I was out of town over the past few days...but all the news you need is right here!


Research shows social nets more popular than e-mail
Social networking, defined as "member communities," has an active reach of 67% as compared to 65% for e-mail, per a Nielsen study. The audience for social nets and blogs also is rising at twice the pace of portals, e-mail, search and other key sources of Web traffic, according to Nielsen.

Google offers targeting with a twist
Despite its relatively small share of the U.S. online display sector, Google is poised to make a splash with its new cookie-based behavioral targeting plan, per this article. While this sort of targeting is nothing new, Google is allowing users access to a preferences utility where they can adjust the way in which they are targeted.

What smartphones tell advertisers
For marketers, smartphones are a potential treasure trove, because they not only contain information about a user's mobile Web surfing habits and favorite applications but also his or her exact location. While privacy advocates are concerned about the potential for intrusiveness, for mobile marketers, location-based advertising is something of a holy grail. Eric Bader, managing partner of Brand in Hand, said, "Everyone's in an arms race to find out more and more about their users."

Poll: 90% of users concerned about Web privacy
More than nine in 10 survey respondents ranked online privacy as an issue of importance to them, a new poll by TRUSTe has found. Only 28% were comfortable with the practice of behavioral targeting, while roughly three in four of those surveyed backed this statement: "The Internet is not well regulated, and naive users can easily be taken advantage of."

Retro boxes: General Mills gets it; Tropicana doesn't
The retro boxes for Lucky Charms, Trix and other General Mills cereals work because they are simple, bring back memories and keep icons such as the Trix bunny and Cocoa Puffs bird, Adweek columnist Barbara Lippert says. By contrast, the failed Tropicana package redesign was drained of meaning and looked generic.

Real films use fake Web sites as promotional tools
This article provides thumbnails and links to three fake corporate Web sites launched to promote a trio of major Hollywood films: Skynet Research for "Terminator Salvation" (May 21 release); Virtual Self Industries for "The Surrogates" (Sept. 25 release), and the Institute for Human Continuity for "2012"

Popular Coke page on Facebook created by a devoted fan
The second-most-popular Facebook page, after that for President Barack Obama, is a page celebrating Coca-Cola created by an aspiring actor. There are a reported 253 pages devoted to the soft drink on the social network, but this one has attracted 3.3 million fans -- for reasons that continue to mystify marketing execs.

Mintel examines the "new normal"
Consumers are trading "up, down and over" as they seek the best values in the recession, perhaps spending more on affordable luxuries such as chocolate or watching movies at home instead of going out. Brand trust and perceptions of value, quality and creativity are critical.

As news industry contracts, some cities could be left paperless
Circulation of printed newspapers has dropped precipitously over the last two decades, even as the online audience has grown. But the expense of large news-gathering organizations is difficult to support on digital revenues, and as a result, newspapers are shedding staff and in some cases folding altogether. Mike Simonton, a senior director at Fitch Ratings, said, "In 2009 and 2010, all the two-newspaper markets will become one-newspaper markets, and you will start to see one-newspaper markets become no-newspaper markets."

Research shows viewers prefer their TV with commercials
Having a TV show interrupted by commercial breaks makes the experience more enjoyable, because it extends the pleasure, in the same way that eating a chocolate bar slowly seems to make it taste better, according to two new reports. "The punch line is that commercials make TV programs more enjoyable to watch. Even bad commercials," said Leif Nelson, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of California, San Diego, and a co-author of the new research.

Cablevision to offer ad-targeting by household
Cablevision will begin offering advertisers the chance to target their ads to specific households based on demographic segments such income, ethnicity, gender and family makeup. According to this report, the service initially will be available in 500,000 homes in Brooklyn, the Bronx and parts of New Jersey.

Smyth calls for radio to sign on to CPM standard for ad sales
Greater Media Chairman-CEO Peter Smyth is backing a move, expected to be endorsed by the 4A's at their Media Conference in New Orleans, to establish the CPM unit as the standard for media sales. "We need to move with the marketplace and we need to provide the ease of purchase that our customers demand," Smyth writes in his monthly "From the Corner Office" column.

Web-only future mulled for Seattle daily
Hearst reportedly plans to make the Seattle Post-Intelligencer the nation's first big-city daily newspaper that will be available as a Web-only publication. Hearst, which declined to comment, announced Jan. 9 it would decide within 60 days whether it would sell the newspaper, turn it into an online-only publication or shutter it.

