Last month’s Verizon SuperPages campaign - its largest promotion of the year which cost an estimated $4 million and hoped to entice users to try out downloadable coupons, a search function, a downloadable toolbar, and the opportunity to write reviews - has resulted in some 7 million uses of the new features, according to Mediapost.
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Google’s $1 billion investment in a 5 percent stake in Time Warner’s AOL was officially announced Tuesday and expands their existing search engine agreement to include advertising, instant messaging and video components, reports CNET (via MarketingVox). The deal also creates an “AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google’s advertising technology” enabling AOL to directly sell search ads on AOL-owned properties.
The companies said they would collaborate on online video search and would showcase AOL’s premium video service within Google Video; moreover, Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users will be able to communicate with each other.
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An FTC progress report to Congress says that the CAN-SPAM Act is stopping the amount of spam reaching consumers, Brandweek reports. Officials also credit the improvements to e-mail providers’ beefed-up filtering technology, and consumers taking steps to ward off spam.
However, DMNews reports that the FTC has also found that today’s spammers are sending increasingly malicious spam.
The FTC also made public complaints and settlements involving allegations of spam as part of its new Operation Button Pusher initiative.
InfoUSA has agreed to license its business-to-business database to InfoSpace, a mobile entertainment, online directory assistance and private-label search company, writes DM News (via MarketingVox). The data will be available through the InfoSpace yellow pages and local search services. The database contains information on 14 million U.S. companies.
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JMP Securities has revised its forecast of the global online advertising market and now projects that it will grow at an annual growth rate of 25 percent in the next five years, reaching $65 billion by 2010, reports B to B (via MarketingVox). JMP now expects the worldwide online ad market to reach $33.2 billion in 2007, according to the Hollywood Reporter. In the U.S. this year, online advertising will reach $13.2 billion, JMP says. That’s 4.7 percent of total ad revenue for the year.
Online sales for the week ended November 27, which included the Thanksgiving holiday, were 28 percent greater than those for the corresponding week a year ago, reaching $2.04 billion from $1.6 billion in 2004, reports InternetRetailer (via MarketingVox), citing comScore figures. Online travel sales were up 15 percent, reaching $839 million, compared with $730 million last year.
Two companies have announced software updates that reflect postal increases taking effect early next year, giving mail houses, direct marketers and printers time to install and test the software and advise clients on how the new rates will affect budgets, DMNews reports. Firstlogic has released an upgrade to its PAVE certified commercial mail software systems to support postal rate and statement changes scheduled to take effect Jan. 8.
In addition, Window Book has updated its DAT-MAIL to work with the new rates.
According to a study from Paragon Media Strategies and Goodratings Strategic Services, 63 percent of Christian top 40 listeners are female, Billboard Radio Monitor reports. Nineteen percent of Christian top 40 listeners regularly tune into AC and Christian AC stations, 13 percent listen to country, 13 percent listen to other Christian top 40 outlets in their markets, and 11 percent listen to top 40 radio. Christian top 40 listeners are spending time with classic rock (8 percent), classic hits/80s oldies (7 percent), and oldies (6 percent). Seventy-four percent of the audience also says that it is steadfastly loyal to Christian radio in general.
Google is preparing to launch phase two of its print advertising buying test, though executives aren’t disclosing just what the new phase will include, according to Mediapost. Google has put together a council of industry throught leaders from its top ad agencies to discuss advertising, and the council’s feedback is helping the company develop phase two.
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Britney Spears is seeking $10 million in damage from Us Weekly for a story that reported that she and her husband had created a sex video and feared it would be made public, Mediaweek writes. According to the article, an Us Weekly spokesman said, “We have a very credible source and we stand by our story.”
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American Idol will air on Thursday for at least three episodes, after all, according to Media Life magazine. After much-publicized consideration of moving the show to Wednesdays and Thursdays rather than Tuesdays and Wednesdays, followed by the announcement that the show would stick with its past schedule, Fox has announced that an hour-long results show will air on Thursday, Feb. 23, and two additional Thursdays in March.
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The Kaplan Thaler Group has won the estimated $85 million Office Depot creative account, Adweek reports. The agency beat out Leo Burnett and The Martin Agency, along with incumbent BBDO, which had handled the business for five years.
According to sources, Office Depot put the account into review because it conflicted with the BBDO-handled FedEx Kinko’s business.
