PPM Could Increase Revenue $414 Mil.

The radio industry could gain $414 million a year, a three percent increase in revenue, if it switches from Arbitron’s 40-year-old diary-based ratings system to its portable people meter (PPM), Mediaweek reports. Furthermore, if the industry doesn’t make the move, revenue could decrease annually by $282 million.

Forrester Research’s economic impact study of PPMs surveyed 484 local, regional and national agency and advertisers executives about how PPMs would change business. Nearly 25 percent of respondents would increase radio spending if a PPM ratings service were adopted.

Northlich Opens Outpost in NY

Cincinnati’s largest ad agency Northlich intends to open a new office in New York next month, to serve as a springboard for its BrandStorm consulting business, AdAge reports. BrandStorm currently serves clients from the CPG space, including P&G and Cadbury-Schweppes, and the consulting business is growing faster and offering better margins than the rest of the marketing-services business for Northlich. The unit has also brought crossover business for the advertising unit, such as Finlandia, which started as a BrandStorm client last year and later became an advertising client. This announcement comes on the heels of Fallon Worldwide’s announcement that it is leaving New York.

Valpak Races to 43 Million Homes for NASCAR

Valpak has developed a 43 million mailing and sweepstakes to target existing NASCAR fans and entice new ones to TNT’s 2005 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series Race to the Chase programming, the company has announced. The sweeps awards a NASCAR fan and three friends a drive to school by the famed driver of the No. 99 Office Depot car. Cross promotional print advertising will include Valpak in TNT’s NASCAR programming advertisement in the July and August issues of NASCAR Scene Magazine, a 30 million Office Depot Sunday circular, and in-store posters at 1,000 Office Depot retail locations.

UK Web Surfers Influenced by Radio

At any given time 20 percent of people in the UK who are online are also listening to radio, Netimperative reports.
According to research conducted by the Internet Advertising Bureau and the Radio Advertising Bureau, the combination of radio and online significantly enhances advertising response.

ErinMedia Interested in Navigauge

Navigauge, which until its suspension of operations last month used passive monitoring devices mounted in automobiles to deliver a variety of radio ratings products, may find new life with television ratings provider erinMedia, Radio Billboard Monitor reports. The acquisition is scheduled to be completed later this year.

Naviguage’s research was only available from the Atlanta market, but before suspending operations, the company had announced plans to enter Houston this year.

Intelliseek Measures Bloggers’ Clout

Intelliseek is expected to announce upgrades for its free BlogPulse tool that will allow users to see a blogger’s rank by citations, rank fluctuations, recent posts, blogs that have recently linked to them, which sources they frequently link to, and which bloggers are most influenced by them, Media Post reports.

24/7: Behavioral Targeting Results in Gains, but Inconsistent

ClickZ and MediaPost (by way of MarketingVox) offer different takes on behavioral-targeting research issued today by 24/7 Real Media, the former emphasizing the increase in click-through rates for ads using behavioral targeting, and the latter pointing out that such results were inconsistent. Click-through rates can climb by as much as 250 percent, according to 24/7’s second Quarterly Targeting Research Report, which cites the example of a major movie studio that used behavioral targeting to increase average click-through rates on movie ads by 25 percent compared with ads targeted demographically.

Overall, the report concluded, advertisers saw higher click-through rates, but not consistently. “There are no hard and fast rules that we could draw,” according to a 24/7 spokesman. “It depends on who you’re targeting and how well you know that audience.”

Most Want Accountability, Few Know How

According to a survey scheduled to be released today at the 2005 Marketing Accountability Forum, a conference sponsored by the Association of National Advertisers, 61.5 percent of survey respondents said defining, measuring and taking concrete steps in the area of advertising accountability was important, but only 19 percent said they were satisfied with their ability to take those steps, The New York Times reports. Seventy-three percent were not confident that they understood the effects that an advertising or marketing campaign could have on sales.

While accountability has always been desired, the new energy behind the hue and cry for stronger marketing accountability may be a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the overall need for C-level executives to better understand the overall financial health of their companies.

Mixed Reviews for Google’s CPM Play

Media buyers and planners are of mixed minds about Google’s plans for a network in which advertisers can purchase image ads on a variety of publishers’ sites on a CPM impression basis, MediaPost reports.

A recent survey of 75 executives by MediaPost and Deutsche Bank found some executives feeling the move would benefit advertisers by creating some healthy competition, while others believed having no guaranteed price or out-of-pocket cost will make it tough to convince larger advertisers to switch. At least one media buyer was ready to spend at least 10 percent more on any available inventory to start, and as much as is available if it converts.

Ajax May Undermine Web Advertising, Analytics Models

Ajax, a do-it-yourself approach using a hodgepodge of JavaScript, Dynamic HTML, and XML to create faster and more interactive sites, may soon cause web publishers, online advertisers and web analytics firms to change how they function, writes TechWeb’s Fredric Paul (via paidcontent), adding: “Ajax shatters the metaphor of a web ‘page’ upon which much of web publishing and advertising is based.” It has already become so popular that Microsoft plans to build an Ajax tool, code-named Atlas, and it is in use at Google Maps and Yahoo’s Flickr.