Skittles taps into Twitter buzz
Mars Snackfood brand Skittles has shaken up the world of social-media marketing with its new tactic, which entails citing real-time mentions of the brand on micro-blogging network Twitter. The move has led to a dramatic uptick in Twitter mentions of Skittles, but the strategy is drawing a mixed reaction from social-media experts.

Research shows paid influencers succeed in building buzz
Brands can boost online word-of-mouth in a cost-effective manner by using paid influencers, but they must be careful in choosing bloggers and disclose that they are being paid, Forrester Research has found. Such "sponsored conversations" can be useful especially for brands that otherwise would be unlikely to generate much buzz on their own, according to Forrester.

Expanding ads now available on Google's AdSense network
Google has started to offer U.S. marketers in its AdSense network the ability to field ads that expand to post additional content, including film trailers, video game segments or additional images of a product. The ads can be created by Google's list of approved third-party rich media producers, including specialists such as Eyeblaster, Pointroll and United Virtualities, along with its own unit, DoubleClick, and Microsoft's Atlas.

ABC to test whether viewers can laugh at economic crisis
ABC will try to mine laughs from the current economic collapse, via two sitcom pilots whose plots turn on the crisis on Wall Street and among the nation's banking system. In one series, Kelsey Grammer is to star in a still-untitled show that focuses on a Wall Street tycoon who is forced to become a stay-at-home dad, while the other, called "Canned," revolves around an ensemble cast of Generation X-ers who lose their jobs at an investment bank.

NEW!! FEATURED VIDEO Tips from the Trenches OPEN Forum talks to Ian MacGregor, owner of NYC's The Lobster Place, who works in an industry fraught with turnover. Hear how his simple management philosophy helps him retain the best people. CLICK TO VIEW

Bewkes outlines plan for TV Everywhere
Time Warner is developing an initiative dubbed TV Everywhere that will allow viewers to watch networks such as CNN, Cartoon Network and TNT online -- as long as they can prove they subscribe to cable, satellite or a telecom TV service. "If you want to watch your favorite TV network or shows through broadband on any device -- PCs or mobile -- you can do it as long as you subscribe to any multichannel provider," said Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes, adding that TV Everywhere could be ready for testing sometime this year. "It's a natural extension of the existing model."

Digital couponing on the rise
As shoppers tighten their belts in the down economy, coupon clipping is becoming an increasingly popular pastime. But "clipping" soon might be an anachronism as shoppers are able to get information about special prices and virtual coupons via mobile devices. Steven Boal, founder of Coupons Inc., said, "Our clients are for the first time saying that if venerable print titles are closing they will have to move their promotional budget somewhere else."

Attention must be paid to long-standing Web promos
It's challenging to get a viral campaign to capture consumer attention, but it's also tricky to gauge when a popular Web promo's time is up. The Burger King "Subservient Chicken" microsite is still active after several years online. Arjen Linders of Philips Norelco said of his firm's long-lived, online promo featuring a man in a bathrobe: "It's something we have to monitor closely. You now have more Web sites than human beings on the planet."

Consumer-focused e-mail newsletters tout ad successes
The humble e-mail newsletter is proving to be a strong ad medium. Sarah Lacy reports that DailyCandy.com and its offshoot for guys, Thrillist.com, and Yelp.com's "Weekly Yelp" are making money. Yelp, and also Dogster, are eschewing outsourced network sales in favor of dedicated sales teams, per this article.

Are Google News ads bad for local newspapers?
Google is getting a mixed reaction from newspaper publishers to its new, contextually relevant ads on its News service, with some viewing the program as unwanted competition for ad dollars, and others recognizing the service's role in driving user traffic to their own sites.

Banks struggling to find right marketing tone in tough times
Many banks and financial institutions are struggling to find the right tone in their marketing to reassure an anxious public about their financial health. However, this article points out that even relatively healthy financial institutions looking to lure new customers run the risk of being viewed as being "wasteful" for allocating funds for ads.

Visa unwraps new global ad campaign
Visa is ditching its "Life takes Visa" tagline in favor of a new slogan, "More People Go With Visa," which is anchoring the company's new $140 million global ad campaign. The campaign by TBWA/Chiat/Day is launching Wednesday in the U.S. and will eventually appear in 43 other countries. Ads focus on the convenience of Visa's debit card service, which deducts payments from consumer back accounts.

