the Digital Marketing Evangelist for Google and the co-founder of Market Motive Inc. Through his blog, Occam’s Razor, and his best-selling books, Web Analytics: An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0, Kaushik has become recognized as an authoritative voice on how marketers, executive teams and industry leaders can leverage data to fundamentally reinvent their digital existence. Kaushik puts a common sense framework around the often frenetic world of web analytics and combines that with the philosophy that investing in talented analysts is the key to long-term success. He passionately advocates customer centricity and leveraging bleeding-edge competitive intelligence techniques.

Kaushik brings practical insights to companies like Unilever, Dell, Time Warner, Vanguard, Porsche, and IBM. He has delivered keynotes at a variety of global conferences, including SES Conference & Expo, Monaco Media Forum, iCitizen, JMP Innovators’ Summit, The Art of Marketing and Web 2.0.

Kaushik has lectured at major universities such as Stanford University, University of Virginia, University of California – Los Angeles and University of Utah. Avinash received the 2009 Statistical Advocate of the Year award from the American Statistical Association, and the 2011 Most Influential Industry Contributor award from the Web Analytics Association.

About Incisive Media

Incisive Media’s SES Conference & Expo is a leading global conference and training series focused on search engine marketing. Other Incisive resources include ClickZ, which provides digital marketing news, information, commentary, advice, opinion, and research and Search Engine Watch, which covers news and information about search and analysis of the search engine industry, and offers tools for improving search marketing effectiveness.

Incisive Media is a leading global provider of specialized business news and information in print, online, and in person. The company’s principal markets include financial services, legal services, commercial real estate, marketing services, and risk management. Incisive Media’s market-leading brands include Accountancy Age, Computing, Investment Week, Legal Week, Post, Risk, and SES Conference and Expo. For more information, visit www.incisivemedia.com.

For more news and event updates visit the SES press room.

São Paulo, Brazil – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data showing that Facebook assumed the top position in the Brazilian social networking market following a year of exceptional growth. In December 2011, Facebook.com attracted 36.1 million visitors – representing an increase of 192 percent in the past twelve months – to surpass Orkut as the leading social networking destination in the market.

“Facebook’s rapid ascent in the Brazilian market has certainly been one of the most interesting stories to develop during the course of 2011,” said Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil. “Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market. That has all changed in the past year, during which the site has tripled in audience size as engagement has grown sevenfold to assume the leadership position in the market.”

Facebook.com, Orkut and Windows Live Profile Lead Social Networking Rankings

Results from the recent comScore study It’s a Social World revealed that Brazil was one of just seven markets (including China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Poland and Russia) where Facebook did not lead the local social networking category according to October 2011 data.

In December 2011, however, Facebook.com finally secured the top position in Brazil’s social networking ranking with 36.1 million visitors age 6 and older accessing the site from a home or work computer, nearly tripling in audience size in the past year. Orkut, which fell to the #2 position with 34.4 million visitors, still managed to grow its audience 5 percent in the past year despite Facebook’s growing prominence. Windows Live Profile ranked third with 13.3 million visitors (up 13 percent), while Twitter.com ranked fourth with 12.5 million visitors (up 40 percent).

Vostu.com and Tumblr.com both achieved triple-digit audience increases with Vostu.com growing 338 percent to 4.9 million visitors and Tumblr.com growing 206 percent to 4 million visitors. New to the scene in 2011, Google Plus attracted 4.3 million visitors during December 2011, with Brazil ranking as one of the top global markets for the social network by audience size. The combined unduplicated audience of Google Plus and Orkut was 34.9 million visitors, still trailing Facebook.

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Facebook.com Visitors Average Nearly 5 Hours on the Site in December

Facebook.com saw impressive growth across all major metrics during the past year, including significant increases in audience engagement. In December 2011, an average visitor to Facebook.com spent 4.8 hours on the site, surging from just 37 minutes in December 2010. Visitors consumed an average of 500 pages of content on the site during December (up 655 percent), and visited the site an average of 27 times during the month (up nearly 163 percent).

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Profile of a Facebook.com Visitor in Brazil

A closer look at visitors to Facebook.com revealed that females averaged more time on the site at 5.3 hours compared to 4.1 hours for males, mirroring a broader global dynamic of females’ heavier social networking engagement. People between the ages of 25-34 accounted for the largest share of visitors to Facebook.com at 30.6 percent of the total audience, while visitors age 15-24 averaged the most time on the site at 6.2 hours per visitor in December.

Geographically, visitors from Rio de Janeiro and Distrito Federal displayed the highest levels of engagement with the site averaging 5.1 hours on the site during the month. Visitors from São Paulo accounted for more than one-third of all Facebook.com visitors.

Mr. Banks continued, “We saw Facebook’s audience surpass that of Orkut in Brazil’s Southeast region before the site became the category leader for the entire country. While the Southeast was undoubtedly the region where Facebook’s ascension to the top of the category began, we have seen that now only half of Facebook’s Brazilian page views come from this region compared to more than 75 percent a year ago, demonstrating the widespread adoption of the site throughout the country.”

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

INDIANAPOLIS – Are you thinking to yourself, “another social network in 2012? Why should I consider using it for my business?” The short answer: Google+ is tied to Google search, so by using it skillfully, you can improve your website’s findability. Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything, new from Que Publishing, helps business professionals leverage this new social network for promotion, customer service, community building, referrals, and collaboration.

Launched in July 2011, Google+ is currently adding 625,000 new users a day, and may reach a total of 400 million members by the end of 2012.* In Google+ for Business, author Chris Brogan explains why Google+ is the next big thing, how he sees Google’s popular applications linking together for stronger business appeal, and how Google+ is built to make sharing content and information easy and effective.

Brogan shows readers the ins and outs of this social network in order to:

- Take advantage of links between Google+ and Google search

- Design a business page that attracts new paying customers

- Integrate Google+ into current online/digital strategies

- Learn how customers are using Google+–and give them what they’re looking for

- Master Google+ tools such as Circle and Hangouts

-Create Google+ posts that draw attention and spark conversations

- Google+ for Business is part of Que’s Biz-Tech series, designed for executives and marketers to gain skills in emerging technologies for their business needs. The title is available in print and eBook formats (for Kindle, NOOK, iPad and other e-readers) through book retailers, Safari Books Online subscription (http://safari.informit.com), and Que Publishing (http://www.quepublishing.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0789749149).

About the Author

Chris Brogan is the New York Times bestselling co-author of Trust Agents, a professional speaker, and president of Human Business Works. He has been involved with social networks since the BBSes of the 1980s, and began blogging in 1998, when it was still called journaling. Brogan co-founded the international unconference experience, PodCamp, which teaches media making to individuals worldwide, and has keynoted many major corporate, technology, and web culture events. Featured monthly columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine, Brogan consults with Fortune® 100 companies such as PepsiCo, GM, and Microsoft on the future of business communications and social technologies.

About Pearson

The world’s leading learning company, Pearson is home to such respected brands as Addison-Wesley Professional, Cisco Press, Exam Cram, IBM Press, Prentice Hall Professional, Que Publishing, Sams Publishing, and VMWare Press, which have as their online publishing arm, InformIT (www.informit.com) -The Trusted Technology Learning Source. In addition, Berkeley-based Peachpit (www.peachpit.com), the publishing partner for Adobe Press, Apple Certified, and others, publishes best-selling books for creative design professionals. Pearson is also co-founder, with O’Reilly Media Inc., of Safari Books Online (http://safari.informit.com), the premier on-demand digital library providing thousands of expert reference materials through a single point of contact, including expert technology, creative and design, business and management resources in video and text formats. Que is part of Pearson (NYSE: PSO), the world’s leading learning company.

U.S. Explicit Core Search

Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in December with 65.9 percent market share (up 0.5 percentage points), followed by Microsoft Sites with 15.1 percent (up 0.1 percentage points) and Yahoo! Sites with 14.5 percent. Ask Network accounted for 2.9 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.6 percent.

comScore Explicit Core Search Share Report*
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch

*“Explicit Core Search” excludes contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.

More than 18.2 billion explicit core searches were conducted in December (up 2 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 12 billion (up 3 percent), followed by Microsoft Sites with 2.7 billion (up 2 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 2.6 billion. Ask Network delivered 531 million searches (up 3 percent), while AOL, Inc. rounded out the top five with 287 million.

comScore Explicit Core Search Query Report
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch

U.S. Total Core Search

Google Sites accounted for 66.1 percent of total core search queries conducted (up 0.4 percentage points), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.2 percent and Microsoft Sites with 13.8 percent. Ask Network comprised 2.6 percent of total search queries, followed by AOL, Inc. with 1.4 percent.

comScore Total Core Search Share Report*
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch

* “Total Core Search” is based on the five major search engines, including partner searches, cross-channel searches and contextual searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in these numbers.

Americans conducted 20.5 billion total core search queries in December (up 3 percent). Google Sites ranked first with 13.6 billion searches (up 4 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 3.3 billion (up 2 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 2.8 billion (up 2 percent).

comScore Total Core Search Query Report
December 2011 vs. November 2011
Total U.S. – Home & Work Locations
Source: comScore qSearch

“Powered By” Reporting

In December, 68.1 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 67.6 percent in November) while 26.5 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 26.7 percent in November).

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Those economics are quite different than the old models, in which multiple revenue streams sustained newspapers. Micro payments will not be the salvation of newspapers, nor will pay walls — except in the case of extremely high value content such as that of the Wall Street Journal. Investigative reporting and covering local politics, the favorite beats of reporters, never did support newspapers.

Then how does a publisher meet the future? Not merely by tweaking the advertising model, but by tweaking the content model as well.

In this new world, old brands must differentiate themselves and create a stronger sense of value the reader in order to be valuable advertising platforms. At present, niche product-focused properties are winning the big ad dollars.  Even the most traditional publishers have to start sections that are of more interest to advertisers, although the advertisers will still have the preference for niche sites. The cover everything model of the traditional newspaper (gardening to gossip) may no longer make sense. Nor may long-form journalism in some: 75% of readers abandon long form articles before getting to the end. (My information on this comes from Richard Gingras, the Head of News Product at Google).

The battle for eyeballs is now waged on the users’ terms. Publishers must make use of data to understand their audiences and where they come from, which is in a constant state of flux: direct traffic to home pages is declining, down from 45% to 25% between 2009 and 2011. Search grew from 22% of traffic in 2009 to 33% in 2011, and social, which hardly registered as a referral source in 2009, sent 15% of traffic to publishers in 2011. And that will only increase. (These numbers are from Richard Gingras, Head of Product for Google and former CEO of Salon.com.)

The medium defines the message and its form, and thus the form of newspapers needs to be rethought completely. The atomic unit of content is now the story, not the site.  Newspapers don’t have  editions anymore. Now, articles, posts, facts, related docs, reader contributions, discussion, databases, relevant to the same story should be together on the same page. And instead of one-off efforts, good stories should use data to create persistent resources. The constant updating of stories brings users back to the site. And that’s how you sell advertising: against the story, not the site.

Publishers must design to leverage today’s technology and audience flows. In fact, the atomic unit of content was never the site itself, although most publishers came online thinking of themselves as portals.

What does that say about advertising above and below the fold? We believe that the fold comes from the news.

About ZEDO:

ZEDO, Inc. is a digital ad solutions company that offers products and services for a publisher’s premium, self service, and remnant inventory. Products include ad network optimization, innovative rich media formats for publishers’ direct sales teams, full featured ad serving, behavioral targeting data built into the ad server, an exchange-like platform for publishers to sell behavioral and DMA targeted inventory at high CPMs (see: www.zedoadnetwork.com), a self service platform to allow advertisers to buy directly from a publisher, outsourced ad ops and more. These products are integrated into one technology platform for publishers to choose from, or use seamlessly together. ZEDO has been in the internet advertising industry for over 10 years, and is the most successful independent ad server in the US. The company provides innovative solutions that boost revenues for Internet publishers. ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco and has four development centers in Russia and India.

Reach out to ZEDO at http://www.zedo.com, or follow the company on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ZEDOadsolutions) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/zedoinc).

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – Ace Metrix, the authority of television advertising effectiveness, today honors Microsoft Kinect as the 2011 Brand of the Year and State Farm Insurance as the Most Improved Brand of the Year. Microsoft Kinect delivered twelve ads that earned the highest average Ace Score (619) of the nearly 1,000 brands tracked by Ace Metrix in 2011. To be considered for Brand of the Year, a brand must have aired at least 10 new television ads during 2011.

“It is a remarkable achievement to make one great ad, which Microsoft Kinect did with its category award-winning commercial ‘Sensor Turned Voice and Movement To Magic.’ It is, however, an entirely different challenge to consistently create great ads – which is exactly what Kinect was able to do in 2011,” said Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. “Kinect’s ability to seamlessly blend innovation, possibility, and storytelling across different lengths resulted in an average Ace Score which fundamentally outperformed the field. To think that Microsoft was able to sustain a strong Kinect launch in 2010 with such a compelling set of ads in 2011 is a testament to their outstanding agencies, brand teams, and production teams.”

Joining Kinect as the most compelling brands in 2011 were M&M’s, Apple’s iPhone brand, Coca-Cola and Applebee’s.

“While it is not surprising to see these iconic brands at the top of the list, it is worth noting that each has distinguished itself in highly competitive categories, not only emerging as the brand leader in areas like mobile devices, casual dining, non-alcoholic beverages, candies and snacks, but across the entire advertising landscape,” Daboll said. “While being likeable is important for brands, the ability to reach consumers across a variety of dimensions, from emotional to rational is what creates a strong Ace Score, and these brands performed exceptionally well in this regard.”

Most Improved Brand: State Farm

Most Improved Brand of the Year was awarded to State Farm who demonstrated the most significant increase in average Ace Score from 2010 to 2011.

“As a brand, State Farm made extraordinary strides in 2011 compared to 2010,” continued Daboll. “State Farm increased its average Ace Score by almost 14 percent while airing fewer ads. As a result, they were able to deliver far more value at significantly reduced production costs, making their marketing expenditure work harder in 2011.”

Top Five Brands of 2011, by Average Ace Score*

Click the brand name to view five of the top scoring ads of 2011.

*Definition: Ace Score is the measure of ad creative effectiveness based on viewer reaction to national TV ads. Respondents (n=500+) are randomly selected and representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience. The results are presented on a scale of 0-950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as Watchability, Relevance, Desire, Attention, Change, Information and Likeability. Norm for ads over the last 90 days is 536. Brand of the Year is calculated from all brands that fielded more than 10 new pieces of creative in 2011. Most Improved Brand is calculated from those qualified brands as compared to their Average Ace Score from 2010. Average Ace Score of a brand is determined by totaling all of the Ace Scores earned by a brand in the calendar year of 2011 and dividing by the number of ads aired.

Ace Metrix will reveal scores for every Super Bowl ad on February 5th.

About Ace Metrix

Ace Metrix is the industry authority in measuring and understanding the impact of advertising creative. Through patent-pending Ace Score™ measurement technology, Ace Metrix collects and measures the consumer impact of every nationally breaking TV ad in near real-time. Through its Creative Lifecycle Management™ suite of products, Ace Metrix provides actionable creative analysis, from ideation through real-time in-market performance optimization, to many of the world’s leading advertisers and agencies. Ace Metrix works with leading global advertisers. For more information, visit www.acemetrix.com

NEW YORK – The year ended with an extremely strong Q4 for online advertising as U.S. paid search spending grew 22% year-over-year resulting in the best quarter to date. Retailers drove much of this spending, as holiday shopping initiatives pushed their search budgets up 26% year-over-year. Mobile search advertising among retailers was up a huge 269% YoY and accounted for 14% of total retail search budgets – peaking at 24% on Black Friday.

These figures are released quarterly by IgnitionOne, a leading digital marketing firm, managing more than $1 billion in online advertising.

Key findings in the report:

•    Mobile search is growing at an enormous rate – YoY mobile search ad impressions are up 317% and spend is up 269%. Among retailers, mobile search ad spend accounted for 14.2% of total paid search budgets, compared to 5.2% last year. This spiked on Black Friday with 24% of retail search ad spend going towards mobile queries.

•    Search advertising has its best quarter ever – It was a strong holiday season for search with advertising spend up 22% YoY in Q4. Search advertising spend among retailers was up even higher at 26% YoY. There were also large YoY increases in impressions (42%), clicks (42%) and transactions (67%).

•    Search costs (CPCs) declining – In total, Q4 CPCs are down -8.6% YoY and -2.3% compared to last quarter. This trend benefits both marketers and Google as clicks cost less while monetizing at the same rate and expanding impression base and higher clickthrough rates point to revenue growth for Google. The trend is driven by Google, as Yahoo!/Bing saw a YoY 6.4% increase in CPCs.

•    Google retains market share lead – In mid-Q4, Yahoo!/Bing held only a 16.6% share of the search market, but as expected, given its retail consumer focus, it rebounded with a stronger holiday shopping season.  However, by the end of Q4, search market share remained largely unchanged from the previous quarter, with Google commanding 81.8% compared to Yahoo!/Bing at 18.2%.

•    Europe search advertising also on the rise – Q4 shows gains for European search advertising as spend increased 14%, clicks increased 22% and Clickthrough Rate (CTR) increased 19%.

•    Google continues to grow in display – Spending on display was up 9.3% and impressions were up 31.5%. The growth for Q4 came from Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which saw a 105.5% increase in spend.

“Adoption of smart phones and tablets is exploding and mobile search is becoming a major part of the shopping experience for many consumers,” said Roger Barnette, President of IgnitionOne. “Advertisers are responding to this trend, which is clearly shown in the enormous growth of mobile search advertising spending.”

This report is the latest in a series of reports from IgnitionOne reviewing trends across the online advertising landscape. Previous quarterly reports can be downloaded at http://bit.ly/ignitiononeresearch

About IgnitionOne
IgnitionOne is the world’s first closed loop Digital Marketing Suite, offering multiple solutions to improve online performance within a single interface. Solutions include ad management and optimization (search, display and Facebook), cross-channel attribution and website optimization. The company was formed in 2011 by combining online ad management platform, SearchIgnite, with audience profiling and on-site optimization from Netmining.

Ignition One currently powers more than $20 billion in revenue each year for some of the world’s leading online marketers, including General Motors, Chico’s, Ann Taylor, Fiat and advertising agencies such as MRM Worldwide, CyberAgent and more.

For more information, please visit http://www.ignitionone.com or follow the company on Twitter @ignitionone.

San Francisco – In a recent survey of more than 450 advertising executives, marketers said that they will be allocating nearly 60% of their online budgets to brand advertising in 2012, indicating that spending on online branding may surpass spending on direct response advertising for the first time in the coming year. Some other top line findings from the report:

- 64% of marketers plan to increase their online brand advertising budgets in 2012, with 22% saying they will increase spending by more than 20%.

- In contrast, only 56% of marketers plan to increase their online direct response advertising budgets in 2012, with only 15% saying they will increase spending by more than 20%.

- Additionally, 60% of marketers responding indicated that they are allocating dollars away from direct response to brand advertising initiatives.

“These growth predictions are clearly optimistic, but very encouraging nonetheless,” says Dan Beltramo, CEO of Vizu, an online ad technology company that enables advertisers and publishers to measure and optimize Brand Lift in real-time. “There’s still more that needs to be done in order to realize those numbers and make online the medium of choice for brand advertisers. I believe that when brand advertisers understand that their online ads can now be measured and optimized using classic offline brand metrics such as awareness and purchase intent, we will see a further growth in their online ad budgets.”

Marketers agreed with Mr. Beltramo. When asked what would lead them to increase spending on online brand advertising:

·       Nearly 7 in 10 (68%) said “Improved clarity around the actual return on brand advertising investment.”

·       A majority (56%) also cited the “Ability to verify my brand advertising created the desired result (e.g. increased awareness of my product).”

·       In addition, a majority of respondents (53%) indicated the “Ability to use the same metrics to evaluate brand advertising effectiveness online as are used offline.”

“These issues are all indicative of a ‘metrics morass’ in the online medium, which often leads to information overload for brand marketers when trying to determine the efficacy of their advertising,” adds Mr. Beltramo. “In fact, 34% of respondents described themselves as ‘drowning in data’ when it comes to the online channel.”

Brands and agencies are in agreement on which metrics they would like to use to determine the effectiveness of online brand advertising:

- In the top spot, 8 in 10 of both agency and brand respondents said: “Brand Lift generated as a result of the advertising.”

- A majority (over 50%) of both also agree on “Sales generated as a result of the advertising.”

The survey also identified several opportunities to improve collaboration between brands and their partners in the digital media ecosystem, and maximize the value of online brand advertising initiatives:

Alignment around objectives:

- A vast majority (85%) of brands said it was “very important” to establish the primary marketing objective for a brand advertising campaign, and the metric used to measure performance against that objective, in advance of their campaign.

- Three quarters (73%) of media sellers also highlight the importance of this alignment, saying agreement around “what constitutes success” for the campaign was the number one thing that would help them improve results for advertisers.

- Unfortunately, only 18 percent of agencies said they are able to establish a single objective against which ROI will be measured with their clients in advance of a campaign.

Alignment around metrics used to measure performance against objectives:

- Brand marketers clearly indicate by a wide margin (55%) that they’d prefer to use “the exact same metrics used in the offline medium, and a few additional metrics specific to the online medium.”

- Media sellers, however, by a large margin (77%), say that they’re most likely to report only metrics related specifically to the online medium.

Alignment around metrics used to optimize performance against objectives:

- Nearly all brand marketers ranked “in-market optimization of campaigns against brand metrics” as “very important.”

- Agencies, however, said they are primarily optimizing against various measures of engagement (58% of the time) or even click-through rates (19%), as opposed to Brand Lift (16%).

- Not surprisingly, media sellers’ answers mirrored those of the agencies with whom they work.

“There are obviously opportunities to improve online brand advertising outcomes by ensuring everyone’s on the same page,” says Mr. Beltramo, “and our customers leverage Vizu’s technology to do just that. The last 10 years was the decade of direct response marketing online, but this will be the decade of online branding, and we’re excited to be a part of that.”

This study, conducted in November and December of 2011, was executed by Digiday and sponsored by Vizu Corporation. Download the full report here: http://brandlift.vizu.com/knowledge-resources/research/2012-industry-outlook/

You can also benchmark your organization’s brand advertising practices against industry best practices identified in this report here: http://brandlift.vizu.com/knowledge-resources/brand-ad-iq/

Digiday (www.digiday.com) is a media company and community for professionals who work in the digital media, marketing and advertising industry. Its mission is to connect the industry with insightful analysis and perspective, as well as each other. They provide key insights and information through their online publications and conferences that cover the changes, trends — and why they matter. They cover the industry with an expertise, depth and tone not find anywhere else. See Digiday.com to read or subscribe to their publications or for information on events; join Digiday LinkedIn or Facebook groups; follow them on Twitter @Digiday or their show commentary with #Digiday; or tune into live-streamed and archived video coverage of their events on their Livestream channel.

Vizu Corporation (www.brandlift.com) brings the same metrics used to measure and optimize brand advertising effectiveness in the offline world to the online medium. By providing the first real-time, enterprise technology platform that allows brand advertisers and their partners in the digital media ecosystem – publishers, ad networks, exchanges, and demand side platforms – to collaborate around measuring and optimizing Brand Lift metrics, Vizu enables its customers to move their target audience through the purchase funnel, from building awareness to creating intent and preference. Vizu’s brand advertising effectiveness platform is used by over 60% of Advertising Age’s Top 100 Brand Advertisers and Top 50 Media properties to support all key aspects of the advertising lifecycle, including media buying, audience profiling, and Brand Lift optimization.

NEW YORK – [x+1], www.xplusone.com, the leading digital marketing platform provider, announced the release of the newest version of its digital marketing hub, [x+1] Origin 3.0. The new release adds enhanced capabilities and user interface improvements that allow marketers to realize the vision of real-time multi-channel decisioning – the intelligent execution of a company’s offers and messages.

With [x+1] Origin, the decisioning of customer and prospect experiences occurs across websites, landing pages, display media, email, mobile apps and devices and offline direct marketing.

[x+1] Origin 3.0 is the only platform that integrates an industry-leading Data Management Platform (DMP) with a patented decision engine to enable individual, data-driven user experiences across consumer touchpoints. Origin seamlessly integrates the data and decisioning modules with the Media+1 Demand Side Platform (DSP), the Site+1 website personalization solution and Funnel R/F attribution analytics and reporting capabilities to enable unprecedented control of complex decision logic for reaching customers and prospects. [x+1] is the only company offering this level of real-time marketing integration.

The new version of [x+1] Origin also includes enhanced data synchronization, at-a-glance dashboard-based reporting and data visualizations that deliver improved performance and greater efficiency.

Here is an example of how it works:

A customer of a cable company visits the website as she considers a premium movie package. [x+1] Origin’s DMP captures this behavior, which places the user in an interest segment. The decision engine then determines the best offer for the user, based on potential lifetime value and any eligibility restrictions. That offer is then automatically provisioned in the next email drop, echoed in display ads, on her iPad when accessing the cable company’s mobile app, and delivered again on the next visit to the website. If the user does not respond after several exposures to the offer, the next best eligible offer is presented. If the user reaches the call center, the agent can be informed of the current offer being presented online.

The advanced, customizable dashboard views in [x+1] Origin also allow marketers to see at a glance how customer and prospect segments are performing against campaign objectives. Based on these insights, they can make critical determinations like whether “purchase intender” data is performing better than a control group, while honing and refining audience selection by building more “look-alike” segments of those responding to an offer.

With its web services Application Programming Interface (API), [x+1] Origin’s DMP also gives marketers added data security and the flexibility to determine a single customer attribute or multiple attributes in a single database query, allowing for more complex decision logic and more precise targeting.

While other DMPs only syndicate data or audience segments to partners that execute display media, [x+1] Origin is a fully integrated hub that manages data and makes decisions that can be executed across channels, with advanced analytics, reporting and optimization.

“Fortune 500 marketers are seeking to accelerate the speed, flexibility, performance and multi-channel integration of their customer acquisition and retention plans,” said John Nardone, Chairman and CEO of [x+1]. “With version 3.0 of [x+1] Origin, we’ve met all those goals with a system architected from the ground up to deliver the kind of synchronized message personalization and coordination that enhances customer experiences and drives repeatable, measurable results.”

For more information on [x+1] and digital marketing integration, visit www.xplusone.com; follow us on twitter @xplusone.

RESTON, VA  – comScore (NASDAQ : SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, reported that retail e-commerce spending for the entire November – December 2011 holiday season reached $37.2 billion, marking a 15-percent increase versus last year and an all-time record for the season. Ten individual shopping days this season surpassed $1 billion in spending, led by Cyber Monday – which ranked #1 for the second consecutive year – at $1.25 billion.

* 2010 data incorporates seasonal adjustment factor to account for different number of weekdays and weekends in 2010 and 2011. Actual (i.e. non-seasonally adjusted) 2010 number was $32.589 billion.

“The 2011 online holiday shopping finished with slightly more than $37 billion in spending, up about 15 percent versus year ago,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “With brick-and-mortar holiday retail estimated to have grown about4 percent this year, it’s clear that e-commerce continues to gain market share from traditional retail due to the attractiveness of the Internet’s convenience and lower prices. Consumers were especially attracted to the deals and discounts available through digital channels – particularly free shipping, which occurred on well over half of transactions this season. Despite their continuing price sensitivity, consumers felt a bit more comfortable opening up their wallets this year, although this appears to have occurred as a result of a decline in the savings rate. Nonetheless, it’s clear that, at least on the basis of top line growth, this was a Merry Christmas for many online retailers. What will remain unknown until retailers report their financial year end results is whether the aggressive pricing and free shipping offers came at the cost of lower margins.”

Top 10 Online Spending Days of 2011 Holiday Season

Cyber Monday (Monday, Nov. 28) ranked as the heaviest online spending day of the year at $1.251 billion, the second consecutive year it has ranked #1 for the season. The 2011 holiday season was highlighted by ten individual spending days surpassing $1 billion in sales, as compared to just one day reaching that mark in 2010. The second heaviest spending day this season was Monday, Dec. 5 at $1.178 billion, followed by Green Monday (Monday, Dec. 12) at $1.133 billion. Tuesday, Nov. 29 ($1.116 billion) and Tuesday, Dec. 6 ($1.107 billion) rounded out the top five.

Weekly Online Holiday Retail Sales

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

When it comes to top SEO priorities, digital brand executives are making sure that they understand the impact on search marketing and optimize for social signals including Likes, tweets and Google +1s, indicating that they have an increasing need for tools to leverage these insights in the coming year. In the past year it has become widely recognized that social signals are a new form of backlinks that drive search rankings, and leaders are committed to succeeding in this new arena.

The report also uncovered that brands are expecting their search marketing systems to have the enterprise-grade technology championed by cloud pioneers like salesforce.com. This includes security and associated certifications like ISO 27001, reliability and proven strategies for disaster recovery, and scalability to support customer needs.

The need for global support increased by more than 55 percent, with more than 70 percent indicating that their search programs are being run in multiple countries.

“The fact that so many executives are looking for things like enterprise-grade infrastructure, social signal measurement and global reach means that brands are focused on leveraging this technology for mission critical operations,” said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “At BrightEdge we have focused our technology team to be sure that we have what leading search marketers need in 2012.”

For more on BrightEdge’s annual search marketers survey, please visit www.brightedge.com/2012-search-marketers-survey-results. To join the discussion about the findings, please visit us at www.facebook.com/seoplatform, or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brightedge.

About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the leading site, search, and social management solution for global enterprises, helping more than 1,100 of the world’s largest brands stay ahead in the rapidly evolving Internet landscape. BrightEdge S3 drives more than $4 billion in organic search across industries, harnessing the power of analytics to drive revenue from web sites, search engines and social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA and is privately held with financing from Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures.

Among the three selected apps, Weico is most influential as it is the most popular third party mobile app for Sina Weibo – the Twitter equivalent in China, and it now has over three million registered users and 500,000 daily active users; Guohe helped Starbucks to fill the most important position on Weico, and when users click on the banner ad, they will be directed to a HTML5 mini site that enables them to check-in and share about being at a Starbucks store without ever leaving the ad. It has achieved over 40,000 daily impressions between Dec 18 to 20, and the click through rate is around 1.4% on average.

“We are thrilled to team up with Starbucks,” said Neo Zhang, co-founder of Guohe Ad, “Guohe selected a few high quality mobile apps for this ad campaign and the feedback is very encouraging. We will continue to explore how we can better serve both developers and advertisers.”

“It is the first time for Starbucks to tap mobile advertising in China and it is really an impressive campaign,” said Lu Huang, Marketing Director of President Starbucks Coffee Shanghai, “The ad targeting and integration of social media efficiently helped Starbucks to convert mobile users into our real customers, it also enabled Starbucks to celebrate Christmas with customers in the online and offline world, and communicate the idea of Starbucks fourth place experiences.”

About Guohe

Guohe is the leading mobile ad management platform focusing in providing the most innovative solutions for advertisers and developers. It currently provides ad mediation, yield optimization, ad serving and data metrics services to thousands of app developers and brand advertisers. Launch in January 2011, Guohe has partnered with over 10 major ad networks globally, and is now headquartered in Beijing with offices in Shanghai and Taipei. Learn more about Guohe at http://www.guohead.com

Boyle expects to see more marketing dollars spent to maximize the ROI while brand image spending will take a back seat to moving product. The winners in 2012 will be those brands that can capitalize on innovative experiential marketing opportunities and treat each prospect as a unique customer.

“We are convinced that brands that are able to create programs that effectively engage consumers and then utilize social media to amplify their impact will have a distinct edge on their competition,” Boyle reported. “We are seeing brand managers demanding us to move them to the forefront of today’s event-driven digital social media environment. And these same brand managers are continuing to demand that their marketing partners to do even more than before,” he added.

Since 2008, brand managers have been forced to operate with minimal internal staff resources. Experiential marketing firms are becoming a key strategic resource and partner in high demand by brand managers. Even as the economy improves they don’t anticipate staff growth but instead see their marketing partners take on an even greater role to pick up the slack.

UNDER THE RADAR is recognized for creating brand experiences that “fly beneath” today’s conventional marketing clutter. UNDER THE RADAR believes brand managers are seeking ways to effectively combine social media with event driven consumer experiences. As a result, the firm is developing programs for brands that range from street theater to dramatic musical and theatrical events all with a social media interaction.

“When creating an experience we try everything, we optimize everything today. Our clients demand that brand events entertain, communicate, motivate and exceed their result goals,” Boyle added.

Boyle joined UNDER THE RADAR earlier this year and is responsible for leading marketing strategy, client service and business development. Boyle has 30 years of consumer brand building experience and has held leadership positions.

About UNDER THE RADAR

UNDER THE RADAR is a Chicago-based experiential marketing agency dedicated to designing and executing marketing campaigns that connect consumers digitally and with real world live experiences to brands. As a result, UNDER THE RADAR creates authentic and relevant experiences that “fly beneath” conventional marketing clutter and engage consumers where they live, work, shop and play. The UNDER THE RADAR teams also work on projects in both the corporate and product event arenas. Their approach to projects keeps them sharp and ensures that leading-edge, highly pollinated creative styles enhance every client engagement. By today’s pop culture definition, if something is under the radar, it isn’t detected or noticed but yet it can be special and have a very significant impact. For more information about UNDER THE RADAR, visit: www.utrexp.com.

Measured Ad Spending By Media

Most forms of television had spending gains in the third quarter. Expenditures on cable networks increased 6.5 percent during Q3 as higher demand from Direct Response advertisers was offset by curtailed spending from auto manufacturers and restaurants. January-September outlays on cable TV rose 9.9 percent.

Network TV registered its first quarterly gain of the year as Q3 expenditures inched ahead 0.2 percent on higher budgets from movie studios and consumer package goods marketers. Year-to-date expenditures were down 5.7 percent, primarily from the loss of marquee college football and basketball programming that moved to cable networks in the first quarter of 2011.

Ad spending in Spanish Language Television soared 18.0 percent during Q3 and Syndication TV was up 14.8 percent in the period. The only TV segment to lose ground was Spot TV, where expenditures sank 5.7 percent during July-September and were down 2.7 percent for the nine months. As expected, the 2011 Spot TV trend line is progressively lagging in comparison to last year’s bonanza that was fueled by political advertising money.

Within the Internet sector, display advertising expenditures jumped 15.8 percent during July-September and the gains were broadly distributed across top spending categories. However, measured investments in paid search declined 14.4 percent in Q3 on continuing reductions from insurance companies, legal services and medical care providers. For the first nine months of 2011, display spending increased 10.1 percent while paid search fell 2.1 percent.

After six months of modest growth, Consumer Magazine ad expenditures reversed course in Q3 and dropped 1.4 percent. Stable demand from the personal care, apparel, prescription drug and direct response categories was more than offset by steep reductions from food companies and auto manufacturers. Year-to-date spending for the medium has grown 2.2 percent.

Outdoor spending slowed during the third quarter but still registered gains of 3.2 percent for July-September and 8.6 percent for the nine months. Local service businesses, restaurants and education institutes continued to direct more money into the medium.

The pace of spending in Radio media remained soft but steady. Local Radio expenditures were up 2.0 percent in Q3 and have risen 2.2 percent year-to-date. National Spot Radio fell 2.3 percent in July-September and was off 1.9 percent for the first nine months of the year.

Local Newspapers, despite robust budgets from local auto dealers and an uptick in financial advertising, posted a 4.4 percent spending decline in Q3 and were down 3.9 percent year-to-date.

Source: Kantar Media

1. Figures are based on the Kantar Media Stradegy™ multimedia ad expenditure database across all measured media, including: Network TV (5 networks); Spot TV (125 DMAs); Cable TV (71 networks); Syndication TV; Hispanic Network TV (4 networks); Consumer Magazines (204 publications); Sunday Magazines (8 publications); Local Magazines (29 publications); Hispanic Magazines (16 publications); Business-to-Business Magazines (308 publications); Local Newspapers (110 publications); National Newspapers (3 publications); Hispanic Newspapers (46 publications); Network Radio (5 networks); National Spot Radio (205 markets); Local Radio (32 markets); Internet search (Google search engine); Internet display (2,001 sites monitored at least one year); and Outdoor. Figures do not include public service announcements (PSA) or house advertising
2. Cable TV figures based on 67 English language networks and do not include any Hispanic cable networks
3. Spot TV figures based on 658 English language stations and do not include any Hispanic stations
4. Spanish Language TV includes 4 Hispanic broadcast networks, 4 Hispanic cable network and 71 local Hispanic TV stations
5. Internet search figures reflect paid activity on Google and are compiled from monthly data on Top 20,000 subdomains
6. Magazine media includes Publishers Information Bureau (PIB) data and reflect print editions of publications
7. Newspaper media figures reflect print editions of publications
8. Local Radio includes expenditures for 32 markets in the U.S.
9. FSI data represents distribution costs only

Measured Ad Spending By Advertiser

Spending among the ten largest advertisers in the first nine months of 2011 was $11,826.3 million, a 1.4 percent decline compared to a year ago. Among the Top 100 marketers, a diversified group accounting for more than two-fifths of all measured ad expenditures, year-to-date budgets fell 0.3 percent.

Procter & Gamble maintained its top-ranked position with spending of $2,127.2 million through September, down 5.6 percent compared to last year. In the July-September quarter, when many leading package goods marketers made deep cuts to their media budgets, P&G expenditures were nearly flat versus a year ago.

AT&T was the second largest advertiser for the nine month period with expenditures of $1,527.1 million, a decline of 3.5 percent. In the months immediately following the March 2011 announcement of its agreement to purchase T-Mobile, AT&T ad spending slowed sharply. As government approval of the deal became less certain and as T-Mobile preemptively hiked its own media budgets, AT&T began restoring ad spend during the third quarter. For all of Q3, its expenditures were off just 0.7 percent from a year ago.

At Verizon Communications, year-to-date expenditures were $1,177.6 million, a decrease of 18.0 percent and the largest percentage drop among the Top Ten marketers. Having cut budgets steadily since the beginning of 2010, Verizon spending rates are now being compared against lower levels of a year ago. This largely explains why Verizon expenditures in Q3 were down just 5.4 percent year-on-year.

The largest growth rate among the Top Ten marketers was posted by Chrysler, up 41.3 percent to $867.8 million for the first nine months of the year. The increase was driven by marketing introductions for several new or redesigned models. However, the pace of spending slowed during Q3 as these launch programs wound down and July-September expenditures finished 9.2 percent ahead of last year.

Rival automaker General Motors pursued a more restrained course and reduced its outlays by 12.2 percent during the first nine months of 2011, to $1,309.9 million. Q3 media budgets fell 11.1 percent. The proportion of GM’s ad budget earmarked towards passenger cars, as opposed to SUVs and pickups trucks, is pacing at its highest level in more than four years.

L’Oreal investments for the nine month period rose 22.6 percent to $948.3 million as the company expanded marketing support for the L’Oreal Paris, Maybelline and Garnier brand lines. Comcast (+18.9 percent, to $1,279.0 million) and Time Warner (+0.9 percent, to $893.1 million) also posted year-to-date spending gains, despite reducing their budgets in Q3.

Source: Kantar Media

1. Figures do not include FSI, House Ads or PSA activity
2. The sum of the individual companies can differ from the total shown due to rounding

Measured Ad Spending By Category

Expenditures for the ten largest categories grew 3.1 percent in the first nine months of 2011, to $59,523.6 million. For the July-September quarter, the aggregate increase was 1.8 percent and quarterly growth rates for seven of the ten categories trailed their year-to-date average, further evidence of the slowdown in ad spending.

Automotive was the top category with $9,908.4 million of spending during the nine month period, up 7.0 percent. However, the bulk of the gain came early in the year and from April through September automotive budgets have grown just 1 percent. The March earthquake and tsunami in Japan, coupled with monsoon flooding in Thailand, has had a ripple effect on U.S. auto advertising. These natural disasters disrupted production at Toyota and Honda and led to reduced advertising of their vehicles in the face of inventory shortages. With a tightened industry supply of new vehicles and less competition for sales, other manufacturers seized an opportunity to improve profit margins by scaling back on consumer incentives and reducing media budgets.

Local Services was the second largest category and tallied $7,144.2 million of media spending for the nine months. Year-to-date growth was up 7.2 percent and Q3 surpassed this level with an increase of 7.8 percent. This performance is consistent with the category’s weighting towards mid-sized advertisers, a segment that has been spending robustly throughout the year.

Category expenditures for Direct Response products advanced more than 10 percent during the July-September quarter and reached $4,698.5 million for the full nine months, up 3.9 percent versus a year ago. The Q3 gains suggest lower demand from full-price advertisers for the non-premium and run-of-station inventory which are the staple of DR marketers.

After an extended run-up, expenditure growth rates for consumer package goods categories have been retreating. For the January-September period, Food & Candy was down 2.6 percent to $4,838.1 million while ad spending for Personal Care Products slowed sharply in Q3 but still finished the nine months up 7.6 percent to $4,787.3 million.

The Telecom category continues to lose ground. Year-to date spending declined 4.9 percent to $6,405.1 million and Q3 expenditures tumbled 6.1 percent. The ongoing weakness within the wireless segment has now taken root among satellite TV operators, previously a reliable source of ad spending growth.

Source: Kantar Media

1. Figures do not include FSI or PSA activity
2. Miscellaneous Retail excludes these retail segments: Department Stores, Home Furnishing & Building Supply Stores
3. The sum of the individual categories can differ from the total shown due to rounding

Top Spending Advertisers Within Select Media

The top ten TV advertisers spent $7,284.5 million in the medium during the first nine months of 2011, up 0.1 percent from a year ago. This group accounted for 15.0 percent of total TV expenditures by all advertisers.

Source: Kantar Media

1 Figures do not include PSA activity
2 The sum of the individual companies can differ from the total shown due to rounding

The ten largest Internet advertisers invested a total of $1,809.3 million in paid search and display campaigns, up 11.1 percent versus a year ago. Despite fragmentation on the web, the group accounted for 10.8 percent share of all Internet ad dollars. The three leading wireless telecom providers each made the list along with a pair of financial advertisers.

Source: Kantar Media

1. The sum of the individual companies can differ from the total shown due to rounding

The top ten magazine advertisers in January-September 2011 invested $2,703.9 million in the medium, a decrease of 2.8 percent. As a proportion of total magazine ad spending by all advertisers, the top ten accounted for 17.1 percent.

Source: Kantar Media

1. Figures exclude Business-to-Business publications
2. The sum of the individual companies can differ from the total shown due to rounding

About Kantar Media

Kantar Media provides strategic advice and competitive intelligence to the world’s leading brands, publishers, agencies and industry bodies, helping them navigate and succeed in a rapidly evolving media industry. This includes analysis of paid media opportunities; counsel on brand reputation, corporate management and consumer engagement through owned media; and, evaluating consumers’ reactions in earned media. Kantar Media provides clients with a broad range of insights from audience research, competitive intelligence, vital consumer behavior and digital insights, to marketing effectiveness and online influence. Our experts currently work with 22,000 companies tracking 3 million brands in 50 countries. www.KantarMediaNA.com.

SAN FRANCISCO – Greystripe, the largest brand-focused mobile ad network and a division of ValueClick Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK), announced impressive results from its new mobile advertising units known as Ad Boosters, launched in October of this year. This next generation mobile ad format features social media integration, as well as local content and deals. They are aimed at making mobile advertising more relevant and valuable to smartphone users.

Ad Boosters are placed around a 300×250 full screen smartphone ad making it more engaging and interactive with the use of a branded logo and multiple click options. This improved engagement and interactivity drives higher click-through rates (CTR), as Ad Booster campaigns run to date have shown a 300 percent increase in CTR compared to similar-sized ad units that do not have the Ad Booster functionality.

Ad Boosters offer industry-focused and social units. Industry-focused ad boosters – a first for mobile ads – offer formats focused on targeted verticals, including: retail, consumer-packaged goods, automotive, travel, technology, consumer electronics, entertainment and health. These customizable boosters allow advertisers to direct users to multiple actions related to advertisers’ needs. Social Boosters allow brands to add buttons to engage users with social connections, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.

One of the first campaigns to run was a large consumer electronics brand that specializes in cameras. The campaign ran with two buttons: “Find Nearest Location” and “Watch Video”. The campaign has delivered 1.4 million impressions and saw 4 percent click-through rates – meaning 56,000 users clicked on the ad. Fifty-two percent of users clicked the locator button and 48 percent clicked the video button.

“Consumers’ mass adoption of the mobile web coupled with the rise in social media makes it a no brainer that mobile ads with social components will perform better than traditional formats,” said Kurt Hawks, VP of Operations at Greystripe. “We’re finding, despite a smaller screen than a PC, smartphones are becoming advanced enough to deliver more than a message but a true call-to-action – whether that means to find the nearest store location or participate directly in a location-based daily deal. Mobile ads are growing up and we’re excited to see consumers respond.”

The boosters, which are fully customizable, run in-app as an interstitial unit on iPhone, iPod Touch and Android devices. Buttons include:

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Google+
Mobile Website
Daily Deals
Buy
Video
Coupon
Store Locator
Recommend
Download
Call

For more information, visit: www.greystripe.com/boosters

About Greystripe

Greystripe, a division of ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK), is the largest brand-focused mobile advertising network in the US by reach. Greystripe delivers the highest engagement and most sophisticated targeting for brand marketers, the maximum revenue for publishers and app developers, and the best ad experience for users. Greystripe’s proprietary advertising platform serves billions of rich media impressions to over 40 million users of touch-driven devices through more than 3,500 application titles and mobile websites across all major mobile platforms.

For more information, please visit: http://www.greystripe.com

About ValueClick, Inc.

ValueClick, Inc. (Nasdaq: VCLK) is one of the world’s largest digital marketing companies. Through a unique combination of data, technology and services, ValueClick increases brand awareness and drives customer acquisition at scale for the world’s largest advertisers, and maximizes advertising revenue for tens of thousands of online and mobile publishers. ValueClick’s brands include Commission Junction, ValueClick Media, Dotomi, Greystripe, Mediaplex, Smarter.com, CouponMountain.com, Investopedia.com, and PriceRunner. The Company is based in Westlake Village, California, and has offices in major advertising markets worldwide. For more information, please visit http://www.valueclick.com.

EMERYVILLE, Calif. – Lyris, Inc. (OTCBB: LYRI.OB), the global digital marketing expert, released “The Lyris Email Report: Five Strategies to Jumpstart 2012.” Crafted from market research surveying more than 500 marketing professionals, this report identifies the top concerns and challenges marketers face and offers recommendations to overcome these challenges and plan for an effective 2012. In this report, Lyris reveals actionable and practical solutions for connecting with customers, achieving better deliverability and leveraging customer intelligence to make online communications count.

As 2011 comes to a close, Lyris asked marketers what was on their minds looking ahead to 2012. The responses show that metrics and reporting, smart segmentation, analytics, customizable tools and engaging with full service partners and vendors top the list of concerns for marketing leaders. In fact these challenges remain top of mind throughout the marketing organization.

The Lyris Email Report: Five Strategies to Jumpstart 2012 addresses these concerns with practical steps to achieve success in the following:

- Understanding advanced algorithms that link your customers and products

- Executing smart segmentation for relevant, targeted content

- Leveraging metrics and reporting to drive business results

- Implementing an integrated solution approach that makes it easier to do more

- Using full-suite email marketing solutions to maximize your email program

“Marketers need to move quickly and make sophisticated connections with their customers to make an impact. And they need to do it in a simple, meaningful way,” said Tina Stewart, senior vice president of marketing at Lyris. “We wanted to provide marketers with actionable strategies to achieve success and profitability in the New Year. Utilizing the tactics outlined in the Lyris report, email marketers can learn how to gain better customer insight, make sense of data and stay up-to-speed with the digital world in 2012.”

About Lyris, Inc.

Lyris, Inc. is the global digital marketing expert, delivering the perfect blend of technology and industry knowledge to help businesses achieve value with their email marketing campaigns. Lyris’ high-performance, secure and flexible email marketing platforms, Lyris HQ and Lyris ListManager (Lyris LM), optimize email efficiency by providing automated email delivery, robust segmentation and integrated social, mobile, search and analytics. The Lyris solutions portfolio is comprised of both in-the-cloud and on-premises email marketing solutions – Lyris HQ, Lyris LM – combined with customer-focused services and support. We understand the unique needs of companies and build solutions for marketers that deliver quantifiable ROI and true business value. www.lyris.com

San Mateo, Calif – BrightEdge, the leading site, search and social management platform for global enterprises, today released analysis showing that Google+ page creation amongst the world’s top 100 brands jumped in the last month from 61 percent to 77 percent (93 percent of top 100 brands are on Facebook), while the number of people in circles increased over 50 percent from 147k to 222k.

It is still early days as top 100 brands determine how best to establish a Google+ presence, while continuing to attract more people in circles.  Google continues to have the largest fan contingent of any brand with more than 77k fans, up from 65k just one month before.  Brands like Starbucks nearly quadrupled their social followers in the last month and H&M and Pepsi broke into 20k plus people in circles, which is still a shadow of the millions of Facebook fans these brands have already connected with. In fact, a review of Facebook and Google+ properties for all top 100 brands, showed a collective total of almost 300 million Facebook fans for these top brands, compared to approximately 148k Google+ followers for these same brands.

“Google is embedding their popular new product with its dominant search marketing position, replicating the tie between social and search channels, just as Facebook’s Open Graph tied sites and search together earlier this year, blurring the lines between social and search engagement,” said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “Top 100 brands are realizing that they now need to address both channels. Now the real work begins, if they want to extend their social presence on the Web from Facebook to the new Google+.”

To learn more about the Google+ analysis, please visit BrightEdge SocialShare to view and download the full report here: http://www.brightedge.com/resources.

About BrightEdge
BrightEdge is the leading site, search and social management solution for global enterprises, helping more than 1,100 of the world’s largest brands stay ahead in the rapidly evolving Internet landscape.
BrightEdge S3 drives more than $4 billion in organic search across industries, harnessing the power of analytics to drive revenue from web sites, search engines and social networks across the globe in a measurable, predictable way. BrightEdge is based in San Mateo, CA and is privately held with financing from Battery Ventures, Altos Ventures and Illuminate Ventures.

For more information, please visit www.brightedge.com, friend us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/seoplatform or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/brightedge.

STAMFORD, Conn. – InsightExpress, a leading marketing research and data analytics firm, announced the launch of Tablet AdInsights, a pioneering new ad effectiveness solution that measures the brand impact of campaigns running across tablet devices.

A timely response to a growing industry need, Tablet AdInsights was born out of InsightExpress’ industry leading AdInsights® offering. Tablet AdInsights allows advertisers, agencies and publishers to measure the brand impact of tablet-focused campaigns against metrics such as awareness, message association, favorability, consideration and intent.

Tablet AdInsights recruits respondents directly from their device while surfing the Internet. Using the AdInsights proven test/control methodology, InsightExpress recruits the control group (unexposed) prior to the campaign and any potential exposure. Once a campaign launches, respondents for the test group (exposed) are randomly recruited.

“At InsightExpress, we believe in staying way out ahead of the curve, not only providing clients with the solutions they need today, but also the ones they will rely on tomorrow. Tablet AdInsights fills a significant industry gap by allowing advertisers, agencies and publishers to understand the effect of campaign exposure via these revolutionary devices,” said Drew Lipner, EVP, Group Director at InsightExpress. “Given our longstanding expertise in brand communications and mobile research, InsightExpress is uniquely positioned to lead the research community down this exciting path.”

“As we have witnessed the tablet phenomenon and experienced the profound effect on media, a critical need has emerged to measure ad-effectiveness. With Tablet AdInsights, we are able to measure an ad’s brand impact within this unique environment,” said Paul Borgese, Director of Research and Insights at The Weather Channel Media Solutions. “We have partnered with InsightExpress on our ad effectiveness initiatives for many years, and see Tablet AdInsights as an extension of the creativity and vision that sets them apart in the research industry.”

About InsightExpress

InsightExpress is an industry leading marketing research and data analytics provider specializing in the measurement of brand communications. The company’s proven approaches include message evaluation, advertising effectiveness, creative development and cross-media optimization. With vast industry expertise, proprietary methodologies and an exclusive platform, InsightExpress helps agencies, media and marketers optimize marketing initiatives across online, mobile and other media. Founded in 1999, InsightExpress is headquartered in Stamford, CT, with offices in San Francisco and New York. For more information, please visit our corporate Web site at www.insightexpress.com or our InsightfulAnalytics blog at http://blog.insightexpress.com/; you may also call us at 203.406.3233.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – StrongMail, a leading provider of interactive marketing solutions for email marketing and social media, today announced the results of its “2012 Marketing Trends” survey, which provides unique insight into how businesses plan to budget and prioritize marketing dollars in the New Year. Conducted in November 2011, 939 business leaders participated in the global survey.

Survey Highlights

- 92% plan to increase or maintain marketing spend in 2012

- 60% plan to increase email marketing budget; 55% social media; 37% mobile/search (tied)

- 45% cite data integration as primary email marketing challenge in 2012; 43% lack of resources/staff; 40% content management

- 48% cite increasing subscriber engagement as top 2012 email marketing initiative; 44% improving segmentation/targeting; 32% growing opt-in email list

- 68% plan to integrate email marketing with social media; 44% with mobile; 17% with search
Marketing Budgets Remain Healthy; Email and Social Media Attract Increased Investment

Email marketing (60%) and social media (55%) were cited as the top two areas for increased marketing spend. According to the survey, 51% of businesses plan to increase their marketing budgets in 2012, and another 41% plan to maintain current levels. Only 8% of respondents plan to decrease marketing budgets, which is a slight increase over the 7% reported in last year’s survey. Other areas of increased spend included mobile and search, which are tied at 37%. Direct mail (28%) and tradeshows (23%) are top targets for decreased spend.

Subscriber Engagement is Top Email Marketing Priority; Data Integration is Top Challenge

The top email marketing initiatives for 2012 are increasing subscriber engagement (48%), improving segmentation and targeting (44%) and growing opt-in email lists (32%). Data integration is key to achieving these top priorities, but it is also identified as the primary email marketing challenge in 2012 (45%), followed by lack of resources (43%) and content management (40%). These opposing data points represent an opportunity for email service providers to fill the gap with relevant services.

Marketers Focus on Integrating Email Marketing and Social Media

More than two-thirds of businesses plan to integrate social media and email in 2012, versus 44% integrating mobile and email. The strong ties between email marketing and social media are also emphasized by the 47% of businesses that plan to increase investment in using email to drive growth in their social media channels, such as corporate Facebook and Twitter pages. The next popular areas of investment are batch promotional (44%) and newsletter (39%) programs, followed by real-time lifecycle marketing programs (35%), with an emphasis on winback (68%) and welcome (59%) programs.

Marketers Unclear on Value of Mobile Marketing

More than a third of businesses plan to increase their investment in mobile marketing programs such as mobile apps (29%) and SMS alerts (20%), but there is a lack of consensus on the primary value of this emerging channel. Building customer and loyalty (35%) was identified as the top benefit, followed by expanded reach (29%) and awareness building (28%). However, this is offset by a similar percentage still trying to figure it out (24%) and a smaller percentage citing no value at all (7%).

“While email marketing leads the pack in terms of increased investment in 2012, the data also reveals that marketers need to overcome key challenges around data integration and resource constraints,” said Christopher Marriott, vice president of agency services at StrongMail. “Whether managing and optimizing existing email marketing programs or enabling integration with social media and mobile, there is a real opportunity for full-service email marketing providers like StrongMail to help companies get the most out of their interactive marketing investments in 2012.”

Survey Data

Full survey data is available at: www.strongmail.com/2012marketsurvey

About the Survey

The StrongMail “2012 Marketing Trends Survey” was conducted in conjunction with Zoomerang. The poll, which gathered feedback from 939 business executives in a wide range of industries, was conducted from November 16 – 29, 2011.

For more information on email marketing trends, tips and best practices, visit our Email Marketing Insights blog.

About StrongMail Systems, Inc.

Every day, StrongMail is empowering leading brands to engage and grow their customer base through email marketing and social media. From the world’s largest enterprises to the hottest daily deal sites, StrongMail is helping smart marketers boost the performance of their programs with cutting-edge lifecycle email marketing capabilities and the ability to deliver millions of highly personalized messages in minutes. Our products and services provide end-to-end solutions for such notable brands as Travelocity, Macy’s, McAfee, Viacom and T. Rowe Price. Learn more at www.strongmail.com, or follow us online at www.twitter.com/StrongMail or www.facebook.com/StrongMail.

“Social developers have been searching for predictable revenue, without damaging the user experience, and looking for access to world-class brands,” says Mr. Santos,  “I joined MediaBrix because of the team’s unprecedented access to big brands and agencies. Add a solid and scalable technology platform like Social Flex that allows these brands to deploy across the increasingly fragmented social media landscape, and it’s a very compelling company.”

Mr. Santos joins MediaBrix from Kontagent, the leader in social gaming analytics, where he created and managed relationships with major game studios and media companies. Before that he held senior level sales and business development roles at gaming companies such as GameSpy and DemonWare.

MediaBrix (www.mediabrix.com) simplifies the creation, buying, optimization and measurement of social media advertising. It provides agencies and advertisers a single solution for all of their social advertising objectives to an audience of over 500 million both online and via mobile devices. MediaBrix’s effective and comprehensive suite of social media advertising products, including Social Flex, Social Views and Social Pulse enables marketers to deploy, monitor and optimize campaigns across apps, games and major social venues including Facebook and LinkedIn.

For application and game developers, wanting to monetize the majority of users who do not purchase virtual goods, MediaBrix has built Social Flex as an easy to use monetization platform that can be delivered through any browser based application and giving developers access to growing agency and advertiser social media spend.

MediaBrix is based in New York and backed by funding from Revel Partners, an early-expansion stage investment group focused on financing disruptive innovation in the areas of digital media & internet technology.

The Boards of blinkx plc (AIM:BLNX), the world’s largest video search engine (“blinkx” or the “Company”) and Prime Visibility Media Group, Inc., a leading online performance advertising network and digital marketing agency (“PVMG”) are pleased to announce today that they have entered into a definitive stock purchase agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”) pursuant to which blinkx has acquired the entire issued and to be issued shares of common stock and the entire issued and to be issued shares of preferred stock of PVMG (the “PVMG Shares”) for an aggregate consideration of US$36 million (£22.4 million), to be satisfied in cash (the “Acquisition”).

The Acquisition consideration of US$36 million (£22.4 million) will be funded through blinkx’s existing cash balances and the proceeds from a proposed placing of new ordinary shares in the capital of the Company (the “Placing”) announced separately today. A separate announcement is being issued by the Company this morning which will contain details of the Placing.

In the event that the Placing does not complete for any reason, the Acquisition will be funded entirely from the Company’s existing cash balances.

Further details of the Acquisition are set out in the Appendix to this document, available at http://www.blinkx.com/article/acquisition-prime-visibility-media-group-inc-blinkx-plc~1667.

Transaction Highlights

PVMG’s network averages over 600 advertisers (measured over the 6 month period to 30 September 2011) and 350 publishers. Processing 1.5 billion queries, and generating 14 million ad interactions every day, PVMG has the reach and volume to meet the demands of metric-driven advertisers and enables publishers to monetise their traffic from multiple forms of advertising.

Following the Acquisition, blinkx expects to integrate PVMG’s platform with blinkx’s so as to enable the blinkx video search engine to respond to a portion of PVMG’s 1.5 billion daily queries with relevant video results. Where available these videos can be paired with rich media video ads that typically monetise at a higher rate.

In September 2011, the average effective cost per mille (eCPM) of PVMG’s sponsored text advertisements was approximately US$5.00, while blinkx’s standard untargeted sponsored video advertisements were priced at US$13.00. blinkx believes that the combined group will be able to realise some of the differential between these two rates to generate incremental revenue.

PVMG also operates a digital marketing agency which offers consulting services to assist customers in developing Internet marketing strategies to establish and enhance their digital presence, through Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), social media, email and mobile marketing services.

Following the Acquisition, blinkx expects that the agency business will provide useful insights into its brands’ Internet marketing strategies, which will enable blinkx to offer more compelling advertising solutions.

PVMG is led by a team of seasoned executives with deep and diverse expertise in the search, rich media, mobile and agency sectors of the digital marketing industry. blinkx expects to benefit from the strategic addition of PVMG’s senior leadership in key areas across its business. PVMG CEO, S. Brian Mukherjee, will be joining blinkx as EVP and GM for Search and Mobile.

PVMG’s consolidated audited financial statements for its financial year ending 31 December 2010 show gross assets of US$22.4 million, and gross revenues of US$29.9 million, and a net loss for the period of US$389,511.

The integration is expected to begin immediately, and by the end of the financial year ending 31 March 2013 the Acquisition is expected to have an annual revenue run-rate of between US$35 million and US$40 million.

Commenting on the Acquisition, Suranga Chandratillake, CEO of blinkx, said:

“Online video advertising continues to be the fastest growing format by a significant margin, and is forecast to reach $3.5 billion over the next three years. Brands continue to move an increasing amount of their TV advertising budgets to online video, but need to be able to reach an audience of equivalent size on the Web. We’re extremely excited about the Acquisition because the integration of our video search engine with PVMG’s text search platform will enable us to tap into a new audience of intent-driven consumers and deliver TV-style brand advertising to them, which gives us the opportunity to expand our customer reach and increase PVMG’s margins over time.”

Commenting on the Acquisition, S. Brian Mukherjee, CEO of Prime Visibility Media Group, said:

“As a close knit team with the shared sense of optimism to lead the next revolution of digital advertising, we are proud of our accomplishments at PVMG. We believe that the Acquisition puts us at the very heart of one of the most dynamic sectors of the digital advertising industry – online video. The combination of our powerful, proven high frequency transaction engine and audience reach with blinkx’s unrivalled video search technology and vast content index unlocks a tremendous opportunity for us to develop high value online video advertising solutions.”

blinkx Current Trading

Trading for the first half of the financial year ending 31 March 2012 has been strong. For the half year period to 30 September 2011, the Company expects to report revenues of approximately US$44.6 million, an increase of over 60% from the corresponding period ended 30 September 2010, and to report EBITDA for the half year of approximately US$5.7 million and an operating profit for the half year of approximately US$4.9 million , an increase of approximately 95% over the corresponding period ended 30 September 2010. For the half year period to 30 September 2011, blinkx expects to report cash and cash equivalents of approximately US$52.9 million. blinkx is pleased to report that the integration of Burst Media Corporation is proceeding very well. blinkx expects that the cost of restructuring will be approximately US$2.5 million; less than the market predicted US$4.5 million. The Company has also seen continued growth of the AdHoc advertising platform with new brands, including Kelloggs, Disney, Pimms and Nivea.
blinkx expects to announce its half year results on 11 November 2011.

PVMG Overview

Established in December 2007, and headquartered in New York, NY, Prime Visibility Media Group, Inc., is a digital marketing holding company with three operating units: Prime Visibility, LLC an award winning search marketing agency; AdOn Network, Inc., a long tail performance, cost-per-click advertising network; and Predic.tv, LLC, an early stage rich media advertising company, which intends to target premium online advertisers and publishers.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced the immediate availability of Adobe® AudienceResearch, a new audience measurement tool that provides publishers and digital marketers with certified metrics on the size and engagement of digital audiences for websites, mobile applications and digital magazine editions. These key metrics are captured by Adobe SiteCatalyst®, an industry leading online analytics application, and provide publishers with the information most critical to attract advertising dollars. AudienceResearch is available at no additional cost to SiteCatalyst customers. In conjunction with AudienceResearch, the company also announced the general availability of the Adobe Audience Certification Program. Under this program, publishers become Adobe Certified Publishers, meaning Adobe has certified that their digital audience data meets certain criteria regarding the accuracy of data collection and reporting. Adobe Certified Publishers can contribute their data to the AudienceResearch tool.

AudienceResearch provides census-based measurement of metrics, meaning that the metrics are generated by counting all relevant traffic, a method considered more accurate and representative of actual traffic and behavior than panel-based methods. Panel-based methods monitor the behavior of a small group of volunteer consumers (i.e. the panel) and then use statistics to generate estimate metrics. The statistically generated results from panel-based estimates often differ significantly from census-based results and have been a point of controversy in the advertising industry. Adobe Certified Publishers can arm their direct sales teams with these certified, census-based metrics, including metrics that have been accredited by the Media Ratings Council, and advertisers can rely on these metrics as they make media planning decisions.

“We count many of the world’s largest publishers as our customers. With this strong customer base and pent-up demand for census-based metrics, we anticipate strong adoption of AudienceResearch,” said Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Marketing Business Unit, Adobe. “AudienceResearch has the potential to provide the industry with a reliable, cross-channel currency for measuring digital audience size and engagement, bringing greater confidence into the digital advertising planning, buying and selling process.”

Today’s announcement builds on Adobe achieving MRC accreditation for key SiteCatalyst metrics. To achieve accreditation, Adobe has put in place innovative methods of auditing site implementations of SiteCatalyst as well as cleansing and certifying raw site traffic, giving advertisers and publishers the most accurate view of digital audience metrics. Additionally, publishers using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite to create digital magazine editions for tablet devices may elect to have their metrics automatically certified as analytics is natively built into the Digital Publishing Suite. This native integration ensures the integrity of data collection.

Become an Adobe Certified Publisher

Publishers currently using Adobe SiteCatalyst can become an Adobe Certified Publisher, which assures advertisers that the certified digital audience size and engagement metrics provided by the Adobe Certified Publisher have met certain requirements for data collection integrity and reporting accuracy. Adobe Certified Publishers can contribute these key metrics to AudienceResearch. Participation in the Adobe Audience Certification Program is complimentary for existing SiteCatalyst customers. To participate, contact an Adobe account manager.

Publisher Support for Census-based Measurement via AudienceResearch

Chris Reynolds, executive director of analytics, Condé Nast

“Condé Nast is leading the market by taking our world-class brands into the new digital age using the insights garnered from our long-standing relationship with Adobe SiteCatalyst and the technology from Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. We’re excited to see Adobe bringing together the content creation and delivery workflows with measurement and monetization solutions that will help us highlight the value of our brands to our advertising partners.”

Kim Vignola, vice president, research & analytics, E! & G4, NBC Universal

“Many online publishers feel that their traffic is underrepresented in panel-based services. The Adobe AudienceResearch tool is enabling advertisers to have confidence in the internal data that we know to be stable and accurate. The set-up is quick, and minimal traffic was filtered out through the accreditation process.”

Heather Idema, corporate research director, Bonnier Corporation

“As the digital landscape continues to rapidly advance, consumer’s expectations are revolutionizing the way publishers supply the demand for quality content. Publishers and media buyers are constantly seeking measurement solutions that provide our digital mediums with an ‘apples to apples’ comparison that is credible and simplifies audience measurement. The certification of Adobe’s syndicated platform offers us a stage to help better represent our digital venues, ultimately opening the flood gates to more business.”

Ryan Whittington, senior vice president, digital revenue at The Business Journals

“With the rapid increase in the consumption of digital content across mediums and on many devices, publishers face the difficult challenges of providing a unified view of the audience. We need content and measurement solutions that meet the needs of the audience however they choose to consume, which is why we’re excited to see Adobe stepping up to the challenge of simplifying digital audience measurement..”

About the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite

The Adobe Digital Marketing Suite, powered by Omniture®, offers an integrated and open platform for online business optimization, a strategy for using customer insight to drive innovation throughout the business and enhance marketing efficiency. The Suite consists of integrated applications to collect and unleash the power of customer insight to optimize customer acquisition, conversion and retention efforts as well as the creation and distribution of content. For example, using the Suite, marketers can identify the most effective marketing strategies and ad placements as well as create relevant, personalized and consistent customer experiences across digital marketing channels, such as onsite, display, e-mail, social, video and mobile. The Suite enables marketers to make quick adjustments, automate certain customer interactions and better maximize marketing ROI, which, ultimately, can positively impact the bottom line.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated

Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

San Francisco, Calif. – Bleacher Report, one of the fastest-growing sites on the Internet and the Web’s fifth largest sports media destination with more than 20 million monthly unique users, today announced a series of enhancements aimed at improving the overall experience for sports fans across the site with the launch of an innovative video hub featuring original programming and short form video content.  Today’s news comes on the heels of last month’s announcement of Bleacher Report’s partnership with YouTube in which YouTube announced plans to roll out more than one hundred new original channels, created specifically for today’s connected viewers.

Through this video investment, Bleacher Report is further establishing itself as the leading source for sports content around the teams and topics that fans are most passionate about, while empowering fans with a voice through its contributor system and giving advertisers a unique platform in reaching a highly influential and engaged audience.

And through its partnership with YouTube, Bleacher Report will be building on its video investment by creating a new, diverse and creative set of original programming that will augment the content ecosystem YoutTube is evolving across various categories including sports.

“Bleacher Report in such a short period of time has revolutionized the way sports content is created and consumed,” said Dave Nemetz, Co-Founder and VP Video Programming and Production.  “With this new investment in video, Bleacher Report is building on its commitment in providing sports fans with the best overall experience with content that is both compelling and entertaining while giving our advertising partners a robust environment in reaching a highly coveted audience with tremendous purchasing power.”

First Independent Player to Offer HD and Original Video Content

Behind a site refresh that is designed to better accommodate the growing volume of content offered by Bleacher Report, the site features a state-of-the art video destination for readers looking for the best and curated video programming on the Web.  This is the first time that an independently owned and operated media site has offered HD video production for multiple sports content.  Bleacher Report recently introduced a new original Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) program called The Ultimate Show, a weekly series featuring Kenda Perez (Spike TV’s Best of Pride Fighting Championship) as the host.  With Edge shave gel as the title sponsor, the series each week features fight previews and highlights, interviews with some of the top fighters in the sport, and in-depth analysis and panel discussions with Bleacher Report experts and MMA luminaries.

“Partnering with Bleacher Report on the new Mixed Martial Arts video series made perfect sense for Edge, as we are a brand committed to giving guys an Edge in life, inside and outside the octagon,” said Jeffrey Wolf, senior brand manager for Edge shave gel at Energizer Personal Care.  “Bleacher Report’s ongoing investment in providing readers with the ultimate sports experience through new products like video represents their commitment in building scalable publishing and editorial model for partners like us.”

And as part of this investment in video, Bleacher Report plans to roll out a slate of new shows later this year and beginning in 2012.

Deepens Coverage of Team and Topic Coverage Through Video

Complementing original programming, Bleacher Report will also embark on providing users with short form video vignettes that maps to the company’s unique approach in content creation around teams and topics that consumers want through a video format.

Initially, Bleacher Report’s short form video coverage will feature team and topic news from a select group of editorial experts and will expand over time as the company scales video production with a focus on enabling many of the company’s vast contributor base to help power this form of video content creation and distribution.

About Bleacher Report
Bleacher Report (B/R) is the Web’s leading publisher of original and entertaining sports content and is one of the fastest growing sports media Web sites in the U.S.  Since launching in 2008, B/R’s Web site has grown to an audience of more than 20 million monthly unique visitors.  The company’s distinguished editorial team leads more than 1,000 Featured Columnists and 6,000 contributors, and directs Bleacher Report’s unique data-driven approach to creating and programming content.  The result is first-rate sports commentary that gives B/R’s audience the stories they want to read in real-time around the teams and topics they are most passionate about.  B/R’s editorial content is also syndicated to a number of national and regional publishing partners including USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Philly.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and Seattle PI.  In addition, more than 1.5 million users have subscribed to B/R’s sport-and-team-specific email newsletters, which provide a demand driven mix of content that engages a broad array of sports fans.

To learn more about Bleacher Report, visit http://bleacherreport.com/about

NEW YORK, NY – Jun Group (www.jungroup.com), the premier social video platform, released data that shed light on emerging trends and usage patterns in one of the fastest-growing segments of online video, social video. The study defines social video as online video programs created for major brands, which users opt-in to watch and which they can share with others. In addition to the data summarized below, Jun Group has created an infographic to visually represent the findings. The infographic can be downloaded here: http://jungroup.com/infographic2011/

Jun Group based the study on a sample of more than 13 million user-initiated video views between January 1, 2011 and September 30, 2011. The views were a result of social video campaigns created for Fortune 500 brands across a number of vertical categories, including consumer packaged goods, apparel, consumer technology, retail, luxury products, fashion and beauty, sports and fitness, and auto.

Key findings are as follows:

Humor works. Humorous videos are prominent within the social video space, accounting for four-in-10 campaigns. Those who watch a humorous video are more than three times more likely to click to a brand’s Facebook page after viewing than those who watch other types of social video content.

Celebrities don’t guarantee engagement. Only one-in-10 social video campaigns feature a TV or movie personality, and they are actually less effective at driving brand interactions than non-celebrity videos. Celebrity videos drive 12 percent fewer visits to brands’ Facebook pages than non-celebrity videos. This data may indicate that those who watch celebrity videos are more interested in the famous personas than the brands behind them.

Short and long-form most effective. Fifteen-second videos produce the best click-through rates, but they are used least. Only 10 percent of videos are 15 seconds or less, yet they are 153 percent more effective than videos between 16 seconds and one minute.

Videos of 60 seconds or more are the second-most effective format, outperforming videos between 16-60 seconds by 70 percent. This may indicate that 16 second-to-one-minute videos are not enough time to tell an engaging story.

“Social video is re-writing the advertising rules of engagement,” said Mitchell Reichgut, founder and CEO of Jun Group. “While the vast majority of online video advertising is still interruptive, social video engages people on their terms. The data from this study demonstrate why social video is one of the hottest new segments of online advertising.”

The study also provided the following insights:

Girl power grows. According to Jun Group’s first study in January (www.marketwire.com/press-release/Jun-Group-Shares-2010-Trends-and-Insights-From-Social-Video-1385030.htm), women accounted for nearly 57 percent of social video views. In 2011, that number has grown to 63 percent.

18-44 year-olds dominate, younger people gaining interest. Sixty percent of video watchers are between the ages of 18-44, while viewers between 12-17 years-old increased by 48 percent since the beginning of 2011.

Facebook page traffic. The social video opt-in environment is more effective in driving post-view engagement than interruptive video units, such as pre-roll. Users who opt-in to watch social videos are more than three times as likely to interact with a brand after the view, compared to pre-roll*. Social videos are notably effective in driving users to a brand’s Facebook page. “Join a brand on Facebook” is the single most popular post-view interaction, accounting for 40 percent of all post-view activity.

Social video completion. Social video programs deliver completion rates that are significantly higher than pre-roll. On average, 64 percent of users served a 30-second pre-roll video watch to completion, according to a recent study*. In contrast, 95 percent of users who opt-in to a social video of the same length watch to the end.

*YuMe Video Advertising Metrics reports (’10,’11)

About Jun Group
Jun Group is the premier social video platform. The company’s distribution technology delivers millions of monthly opt-in video views across social networks, mobile devices, premium content sites, and YouTube. Jun Group distributes videos from 15 seconds to 3 minutes-long with exceptionally high completion rates and significant post-view activity, such as web site visits, coupon downloads, and store locator usage. The company’s analytics dashboard, Voyeur, provides real time data about views, shares, likes, tweets, ratings, comments, and geographic dispersal down to the state and town. Founded in 2005, Jun Group’s clients include Fortune 500 brands, major entertainment companies, and media and creative agencies. For more information, visit www.jungroup.com.

NEW YORK – M&A firm AdMedia Partners announced it acted as exclusive financial advisor to GA|PRC Group, a leading retail marketing agency, in its acquisition by RFE Investment Partners along with its equity partners Caymus Equity Partners and Starboard Capital Partners, and with debt financing provided by Fifth Third Bancorp and CapitalSouth Partners.

GA|PRC Group (comprised of GA, PureRed Creative and GAPRC Interactive) is a leading advertising agency that designs and executes integrated retail marketing programs – including premedia advertising execution, digital creative/design, digital asset management services, photographic services and interactive services – for national retailers including Dollar General, Duane Reade, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Michaels, Safeway, SUPERVALU and S.P. Richards. As a single source provider of a customized turnkey solution, GA|PRC ‘s services significantly reduce retailers’ marketing operations costs, improve marketing execution processes and improve the brand experience at every touch point of their marketing campaigns through a broad set of eye-catching design, photographic and creative services. GA|PRC was founded in 1967, has 430 employees and is based in Stone Mountain, GA.

“This transaction demonstrates again that there is significant demand across a wide spectrum of leading private equity firms for platform marketing services companies with blue chip clients and attractive growth characteristics,” said Greg Smith, Managing Director at AdMedia Partners.

About AdMedia Partners

AdMedia Partners is a leading provider of middle market mergers and acquisitions advisory services to digital and traditional media, marketing and information businesses. Founded in 1990 and located in New York City, the firm has completed over 180 transactions worth over $8 billion since 1999. For more information, please visit www.admediapartners.com.

Select recent transactions completed by AdMedia Partners include representing the following firms:

ICUC, a leading social media moderating, monitoring and community development company, in its acquisition by Aegis Media’s iProspect.
LEVEL Studios, a leading digital marketing and technology services agency, in its acquisition by Rosetta, the largest independent interactive agency in the US and a portfolio company of Lindsay Goldberg.
OLSON, a leading integrated advertising/marketing agency, in its recapitalization and equity investment from KRG Capital Partners.
Cheil Worldwide in its acquisition of The Barbarian Group, an award winning digital creative and marketing company.
iCrossing Inc., a global digital marketing company, in its acquisition of Web development agency Proxicom, Inc.
Range Online Media, a search marketing and online media agency, in its acquisition by iProspect, a subsidiary of Aegis Group plc.
New Media Strategies, a leading interactive word of mouth marketing agency, in its acquisition by Meredith Corporation.
Brulant, one of the largest independent interactive marketing agencies, in its acquisition by Rosetta, a portfolio company of Lindsay Goldberg.
Triad Digital Media, LLC, an online media and advertising services company, in its significant growth capital investment from H.I.G. Ventures, LLC.
Marketing Direct, Inc., a leading provider of integrated marketing services to the healthcare industry, in its acquisition by KBM Group, a Wunderman company and member of WPP.
Media Storm, a leading media buying and planning agency, in its equity investment from Shamrock Capital.

About RFE Investment Partners

Located in New Canaan, CT, RFE Investment Partners (www.rfeip.com) is a private equity investment firm focusing on smaller, middle-market service, manufacturing and healthcare-service businesses. Since its founding in 1979, RFE has made investments in more than 120 companies operating in a variety of industries. RFE’s investment capital has spanned 7 partnerships, collectively amounting to more than $800 million of invested and available capital, and is currently investing from RFE Investment Partners 7, L.P., a $212 million private equity investment fund. RFE’s investors include corporate and state pension funds, banks and endowments.

About Caymus Equity Partners

Caymus Equity Partners (www.caymuspartners.com) invests in profitable middle and lower-middle market companies in attractive niches with strong growth potential. Caymus Equity Partners focuses on opportunities where it can leverage its prior experience and creativity to generate substantial value through a combination of organic and strategic acquisition growth. Caymus Equity Partners is an affiliate of Caymus Partners, a leading middle market investment bank.

About Starboard Capital Partners

Starboard Capital Partners is a financial and strategic sponsor that partners with management and private equity investors primarily in the acquisition of companies with initial enterprise values of $25 million to $250 million. Starboard principally focuses on developing partnerships with company owners and managements to enhance value through focused planning, driving organic initiatives and opportunistic add-on acquisitions. Starboard’s current portfolio of eight platform businesses represents more than $1 billion of revenue and approximately $100 million of EBITDA.

About Fifth Third Bancorp

Fifth Third Bancorp (NASDAQ: FITB) is a diversified financial services company headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Fifth Third has $111 billion in assets and operates 15 affiliates with 1,314 full-service Banking Centers. Fifth Third’s Structured Finance Group is a National Business Unit that calls on Private Equity Groups, providing both senior and subordinated debt to capitalize both acquisitions and recapitalizations.

About CapitalSouth Partners

CapitalSouth Partners was founded in 1998 to provide private equity and mezzanine capital to lower middle-market companies. Since its inception, CapitalSouth has closed over 60 transactions. With over $600 Million under management through multiple committed funds, CapitalSouth actively seeks to invest in lower middle-market companies located primarily in the South, but also throughout the U.S.

CapitalSouth Partners is headquartered in Charlotte, NC and operates full-service offices in Dallas, TX, Louisville, KY, Raleigh, NC and Orlando, FL.

LONDON, UK – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released an overview of internet usage in Europe, showing 372.1 million unique visitors went online in August 2011 for an average of 25.4 hours per person. This release highlights internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated under the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. Among the reportable markets, the United Kingdom showed the highest engagement with users spending an average of nearly 35 hours online in the past month, up 1.5 hours from the previous month.

Engagement with Facebook in Europe Increases in August 2011
Google Sites continued to rank as the top European web property in August with 337.7 million unique visitors (maintaining a 6-percent increase from a year ago), reaching 90.8 percent of the total European internet audience. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 255.9 million visitors (68.8 percent reach), followed closely by Facebook.com in third place with 245.3 million visitors (65.9 percent reach).

Russian social network VKontakte continued to display the highest average engagement among top properties, with Europeans spending 429.6 minutes (7.2 hours) on the site. Facebook, which ranked second in engagement, solidified its position with a 10-percent growth in time spent per visitor from the previous month, as users spent an average of 348 minutes (5.8 hours) on the property. Facebook also garnered the highest number of page views in August at 163.5 billion, representing 16.5 percent of all pages viewed in Europe. The average European visitor viewed 666 pages on Facebook during the month, slightly ahead of VKontakte, which drew an average of 608 page views per visitor.

Spotlight: Entertainment Properties See a 10-Percent Increase in Engagement
In August 2011, 345.8 million European unique visitors went to Entertainment properties, an increase of 10 percent from the previous year. On average, users spent 174.5 minutes (2.9 hours) on these sites, representing a 10-percent increase in average engagement. Among the top Entertainment subcategories, Movie sites showed the highest growth over the past year in visitation with an 18-percent increase.

YouTube.com drew the most visitors in the Entertainment category at 213.4 million, or more than 5 in 10 Europeans. YouTube.com also ranked first in engagement, with visitors spending more than 150.6 minutes (2.5 hours) on the site on average in August. This level of user engagement with YouTube surpassed engagement levels seen on other sites by a sizeable margin. Music video property VEVO ranked second in terms of audience size with 81.1 million visitors, with a significant percentage of its audience visiting via VEVO’s YouTube channel. Among the top 10 Entertainment sites, VEVO also exhibited the highest growth, having increased 55 percent in the past year. The French video-sharing site Dailymotion.com and German ProSiebenSat1 Sites were among the local European properties ranking among the top 10 Entertainment sites for the region.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Gartner, Inc. highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2012. The analysts presented their findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, being held here through October 20.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization’s long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

“These top 10 technologies will be strategic for most organizations, and IT leaders should use this list in their strategic planning process by reviewing the technologies and how they fit into their expected needs,” said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow.

“Organizations should start exploratory projects to look at promised candidate technology and kick off a search for combinations of information sources, including social sites and unstructured data that may be mined for insights,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

The top 10 strategic technologies for 2012 include:

Media Tablets and Beyond. Users can choose between various form factors when it comes to mobile computing. No single platform, form factor or technology will dominate and companies should expect to manage a diverse environment with two to four intelligent clients through 2015. IT leaders need a managed diversity program to address multiple form factors, as well as employees bringing their own smartphones and tablet devices into the workplace.

Enterprises will have to come up with two mobile strategies – one to address the business to employee (B2E) scenario and one to address the business to consumer (B2C) scenario. On the B2E front, IT must consider social goals, business goals, financial goals, and risk management goals. On the B2C front, which includes business to business (B2B) activities to support consumers, IT needs to address a number of additional issues such as surfacing and managing APIs to access enterprise information and systems, integration with third-party applications, integration with various partners for capabilities such as search and social networking, and delivery through app stores.

Mobile-Centric Applications and Interfaces. The user interface (IU) paradigm in place for more than 20 years is changing. UIs with windows, icons, menus, and pointers will be replaced by mobile-centric interfaces emphasizing touch, gesture, search, voice and video. Applications themselves are likely to shift to more focused and simple apps that can be assembled into more complex solutions. These changes will drive the need for new user interface design skills.

Building application user interfaces that span a variety of device types, potentially from many vendors, requires an understanding of fragmented building blocks and an adaptable programming structure that assembles them into optimized content for each device. Mobile consumer application platform tools and mobile enterprise platform tools are emerging to make it easier to develop in this cross-platform environment. HTML5 will also provide a long term model to address some of the cross-platform issues. By 2015, mobile Web technologies will have advanced sufficiently, so that half the applications that would be written as native apps in 2011 will instead be delivered as Web apps.

Contextual and Social User Experience. Context-aware computing uses information about an end-user or objects environment, activities, connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end-user or object. A contextually aware system anticipates the user’s needs and proactively serves up the most appropriate and customized content, product or service. Context can be used to link mobile, social, location, payment and commerce. It can help build skills in augmented reality, model-driven security and ensemble applications. Through 2013, context aware applications will appear in targeted areas such as location-based services, augmented reality on mobile devices, and mobile commerce.

On the social front, the interfaces for applications are taking on the characteristics of social networks. Social information is also becoming a key source of contextual information to enhance delivery of search results or the operation of applications.

Internet of Things. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a concept that describes how the Internet will expand as sensors and intelligence are added to physical items such as consumer devices or physical assets and these objects are connected to the Internet. The vision and concept have existed for years, however, there has been an acceleration in the number and types of things that are being connected and in the technologies for identifying, sensing and communicating. These technologies are reaching critical mass and an economic tipping point over the next few years. Key elements of the IoT include:

- Embedded sensors: Sensors that detect and communicate changes are being embedded, not just in mobile devices, but in an increasing number of places and objects.
- Image Recognition: Image recognition technologies strive to identify objects, people, buildings, places logos, and anything else that has value to consumers and enterprises. Smartphones and tablets equipped with cameras have pushed this technology from mainly industrial applications to broad consumer and enterprise applications.
- Near Field Communication (NFC) payment: NFC allows users to make payments by waving their mobile phone in front of a compatible reader. Once NFC is embedded in a critical mass of phones for payment, industries such as public transportation, airlines, retail and healthcare can explore other areas in which NFC technology can improve efficiency and customer service.

App Stores and Marketplaces. Application stores by Apple and Android provide marketplaces where hundreds of thousands of applications are available to mobile users. Gartner forecasts that by 2014, there will be more than 70 billion mobile application downloads from app stores every year. This will grow from a consumer-only phenomena to an enterprise focus. With enterprise app stores, the role of IT shifts from that of a centralized planner to a market manager providing governance and brokerage services to users and potentially an ecosystem to support entrepreneurs. Enterprises should use a managed diversity approach to focus on app store efforts and segment apps by risk and value.

Next-Generation Analytics. Analytics is growing along three key dimensions:

1. From traditional offline analytics to in-line embedded analytics. This has been the focus for many efforts in the past and will continue to be an important focus for analytics.

2. From analyzing historical data to explain what happened to analyzing historical and real-time data from multiple systems to simulate and predict the future.

3. Over the next three years, analytics will mature along a third dimension, from structured and simple data analyzed by individuals to analysis of complex information of many types (text, video, etc…) from many systems supporting a collaborative decision process that brings multiple people together to analyze, brainstorm and make decisions.

Analytics is also beginning to shift to the cloud and exploit cloud resources for high performance and grid computing.

In 2011 and 2012, analytics will increasingly focus on decisions and collaboration. The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action.

Big Data. The size, complexity of formats and speed of delivery exceeds the capabilities of traditional data management technologies; it requires the use of new or exotic technologies simply to manage the volume alone. Many new technologies are emerging, with the potential to be disruptive (e.g., in-memory DBMS). Analytics has become a major driving application for data warehousing, with the use of MapReduce outside and inside the DBMS, and the use of self-service data marts. One major implication of big data is that in the future users will not be able to put all useful information into a single data warehouse. Logical data warehouses bringing together information from multiple sources as needed will replace the single data warehouse model.

In-Memory Computing. Gartner sees huge use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. In addition, it offers a new layer of the memory hierarchy in servers that has key advantages — space, heat, performance and ruggedness among them. Besides delivering a new storage tier, the availability of large amounts of memory is driving new application models. In-memory applications platforms include in-memory analytics, event processing platforms, in-memory application servers, in-memory data management and in-memory messaging.

Running existing applications in-memory or refactoring these applications to exploit in-memory approaches can result in improved transactional application performance and scalability, lower latency (less than one microsecond) application messaging, dramatically faster batch execution and faster response time in analytical applications. As cost and availability of memory intensive hardware platforms reach tipping points in 2012 and 2013, the in-memory approach will enter the mainstream.

Extreme Low-Energy Servers. The adoption of low-energy servers — the radical new systems being proposed, announced and marketed by mostly new entrants to the server business —will take the buyer on a trip backward in time. These systems are built on low-power processors typically used in mobile devices. The potential advantage is delivering 30 times or more processors in a particular server unit with lower power consumption vs. current server approaches. The new approach is well suited for certain non-compute intensive tasks such as map/reduce workloads or delivery of static objects to a website. However, most applications will require more processing power, and the low-energy server model potentially increases management costs, undercutting broader use of the approach.

Cloud Computing. Cloud is a disruptive force and has the potential for broad long-term impact in most industries. While the market remains in its early stages in 2011 and 2012, it will see the full range of large enterprise providers fully engaged in delivering a range of offerings to build cloud environments and deliver cloud services. Oracle, IBM and SAP all have major initiatives to deliver a broader range of cloud services over the next two years. As Microsoft continues to expand its cloud offering, and these traditional enterprise players expand offerings, users will see competition heat up and enterprise-level cloud services increase.

Enterprises are moving from trying to understand the cloud to making decisions on selected workloads to implement on cloud services and where they need to build out private clouds. Hybrid cloud computing which brings together external public cloud services and internal private cloud services, as well as the capabilities to secure, manage and govern the entire cloud spectrum will be a major focus for 2012. From a security perspective new certification programs including FedRAMP and CAMM will be ready for initial trial, setting the stage for more secure cloud computing. On the private cloud front, IT will be challenged to bring operations and development groups closer together using “DevOps” concepts in order to approach the speed and efficiencies of public cloud service providers.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world’s leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner’s annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees’ annual planning efforts. IT executives rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.

More exclusive content, expanding multi-media coverage, including Twitter feeds and comments from the Gartner Blog Network are available Gartner’s SymLive at www.gartner.com/us/symposium.

Follow Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Follow news, photos and video coming from Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/GartnerSym, on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc and using #GartnerSym, on flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/27772229@N07/.

Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include:
October 25-27, Sao Paulo, Brazil: www.gartner.com/br/symposium
November 7-10, Barcelona, Spain: www.gartner.com/eu/symposium
November 14-17, Gold Coast, Australia: www.gartner.com/au/symposium
November 21-23, Mumbai, India: www.gartner.com/in/symposium

About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is a valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 11,500 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,500 associates, including 1,250 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & SYDNEY – Efficient Frontier today announced that it has extended its international footprint with the acquisition of Downstream Marketing, the largest provider of digital marketing technology and services in Australia. The acquisition provides an opportunity to accelerate growth internationally as well as across emerging mediums such as social and mobile. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The acquisition of Downstream Marketing represents a key milestone for Efficient Frontier as we capitalize on the huge market opportunity that exists outside of the U.S.,” said David Karnstedt, CEO and President of Efficient Frontier. “By acquiring a market leader in a key growth region, we will be able to provide new opportunities for our global customer base.”

Downstream Marketing has been a partner of Efficient Frontier since 2006, licensing its platform and providing search and display marketing for its clients. Downstream Marketing has captured significant market share, having grown twice as fast as the general market. They serve many of the leading digital marketers in the region including American Express, Avis, Sun Corporation, Vodafone, Westpac and Weight Watchers.

“For the past five years, Downstream Marketing has successfully deployed Efficient Frontier’s platform to manage digital marketing for our name-brand clients,” said Steve Knowles, CEO of Downstream Marketing. “We’re excited to officially join forces with them to expand our product offerings in our market as well as provide additional global reach to Efficient Frontier’s existing client base.”

Per the Australian Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), online advertising expenditure in Australia reached $2.45 billion, up 20% YOY in the 12 months ending June 30, 2011. Search was up 23% YOY, and Display was up 12% YOY. The online advertising business is on track to surpass $3 billion in 2012.

About Efficient Frontier

Efficient Frontier is a leader in online digital marketing, managing search, display and social media campaigns for advertisers and agencies around the world. Efficient Frontier currently manages more than $1 billion in annual digital marketing spend on behalf of its clients globally.

In May 2011, Efficient Frontier acquired Context Optional, the leading provider of social marketing management solutions for global brands on the leading social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. Context Optional’s Social Marketing Suite enables global enterprises to build, manage and measure their brand presence, and engage their fans to increase mindshare, word of mouth, customer loyalty and website traffic. Together, Efficient Frontier and Context Optional offer a complete solution for brands to acquire, activate and drive value from fans and followers.

Efficient Frontier is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with offices in New York, Chicago the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and India, and technology licensing partnerships in Japan and Hong Kong. Context Optional is headquartered in San Francisco. Efficient Frontier is a privately held company with funding from Redpoint Ventures and Cambrian Ventures. For more information on Efficient Frontier, visit http://www.efrontier.com and for Context Optional visit http://www.contextoptional.com.

About Downstream Marketing

Downstream Marketing is Australia’s leading provider of digital performance marketing solutions, managing search, social and display advertising for a range of clients across the financial services, travel, technology, telecommunications and online retail sectors. Utilizing market-leading optimization technologies developed by Efficient Frontier, Downstream Marketing maximizes performance from digital marketing investment by household brands in Australia & New Zealand. Headquartered in Sydney, Downstream Marketing services clients located across Australia and New Zealand.

CHICAGO – BrightTag, Inc., today announced the first wave of partners for its BrightTag ONE digital marketing integration platform. BrightTag is the first company to link site owners with the large and expanding ecosystem of digital service providers in real time through a server-to-server direct connection rather than through third-party code delivered through the browser. The BrightTag ONE platform replaces obstructive layers of third-party data collection code – or “tags” – on websites with a single, integrated cloud-based data server.

BrightTag ONE is predicated on the company’s belief that the current method of collecting valuable first-party website data, built on individual pixels and complex JavaScript tags loaded through the browser, has become slow, unstable and unscalable.  BrightTag’s new approach tackles these issues by eliminating legacy browser-based tracking code while ensuring complete data collection.

“BrightTag’s data integration model can address a major problem in digital marketing,” said Bruce Biegel, Managing Director, Winterberry Group. “There’s a large and rapidly increasing landscape of companies bringing innovation to the marketplace, but that innovation has come at a growing price as data needs to move between first and third parties. Server-to-server integration is a solution that promises to make digital marketing faster, cleaner, more transparent and more valuable for all parties.”

The initial members of the BrightTag ONE Partner Program being announced today – all of which have connected to the ONE platform – represent a wide cross-section of third-party digital marketing and analytics companies. The ONE platform gives BrightTag’s outstanding client roster of global brand leaders in retail, travel, consumer packaged goods, financial services and education immediate access to BrightTag Partners and the services they provide, promoting innovation and delivering richer ROI for marketers and advertisers.

“Overburdening pages with pixels has created performance problems for site owners and advertisers,” said Bill Demas, chief executive officer of Turn. “By replacing third-party tags and disseminating the data advertisers need, BrightTag offers an effective approach to addressing this problem. This partnership is perfectly aligned with Turn’s open ecosystem approach, and we are excited to show our joint customers how this technical integration can improve their digital advertising campaigns through data.”

BrightTag site owner and marketer clients can “see” what is happening to their data in real time, putting them in control over what is collected and shared.  BrightTag ONE’s integrated, server-to-server platform allows site owners to eliminate the clutter and overhead of third-party tracking code to serve clean data directly from the cloud.  BrightTag ONE is compatible with the most complex configurations and is fully backwards-compatible with legacy tracking tags when clients need a hybrid approach.

“BrightTag has set out to modernize our industry’s underlying data connectivity infrastructure. The BrightTag ONE platform provides clients with transparency around data collection and tools for controlling how their proprietary and valuable data is shared amongst their many partners,” said Marc Kiven, BrightTag’s founder. “Our clients are not asking us for ways to better ‘manage’ all of the tracking tags that litter their sites; rather, they want help removing these tags from their sites in order to deliver a better user experience and respect the privacy choices of their customers. The partners mentioned here today have joined us in improving how the digital marketing industry works.”

Michael Katz, CEO of interclick commented: “As our industry grows and develops new capabilities, so does the complexity and the problems complexity brings. The BrightTag ONE platform mitigates complexity by allowing marketers to remove tracking tags from the browser and decide what to do with data generated on their sites. Server-to-server data integration is the best approach we’ve seen to improve the customer experience and benefit every entity along the digital marketing value chain.”

“We see a great upside when we activate the Aggregate Knowledge Media Intelligence Platform with BrightTag clients,” said David Jakubowski, CEO of Aggregate Knowledge.  “BrightTag clients can leverage their BrightTag implementation to avoid the time-consuming site tagging process and get immediate access to AK for accurate and actionable audience insights. Everyone wins.”

The BrightTag ONE Partner Program
BrightTag’s ONE Partner Program, whose first members are being announced today, is designed to benefit digital marketing services providers by expediting activation of new clients, enhancing data collection capabilities and providing meaningful performance benefits for members’ clients. ONE Partner companies represent a broad set of capabilities across the entire digital marketing industry including ad networks, data management platforms (DMP), demand side platforms, search, retargeting, attribution, social targeting, and analytics.

The following outstanding organizations – listed alphabetically – are among the many BrightTag ONE Partners providing clients with the full benefits of server-to-server integration through the BrightTag ONE platform:
●      Adometry – leads the industry in online ad verification and Ad Analytics™ attribution management, delivering actionable insight to improve the performance of online advertising.
●      Aggregate Knowledge – a leading (Software as a Service) SaaS audience and campaign analytics company
●      Buysight – a leading retargeting and customer acquisition performance marketing company
●      Chango – the leading provider of search retargeting, combining the power of search with the scale of display
●      CPX Interactive – one of the largest global online ad networks serving more than 1 billion daily ad impressions across more than 60 countries
●      DataXu – the leading multi-channel demand side platform (DSP) for digital marketing management
●      HookLogic – powers e-commerce media, a revolutionary way for brands and shoppers to connect in and around the e-commerce environment
●      interclick (NASDAQ: ICLK) –  a leading provider of digital advertising technology and services
●      Legolas Media – an innovative digital advertising marketplace for premium advertisers and publishers to trade audiences in a guaranteed and transparent manner
●      LucidMedia – the most comprehensive and transparent digital advertising management platform for targeting and optimizing display campaigns
●      Marin Software – provider of the leading online advertising management platform for advertisers and agencies
●      mediaFORGE – a leader in digital display advertising that embraces qualitative, not quantitative, performance measurement, instilling unparalleled confidence in ROI
●      MediaMath – the leading provider of digital media trading technology and services
●      Specific Media – a digital media company driving viewership for content owners, engagement for brands and relevance for consumers
●      Turn – the digital advertising industry’s only open, enterprise-level marketing platform that delivers exceptional campaign performance and real-time audience insight for cross-channel engagement
●      XGraph – the first social targeting platform to use multi-graph data analysis to target Connected Audiences™ for optimal ad performance, at scale.
●      [x+1] – helps marketers connect with consumers in more meaningful, actionable ways, delivering content and offers where they’re most relevant

The BrightTag ONE Partner Program is open to providers of digital marketing and analytics services on a global basis. For more information about the program, contact Scott Grossman, BrightTag SVP of Business Development, at partners@brighttag.com or visit www.brighttag.com/partners.

