Even The Economist focuses this week on the online advertising suggested by Google and Overture, the search firms who pioneered the new form of advertising, known as �search-related� or �pay-per-performance". According to magazine, search engine advertising and, in general, text bases advertising, will help stopping the irritating online marketing practice of pop-ups, pop-unders and even floating ads.

An article by Elizabeth Osmeloski published yesterday on Searchenginewatch.com, clearly helps understanding the current agencies' attitude towards search engine advertising. "The most difficult issue facing SEOs and Ad Agencies is determining a method for reporting meaningful data without discrepancies. With pay-per-click, numbers are fairly straightforward and absolute when ROI tracking is directly applied. Yet the industry is still in infant stages when it comes to measuring the branding effectiveness of contextual and keyword advertising."

A new research, released today by Advertising.com provides interesting highlights on online consumer behavior and interactive marketing. The study shows online ad performance by frequency of impression, creative size and format, daypart and industry category, as measured across Advertising.com�s network of over 1,900 websites.
To learn more about the research, I suggest reading Marsha Geller today's article on Mediapost.

Keep tuned, interesting news are coming on. Tuesday, June 10th in Toronto, and Wednesday, June 11th in Montreal, the Internet Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB Canada) will share the results of its U.S. counterpart's landmark Cross Media Optimization Study (XMOS) that proves online advertising to be successful.
If you are eager to learn more about the study, have a look on IAB's web site.

As reported today by Business Wire, the Web Marketing Association has awarded Disney Online Best Travel Integrated Advertising Campaign for the "Ohana Island mini-site and sweepstakes." While the FamilyFun.com Weekender newsletter was awarded Best General Interest Newsletter HTML email Campaign.

Global research agency Millward Brown and Dynamic Logic, have announced a strategic partnership to enable advertisers to utilise best practices from both companies. Millward Brown will use Dynamic Logic�s AdIndex system to enhance their online advertising and brand evaluation research programmes. The partnership will also provide Dynamic Logic with access to Millward Brown�s team of advertising and branding experts.

Created by Tribal DDB Sydney McDonald's has launched a new website that coincides with the launch of the second phase of advertising in the company�s strategy to counter what it describes as myths about its food.
I've tried to look at the Web site, but it's funny to see that it not directly linked from McDonalds'.com, which instead, presents an ugly framed html page.
The news is reported today by B&T; Marketing & Media.

General Electrics has won the first prize for the best interactive viral campaign at the One Show Interactive Awards. "Pen" is an interactive viral application, and was an integral part of GE's online "Imagination at Work" campaign.

According to a new report by Jupiter Research rich media e-mail is still too costly and too few recipients can view it, making it impractical for most e-mail marketers to use. A big problem for marketers who want to use rich media is that only 30% of users are able to read rich media, since Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo!, the largest e-mail providers currently don't support rich media content.
Furthermore, rich media e-mail carries a steep price tag. Jupiter Research estimated that a Flash e-mail campaign for a list of 250,000 would cost $43,750, while an HTML campaign would run $27,500. Despite the 60% price premium, the Flash campaign would return a 5% percent conversion rate to HTML's 25%. Definitely not (yet) a good deal.

Three agencies are competing at the moment to gain a new contract with America Online to promote its broadband service. The game is on fire, since AOL seems to be somehow disappointed by the latest results of its campaigns created by BBDO.
More details on Ad Week.

I've found a somehow funny but interesting article by Jack Russell on The Inquirer. As journalist of a commercial Web site, he explains his opinion about online advertising and after he presents his position, as user, towards new ads formats like Unicast's ones. I appreciated the way he presented his opinions: he's been very smart and sincere.

Thanks to real broadband opportunities, online advertising has started offering valuable results to marketers. This is the message by Penelope Patsuris in her today's article on Forbes.com in the section brightly named "The Half-Full Economy" (!? :-).
Recent research results produced by IAB on case studies like Colgate's and McDonald's, have shown that online advertising could prove as an efficient marketing tools in a multi-channel strategies. Further point to support the bright future of online advertising investments are scored by paid search advertisements.
Eventually, in a survey by GartnerG2, ad agencies said they plan to bump up clients' online spending from 5.5% of their budgets to 6.8% by year's end, and up to 9% by the close of 2004.