Humor no accident in Snuggie marketing
The Snuggie, a wearable blanket resembling a monk's robe, is one of the unlikeliest marketing successes of 2009. The Snuggie's maker, Allstar Marketing Group, bought more than $10 million in TV time for a quirky campaign that intentionally pokes fun at the product. But it turns out the Snuggie was preceded by the Slanket -- a similar product that was picked up by QVC in 2007.

NEW!! FEATURED VIDEO OPENForum.com spoke with Inc 500 honorees to find out what makes these business owners so successful. Here, Dana Jones, CEO of Wildon Solutions, talks about the most important marketing resource for her management services company — the people she hires. CLICK TO VIEW

Marketers seek more granular commercial-viewing info
The C3 ratings from Nielsen offer marketers a look at how ad-skipping is affecting commercial viewing on a program-by-program basis; now, however, marketers are hoping for even more targeted data about the numbers of viewers watching individual ads. A shift to rating individual ads would require new standard coding, according to this article, and it remains to be seen whether ratings service Nielsen or advertisers themselves would be willing to invest in such a change.

Company looks to bring digital ad models to traditional media
Spot Runner is attempting to bring cutting-edge, Web-based media buying systems and technologies to traditional media such as television. "We're dealing with an industry that's fairly antiquated," said Nick Grouf, CEO of Spot Runner. "We're hoping to use technology to accelerate their path to an addressable world."

Marketers still willing to pay for online ads that work
Although some analysts are citing dropping CPM rates and unsold display ad inventory as a sign of bad times for the online ad segment, smaller, targeted sites are able to charge a much higher average CPM rate, and sites that use cost-per-click or cost-per-action as their metric are posting growth even during this downturn, according to Jeffrey F. Rayport, founder and chairman of Marketspace, a digital strategy and customer experience firm associated with Monitor Group. "It's what we might call accountable media: advertising you pay for only when it works," Rayport writes.

Poll: 8 in 10 marketers pick e-mail as top performer
Some eight in 10 marketing executives rank e-mail as a top performing ad vehicle, while 56.8% picked search and 42.1% chose online display as leading performers, a new poll by Datran Media has found. Nearly 33% of those surveyed said TV, print and traditional media performed the best, while 32.1% selected direct mail, 22.9% singled out social media and 9.2% picked mobile.

Scripps courts ad community with upfront tour
Scripps Networks will emphasize the advertiser-appeal of cable channels such as HGTV and Food Network in an upfront tour for media buyers and clients that takes off in mid-March in Boston. Despite the dicey economy, Scripps is in a unique position with advertisers because it offers so many possibilities for product integrations and branded content, a company official said.

Yahoo! adds images, video to paid search listings
Yahoo!'s new Rich Ads in Search program is a hybrid offering that incorporates images and video in paid search listings. "It moves the advertising experience from just the blue links, to a more engaging experience for advertisers," said Tim Mayer, Yahoo!'s VP for search monetization and distribution.

Minneapolis police boost image with branding campaign
A campaign by Kazoo Branding for the Minneapolis, Minn., Police Department included a redesign of squad cars, an emphasis on service in recruitment materials and a new slogan: "To protect with courage, to serve with compassion". The campaign, which aimed to buff up the department's image as a way to bolster minority recruiting, paid off with a class of recruits this year that is 50% minority.

Mobile ads still a work in progress
There's a lot going for mobile Internet ads -- the ubiquity of mobile devices and the possibility of location-based ad targeting and interest from marketers. However, mobile screens are small and won't withstand much ad clutter and there is as yet no standard for the design and placement of mobile ads.

Tracking the "paycheck cycle"
CPG manufacturers are taking a harder look at how cash-strapped consumers shop, noting that purchasing spikes coincide with the beginning of the "paycheck cycle," when more money is available. Marketers are using these insights to make decisions about inventory and promotions.

NEW!! FEATURED VIDEO "FREE" — No Longer a Sales Gimmick Consumers who were once suspicious of "free" offers not only embrace them in the online world, they've come to expect them. Wired's Chris Anderson explains how the game of marketing has changed in this exclusive interview from Pop!Tech 2008, presented by OPEN Forum. CLICK TO VIEW

After several months of inactivity, the TrendBlog will be returning with content that is important to your business during these tough economic times. I will again be scouring the internet for information relevant to today's advertising and marketing challenges. I will compile the weeks best stories and post them on a weekly basis.