About BrightTag
BrightTag is redefining the way data is collected and shared across the digital marketing ecosystem. With the BrightTag ONE integration platform, marketers have complete ownership and control of data gathered on their websites combined with freedom and flexibility to innovate by working with any third-party digital service provider. ONE, the company’s cloud-based integration platform, provides a connectivity layer between first-party data and the marketing and analytics services supporting the site.  BrightTag’s clients include many of the world’s top brands and hundreds of online marketing and analytics providers continue to integrate their technology with the BrightTag ONE platform. Headquartered in Chicago, BrightTag is funded by New World Ventures, TomorrowVentures, EPIC Ventures and I2A Fund. BrightTag was named by VentureWire and an independent board of review at Dow Jones as one of the 50 most innovative technology companies of 2011 and a member of the FASTech50. For more information, visit www.brighttag.com.

NEW YORK – Online targeting platform leader [x+1], www.xplusone.com, announced the availability of Media-Aware Home Pages, a new solution that connects display media experiences with personalized website messaging by going beyond clicks to leverage user interactions across the entire Internet. The launch follows a three-month joint development beta period with a consumer subscription services client.

Media-Aware Home Pages know what online media consumers have been exposed to even if they didn’t click on a display ad. It then uses this information to empower marketers to provide more relevant and consistent website messages to improve campaign engagement and performance. With a focus on quality at scale, Media-Aware Home Pages don’t retarget publisher audiences.

“This solution distinguishes [x+1] from ad technology providers who require clicks in order to capture and leverage customer experience data,” said Toby Korner, Vice President of Client Solutions for [x+1]. “With click-through rates (CTR) for online ads averaging only about 0.2% to 0.3%, this process is very limited in reach. Media-Aware Home Pages open up vast new opportunities for marketers to tailor messages to audiences they couldn’t before, going beyond the click to deliver greater content and message relevance and results.”

Media-Aware Home Pages work with [x+1]’s Media+1 and Site+1 products, and are fully integrated with Origin, [x+1]’s Digital Marketing Hub. Benefits include:

- The integration of display ads with website content personalization for a consistent consumer experience
- Better-performing websites
- More insight and understanding of online behavior

For example, a man visits a sports-themed website and is exposed to a company’s ad. Later, if he searches for the company or its product, or visits the company’s site, the Media-Aware Home Page creates a consistent site experience specifically geared to him and his interest in sports – even though he never clicked on an ad.

“The more personalized someone’s online experience and interaction with a brand, the more likely they’ll be to take a desired action – a registration, a purchase,” said Korner.

Using a tracking pixel, Media-Aware Home Pages record who was served which ad and where. When a user later visits a company’s activated Media-Aware Home Page, either through search or typing in a URL, [x+1]’s patented Predictive Optimization Engine (POE) leverages sophisticated mathematical models to determine the optimal messaging for the webpage based on the user’s previous site and ad exposure.

The process happens automatically and in milliseconds, eliminating any manual creation of landing pages by the marketer.

About [x+1]

For more information on [x+1] and digital marketing integration, visit www.xplusone.com; follow on twitter @xplusone.

SAN FRANCISCO – Marin Software, provider of the leading online advertising management platform for advertisers and agencies, today released the findings of its Paid Search Quarterly Benchmarking Report, which finds iPad and other tablet users tend to click on paid search ads at a higher rate than desktop or smartphone users. According to the report, although paid search ads directly targeted at tablets only comprises 2 percent of overall paid search spend, the click through rate (CTR) on tablets is 37 percent higher compared to desktops. Furthermore, advertisers targeting tablets like the iPad enjoy a lower average cost per click (CPC) compared to both desktops and mobile devices.

Marin Software’s Paid Search Quarterly Benchmarking Report consists of key trends and statistics uncovered through an examination of the Marin Global Search Index. The Marin Global Search Index is comprised of data from more than 800 large-scale advertisers and agencies that collectively spend in excess of $2 billion annually on paid-search through the Marin platform.

Paid Search Key Findings:

- During Q3, paid search spend targeted to desktops comprised 93 percent of total spend while smartphones earned 5 percent and tablets 2 percent of spend. Ads served to tablet devices provided a 37 percent higher CTR than ads on desktops. The average CPC for ads served to tablets was 29 percent lower than desktops.

- Compared to last year, search advertisers on Google saw a 19 percent increase in clicks and a 24 percent drop in impressions during the quarter. During the same time, CTR on Google increased 57 percent while CPC decreased 18 percent, suggesting large-scale advertisers realized efficiency gains through improved matching and more effective bidding.

- Continual refinement of match types from Broad to Phrase to Exact was a significant contributor to improved efficiencies for advertisers. Over the last year, search marketers have increased their use of Exact Match, growing their click-share of the match type by 6 percent while increasing share of spend by 2 percent.

- On Yahoo and Bing, advertisers saw a 43 percent higher click volume at a 10 percent lower CPC over the year. Despite CTR declining on a year over year basis, CTR increased 9 percent compared to Q2, implying improved ad matching or traffic characteristics by advertisers.

The full report, including trends within vertical markets can be downloaded at: http://www.marinsoftware.com/resources/whitepapers/q3-2011-benchmark-report.

About Marin Software:

Marin Software is a leading provider of online advertising management solutions, offering an integrated platform for managing search, display, and social marketing. The company provides solutions for advertisers and agencies of all sizes, enabling them to improve financial performance, save time, and make better decisions. Marin Enterprise, the company’s flagship product, addresses the needs of online marketers spending at least $100,000 per month on biddable media. Marin Professional delivers the same power and ease of use as Marin Enterprise, through an application designed for marketers spending less than $100,000 per month. Headquartered in San Francisco, with offices worldwide, Marin’s technology powers marketing campaigns for over 800 customers managing more than $2 billion of annualized ad spend in more than 160 countries. For more information, please visit: http://www.marinsoftware.com.

NEW YORK – Mobile display advertising broadly outperforms online display advertising, according to a new study revealed by Millward Brown’s Dynamic Logic at Advertising Week’s Mobile Media Summit on Wednesday. The study, which offers important “do’s and don’ts” for effective mobile advertising, warned against the repurposing of online creative for mobile and stressed the importance of creative quality, an attribute that has become more necessary as mobile advertising’s novelty erodes.

“Similar to other new advertising mediums, consumers were overwhelmingly receptive to mobile display advertising in its nascency but now that its novelty is wearing out, creative quality matters more than ever,” said Ali Rana, senior vice president and head of Dynamic Logic’s Emerging Media Lab. “Today, poor creative can even have a negative impact on a brand, compared to the past three years when creative quality did not matter as much within mobile display advertising.”

Dynamic Logic revealed three important factors that drive a successful mobile campaign:

1.          The location of a brand name or logo within a mobile ad matters: Left-side brand placement is generally most effective and has a strong impact on advertising recall
2.         Clear and persistent branding is important for brand awareness
3.         A strong call-to-action encourages interactivity and engagement to help drive purchase intent

The three biggest mistakes mobile advertisers make are:

1.          Repurposing online creative by cropping it for a mobile environment
2.         Showing one’s brand only through a product shot
3.         Cluttering ads with too much text or too many logos

These best practices mirror those which Dynamic Logic has established for online creative.

“With only a brief window to capture a consumer’s attention, both mobile and online campaigns need to be well-branded and clear to build awareness,” says Rana.

Why is Mobile Advertising so Effective?

The average mobile campaign has a positive impact on the five traditional brand metrics, especially ad awareness, and significantly outpaces online brand metrics.

While mobile advertising effectiveness is still driven by novelty, it also benefits from the larger proportion of the mobile screen devoted to the advertisement compared to online. In addition, the copy and content are typically more focused due to size and technology constraints. Finally, as consumers become more acceptant of mobile ads, the medium offers better targeting than most media.

Mobile works well at communicating messages for high-involvement categories like financial services; however, some of the best campaigns are found in low-involvement categories like CPG, where ads are more effective in moving persuasion metrics such as favorability and purchase intent.

Picking the Right Mobile Creative

Based on their growing body of evidence that supports the power of strong mobile creative, Dynamic Logic is developing a new copy testing system optimized for the mobile display advertising landscape. In beta now and coming to market later this year, this groundbreaking solution allows agencies and advertisers to optimize their mobile creative and get the most out of their mobile media spend.

Follow Dynamic Logic’s Emerging Media Lab on Twitter @emergist. For more information on mobile measurement solutions, please contact sales@dynamiclogic.com.

About Dynamic Logic

Millward Brown’s Dynamic Logic (www.dynamiclogic.com) is the world leader in digital insights. Founded in 1999 as a pioneer of the digital revolution, Dynamic Logic helped establish the Internet’s true marketing value to businesses by developing solutions that measure beyond click-through to quantify the full brand impact of online advertising. Now, as Millward Brown’s Digital Practice, Dynamic Logic continues to lead the industry — developing innovations to optimize and track digital ad impact, specializing in emerging media platforms, and integrating insights across all digital and non-digital media. For marketers, agencies, and publishers alike, Dynamic Logic offers the most cutting-edge and adaptable solutions to make the most of every digital marketing dollar.

This announcement comes on the heels of the appointments of Nielsen’s Rob Holland as General Manager, DLX CPG and comScore’s Ashley Grace as head of CPG, Client Solutions, as Datalogix continues to build out its talent base to address the growth in demand for its industry leading cross-channel data products.

In his new role, Faldi brings nearly 20 years of senior management experience in both start-ups and public technology companies. Most recently, Faldi held P&L and operational responsibilities in excess of $1 billion of Yahoo!’s global revenues, with specific ownership of its ISP, Mobile and Search Affiliate, and Toolbar businesses. At Datalogix, he will assume responsibility for operations, analytics, product, and marketing, as well as the Datalogix digital network.

“Datalogix’ business requires a blend of enterprise and media savvy that is seldom found in the same individual,” said Eric Roza, President, Datalogix. “Following a year-long search, we met Finn and knew he was the perfect fit to serve as our COO. He has been recognized as one of Yahoo’s most successful senior executives in each of the past four years, and has repeatedly shown an ability to add value in dynamic, highly-competitive environments across both start-ups and public companies. His deep domain knowledge and network within the digital media industry were the icing on the cake for us.”

Faldi joined Yahoo! As Vice President Global Broadband in 2007 and, within a relatively short time, was promoted to manage a number of other product lines, most recently mobile. Prior to Yahoo!, he was a senior executive for start-up Solidus Networks (SN), where he was instrumental in adding more than 100,000 small to mid-sized merchants. Before Solidus, he co-led the business development and sales teams for United Online, Inc. (UOL) – at the time, the third-largest ISP in North America – and was credited as instrumental in their business turnaround in 2002. Finn is also an active investor and advisor to a number of leading digital media companies, including The Search Agency.

“Finn is an exceptional executive and has been a trusted partner to our organization” said Mandy Ginsberg, President, Match.com. “This is an exciting time for the online advertising industry and Datalogix, and I have no doubt with Finn’s leadership and passion for delivering results, he will play a critical role in shaping its future”.

“With the inflow of brand dollars, digital advertisers are becoming more demanding,” said Faldi. “More than any other organization, Datalogix truly understands how to bridge the gap between consumer purchasing and media consumption, a critical link in the chain. I’m looking forward to bringing my operations expertise to a company that’s setting the new standard for how the digital advertising industry will create audiences and measure results moving forward.”

About Datalogix™

Datalogix is the leader at integrating database marketing and digital media. Its mission is to leverage the power of purchase-based audience targeting to drive measurable online and offline sales. The company offers audience segmentation and integrated programs directly and through all leading digital media companies. Datalogix is based in Westminster, CO, with offices in New York, Boston and Chicago. For more information, visit www.datalogix.com.

In this role, Neuwald will oversee and broaden TagMan’s partnerships with digital marketing and technology providers, while identifying new market opportunities and ensuring that online marketers are able to easily integrate TagMan with complementary technologies and services.

“Maggie is a highly accomplished digital marketing expert and we welcome her to our executive team,” said Paul Cook, CEO and founder of TagMan. “Her background and knowledge will be a tremendous asset to us and our partners as we continue to innovate solutions that support a broad universe of third party tags, helping companies accurately attribute ROI of their online campaigns.

“By expanding our partnerships with web analytics, paid search, display advertising, retargeting, email and other online marketing technology providers, we can deliver even more flexibility and value to companies using our platform,” Cook said.

Neuwald brings several years of digital advertising and technology marketing experience to TagMan. As director of product management for [x+1], she focused on extending the company’s platform beyond real-time bidding to include analytics. Prior to that, she was director of optimization for Yahoo’s Right Media group, which delivered managed services to top-tier advertisers and agencies. While in that role, she demonstrated a track record for identifying partnership opportunities and leading integrations for brand advertiser services, and gained exposure to myriad companies and technologies in the digital marketing ecosystem.

About TagMan

TagMan is the global leader in tag management, with the industry’s most mature and proven platform for the enterprise. Since launching the first, independent tag management platform in 2007, TagMan has helped over 100 customers solve tagging, site performance and attribution-related challenges. With over 180 vendor tags currently implemented, the award-winning TagMan platform provides customers like Travelocity, Virgin Atlantic, Subaru and others complete agility in managing existing partners and working with new technologies without the burden of costly implementation projects and resources. More information is available at www.tagman.com.