Yellow Pages Group Co. recently concluded a reseller partnership agreement with 24/7 Canada Inc.. Commenting the news, Jean-Pascal Lion, Vice President at Yellow Pages Group, quoted by Opt-in News declared: "We see many opportunities in the growing online advertising sector. As Canada's leader in the online directories business, we know that we have an extremely robust e-product line that enables us to provide our customers with the tools they need to reach their target audience now and in the future."

"Advertising will become more based on facts and data than on instinct and rationale." This is the key statement by Cory Treffiletti in his OnlineSping weekly column. (Online) Advertising is looking for accountability, and it's interesting to read also some opinions from the field by marketers joining the forum to discuss the article.

According to a press release published today by PRNewswire, average click-through rates for mobile marketing are five times higher than standard online advertising and provide stronger recall rates than television advertising.
Mobile marketing is becoming the most productive and cost effective medium for reaching a highly desirable demographic. The press release features comments on recent campaigns for American Airlines, Chrysler Corporation, CNN and RollingStone.com runned by My AvantGo, a mobile applications delivery company.

Adidas together with D�cathlon has lauched an SMS based competition that allows contenders to win VIP tickets to attend the tennis matches in Paris from May 19 to June 2nd. The solution has been developed by the French company Avedya.

On NetImperative an interesting briefing on last week's round table with twelve internet specialists who met to discuss the role and value of pay-per-click advertising as a direct marketing tool.

eBay is launching a new points-based member program designed to give consumers more currency on its site. According to MediaPost the news has been welcomed by big brands who look at this deal as a new interesting marketing opportunity to get in touch with the huge eBay audience.

Charlie's Angels will come back as a video game. Sony Corp.'s movie division on Monday said would release an online video game based on "Charlie's Angels" to coincide with the new "Angels" movie which it is also releasing.
It's no doubt an interesting example of how the gaming industry might help reinforcing the marketing mix to support a new product launch. I'm not sure if this can be exactly defined as "advergame" but I thought it was worth posting anyway.
You can watch a preview on Animated Angels.

This is the tagline of Yahoo!'s newest campaign to promote its renovated search functionality. The advertising campaign will be run mostly offline, for example with tv commercials created by Black Rocket Euro RSCG. In a perfect "guerrilla-style", the Internet will also be used as part of an unusual outdoor campaign: Yahoo! has rented a huge billboard in New York City's Times Square, and for 15 minutes every hour, live search terms will scroll across the screen, highlighting users' actual searches on the site. Read on the news on IAR.

Further expanding its digital service offerings, Carat Interactive announced today that it has acquired San Francisco-based Freestyle Interactive. The acquisition reflects two major industry changes for Carat, the growing trend in agency consolidation and the growing demand for full services in the Interactive space. Read on the press release on Carat's web site.

Does online advertising influence branding or yield direct response? This is the key questions to which eMarketer tries to give an answer. In today's newsletter David Hallerman, using DoubleClick's numbers, explains that marketer are in increasingly understanding and taking advantage the Internet as powerful medium for both branding and direct response campaigns.

The IAB has released a detailed breakdown of its 2002 online ad spend figures which, it says, proves online has finally ended its reliance on its traditional sectors, including hi-tech and media. Read the news as reported byNew Media Zero.

The financial news Web site CBSMarketWatch.com has recently signed a deal with Absolut Vodka to lauch an "Happy Hour" ad campaign. The news is reported today on Adage which reveals that the parts have signed a one-year ad deal for Fridays from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m, aimed at a weary audience counting down the hours to the end of the week.

Verisign will be the first B2B markete to participate in the Cross Media Optimization Study (XMOS) promoted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Completed XMOS research results are currently available for Unilever, McDonalds, Colgate-Palmolive and Kimberly-Clark. Read the full press release on IAB's site.

The future of online advertising is in applications, not in ads. This is briefly the idea expressed today by Sean Carton on ClickZ.com. He points out the advertisers using the Internet need to involve the user in new and unique experiences that one-way broadcast media can't possibly accomplish.
The topic is extremely interesting and it's indeed one of the main field in which Adverblog.com is going to focus in the near future.

Nike has been recently nominated Advertiser of the Year at One Show Interactive. In its latest issue Ad Week talks about Nike's interactive strategy and about the evolution of online advertising since its very beginning. The focus, of course, is on rich media, and in the use of interactivity and games to get consumers' attention and loyalty.

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives