Nielsen Media Research has assigned Jack Oken, general manager of local business, to head a due diligence effort to evaluate the viability of a TV and radio audience measurement system based on Arbitron’s portable people meters, Mediapost reports. The move may have been sparked by Arbitron’s “Radio First” strategy, which calls for the rollout of PPMs in the top 60 markets as early as April 2006.
email this
permanent link
Travel + Leisure Family will stop being a supplement poly-bagged with Travel + Leisure twice a year and will launch as a stand-alone quarterly publication, beginning with the September 2006 issue, Mediaweek writes. The magazine, published by American Express Publishing, will have a rate base of 500,000 through controlled circulation targeting affluent families pulled from Travel + Leisure subscribers and other sources. Margot Guralnick will continue as editor of T + L Family.
MSNBC has cancelled daily political talk show Connected Coast to Coast, Broadcasting & Cable reports. The show launched in February, and originally ran twice daily, but the 5 p.m. rerun was cut in September. No show has yet been announced to fill the noon slot, but an internal staff memo from MSNBC president Rick Kaplan promised “exciting new programming.”
The web’s always open for business, but online shoppers tend to browse and buy during business hours, on weekdays, according to data from the Coremetrics LIVEmark Index, reports InternetRetailer (via MarketingVox). Retail sites received 40 percent more visitors, and 53 percent more who purchased, on weekdays than on weekends during September.
email this
permanent link
Instant messaging is a favorite communication tool of teens and young adults, with nearly two-thirds of them sending more IMs than emails, according to an AOL-commissioned survey by Opinion Research, writes CNET (via MarketingVox). Nearly 66 percent of 13-21-year-olds now say they send more IMs than e-mails, compared with 49 percent last year.
email this
permanent link
As outdoor advertising becomes more TV-like in the U.S. - with the availability of digital outdoor ad messages - the industry needs to find and accurately report the right metrics. That, at least, was the sentiment expressed in New York yesterday at the Traffic Audit Bureau’s Out-of-Home Advertising Forum, Mediapost reports. Digital billboards are proliferating here, as they have been in the U.K., and marketers like John Marson, senior manager-media planning at Kraft Foods, are beginning to see it as another medium like TV.
A survey of members of the Association of National Advertisers, unveiled yesterday by Ford Motor Co., showed that the three most important issues advertisers see when it comes to outdoor marketing are return on investment, performance metrics, and frequency and timing of out-of-home schedules. The Traffic Audit Bureau has recently issued a request for proposals for a new outdoor industry ratings system.
A market is quickly emerging for on-demand programming offered online (and via cable or satellite TV). Nearly one in five - 19.1 percent - who are web users say they would probably purchase online on-demand programming (TV shows, movies, concerts or sporting events) that could be watched on their computer; about a third (32.9 percent) say they are unsure whether they would; and 48.0 percent say they would not, according to a recent Burst Media survey (via MarketingVOX) of some 3,300 web users age 18 or older.
Men are significantly more likely than women to purchase online on-demand programming (23.3 percent vs. 15.0 percent). Men under age 34 are most likely to say they would: 24.3 percent of men 18-24 years old and 31.4 percent of men age 25-34.
Microsoft is scheduled to announce today (at IT Forum in Barcelona) a business version of its Windows Desktop Search (released in May), writes CNET (via MarketingVOX). The enterprise version integrates search abilities into the Windows operating system and Microsoft’s Office suite. Businesses using the tool would be able to decide what gets indexed and searched on corporate networks - Windows Desktop Search does not index or crawl data in corporate intranets.
The desktop has become a search battleground for Microsoft, Google and Yahoo; Google launched a business version of Google Desktop earlier this month.
The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors voted yesterday to accept the Postal Rate Commission’s recommendations to increase most postal rates and fees 5.4 percent, DMNews reports. The new rates take effect Jan. 8.
Among the rate adjustments, the single-piece rate for First-Class mail will rise from 37 cents to 39 cents and the postcard rate will increase 1 cent to 24 cents.
Visa dumped its 20-year ad agency, Omnicom Group’s BBDO, for another Omnicom agency, TBWA/Chiat/Day, yesterday, after months of consideration between the two agencies and another from Omnicom, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, the New York Post reports.
email this
permanent link
Succumbing to pressure from shareholders, Knight Ridder issued a statement this morning saying its board of directors will consider putting itself up for sale, along with other tactics for increasing shareholder value, the San Jose Mercury News writes. The company said it is working with longtime financial adviser Goldman Sachs on strategies.
email this
permanent link
Time4 Media will publish two issues of Golf Magazine Living, a lifestyle spinoff of Golf magazine, Mediaweek writes. The new luxury lifestyle magazine will publish in spring and fall of next year, and will be sent to 350,000 Time Inc. subscribers. Content will offer advice on owning a home in high-end golf communities, including profiles on some of those communities, along with buying guides for furniture, electronics, and cars.
email this
permanent link
Wal-Mart and Premier Retail Networks have rolled out a program that places in-store TVs running ads, local news and other content at checkouts, Media Life reports. Nearly 70 percent of Americans will visit one of the retail giant’s outlets over the next four weeks.
The ads are interspersed with news and other content on flat screens placed by checkout counters at Wal-Mart stores. The initial rollout is in Dallas/Ft. Worth, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Tampa, Phoenix, Denver and Fayetteville-Rogers, Ark. The focus is on items that are available near by and are typically considered impulse buys.
NBC won’t pick up Apprentice: Martha Stewart for a second season, Media Life reports. According to an NBC Universal spokeswoman, the show always had been scheduled to run for only one season and will not return next year. But when the show launched, it appeared that Stewart was being groomed to step in for Trump as his show began to fade.
email this
permanent link
BMW plans to take a more holistic approach to marketing - following, perhaps, in the footsteps of the BMW Mini, which is well-known for its quirky promotions and original out-of-home marketing - and the automaker’s first step in that direction has been to award its $80 million national creative account to Omnicom Group’s GSD&M, AdAge writes.
email this
permanent link