Thanks for your continued interest!

-JR


Ad, media work force lost 18,700 jobs in December
The number of U.S. ad and media industry jobs in December 2008 decreased by 18,700 to 1.59 million, based on an analysis by Advertising Age's DataCenter of U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. The only segment to post job growth in December was Internet-media companies and Web-search portals, which added 800 jobs to reach 82,200. The ad and media industry work force as of December 2008 had been downsized by 3.9% since the previous December.

Economic slump opens door for new ads
Ads for distilled spirits are appearing on prime-time TV with increasing frequency, while billboards for strip clubs and radio ads promoting extramarital affairs are part of the local media landscape. The reason, experts say, is the economic downturn, which is forcing media outlets to look for new revenue sources.

Walmart ups media spend during downturn
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is winning business from competitors during the economic downturn, and a recent ramp up in ad spending may be partly responsible. According to TNS, the discount retailer added $300 million -- an estimated 55% -- to its measured media spend last year (versus the year-earlier period), at a time when its rivals were paring back marketing.

Bailed-out companies under special pressure to show marketing ROI?
Now that they answer to the general public, banks and financial service companies receiving monies from the Troubled Asset Relief Program are under more pressure than normal to demonstrate ROI for ad and marketing expenditures, this article says.

TV stations hit by economic woes, new media options
In the halcyon days of TV broadcasting, it may have seemed that local stations had a license to print money, with profit margins topping 50% in the 1960s and 1970s, according to this article. While marketers spent about $20 billion on local broadcast TV ads in 2008, that number could drop significantly this year. Local TV stations are responding by cutting staff, original and syndicated programming. One network, CBS, has even openly mulled the possibility of taking some shows straight to cable, to obviate the revenue split with local stations.

Online ads get social
Increasingly, online ads are looking to engage consumers with many of the same techniques that have attracted such a wide audience to social networks.

Sun could power next-gen digital billboards
A new type of digital sign fueled by solar power and using light-reflecting digital ink is being tested by Lamar Advertising in Pensacola, Fla. The billboard, which in April will be shifted to New York for further testing, resembles a paper sign and allows for more creative flexibility than typical digital billboards, according to this article.

What's the Future of Brand Journalism? Collision Content: There is no denying the radical shift from companies and brands controlling their messages to consumers controlling them. From blogs to YouTube to social networking, consumers have a bigger, louder voice than ever. And they're being heard, Advertising Age

Pay for Play: Examiner Newspapers to Reward Bloggers -- Clarity Media is adopting a pay-per-page view strategy for Examiner newspaper blogs, Editor And Publisher 

Reaching Baby Boomers Online, MediaPost

Woman to Woman, Online: The rapid growth in advertising and traffic to Web sites aimed primarily at women has attracted the attention of major media companies and venture capitalists, New York Times

Exxon requests control of fake Twitter account: Exxon Mobil media adviser Alan Jeffries told PRWeek that the company asked Twitter to give it control over accounts associated with its brand, after a person calling herself “Janet” created an account in the oil company's name and gained hundreds of followers, PR Week US 

After a weeklong family reunion, it's great to get back refreshed and renewed. That doesn't mean the world has stopped evolving though...I hope you were able to keep up with what's news in advertising/PR without me.

Here's what's new and interesting today...

Marketers Love Conversation, Unless the Consumer Starts It: Listening Gets You More Than Complaints -- You Get Positive Brand Association and Word of Mouth, Advertising Age

Magazine Sales Fall 6.3% at Newsstands: Newsstand sales of magazines fell 6.3 percent in the first half of 2008, an industry group said Monday, as rising gas and food costs led consumers to cut back on nonessential spending, Associated Press

Yes, Companies Are Responsible for Charity: It's Wrongheaded to Think Businesses' Social Awareness Doesn't Matter to Employees, Consumers, Investors, Advertising Age

It's Not the Ad; It's Getting the Bill: A majority of people say they are averse to having advertisements sent to their cellphones. But nearly a quarter of people say they have responded to such ads, New York Times

Killing the cash cow and other acts of media indecency: You can find any number of similar stories about how the Internet forced media to fragment and change. So why does The Philadelphia Inquirer think it can defy history?, CNet.com