At last, a way to measure online ads

Michael Totty, on the WSJ, and republished on The Detroit News talks about advertising metrics.

Marketers have long quoted John Wanamaker, the Philadelphia retailer who famously said, “Half my advertising is wasted. I just don’t know which half.” With the Web, online marketers say, they finally know which half.

Icelandair goes too sexy

Icelandic feminists and women in general have decided to take Icelandair to court. The Centre for Gender Equality and The Icelandic Women’s Rights Association, are suing Icelandair for allegedly violating the recently-passed Equal Rights Act with its advertising. As reported today on Yahoo! News “Some of Icelandair’s campaigns where Icelandic women are presented as sex objects obviously violate the laws. By using word games the company is suggesting that Icelandic women are loose or promiscuous“.

Online political advertising

There’s a very interesting article by Nicholas Thompson today on The Globalist. It’s dedicated to online political advertising, a topic that I follow with particular interest since it was supposed to be the subject of my thesis. As Mr Thompson said, despite the premises, information technology hasn’t lived up to its worldwide political promise. Several candidates have been using the Net to promote themselves but, still, in no case it has proved to be a mature tool to fulfil their needs.

The Hulk promotion online

As reported today on Hollywoodreporter.com Universal Pictures are heavily using the online space to promote the upcoming movie “The Hulk“. In particular, the green hero will appear on the Yahoo! network in a series of rich media ads. I went on Yahoo! and I saw the ads (Screenshot 1 | Screenshot 2 | Screenshot 3 ) and I can tell you I like to things: first, you can choose whether or not to listen to the music and, second, you can tell Yahoo! what you think about the ad. What I disliked it’s that ad itself, too confusing and somehow annoying. To summarize, a good idea, a disappointing layout. By the way, Universal Pictures as also signed a Deal with Mastercard for limited edition credit card branded The Hulk. How can you live without it?

Size Matters

In rich media ads,

DoubleClick fights the spam

In a press release published today, DoubleClick has announced its declaration of war to spam. The Company will launch a series of initiatives “designed to help legitimate marketers and the email marketing industry betterunderstand and leverage policy, research, education, and technology, in the fight against Spam, and to further differentiate legitimate marketing communications from Spam.”

Online advertising has a bright future

As The Associated Press reports today on a wide range of news Web sites, U.S. online-advertising revenue showed a healthy increase in the fourth quarter of 2002, breaking a two-year declining trend. However, the industry remains below its revenue levels at the height of the boom. You can read the news, for example, on Bizreport. As Frank Barnako reports today on CBS.MarketWatch.com: “The growing success of “rich media” ads, which feature sound and video, is one reason online advertising climbed in the fourth quarter of 2002, according to Pete Petrusky, director of new media for PricewaterhouseCoopers”.

Futhermore, you can have a look at IAR where yesterday Brian Morrissey wrote an article presenting the research note issued Tuesday, where Goldman Sachs Internet analyst Anthony Noto doubled his forecast for the online advertising industry in 2003. Noto now expects revenue to increase 10 percent to $5.2 billion, up substantially from his earlier 5 percent growth forecast. In the article are also presented some predictions concerning Yahoo!, Overture and AOL revenue this year.

eMarketer’s Online Advertising Essentials

The new report on Online Advertising will be released by eMarketer at the end of this month. As the NYC based company revealed today in its daily newsletter, the report will also feature demographics concerning US Internet Users. For example, US Internet users spend online, on average, range from 261 hours to 702 hours per year and, according to eMarketer’s estimate, based on its analysis of all the relevant research data, each users spends online 7.6 hours weekly. I wish I was spending only 7.6 hours per week online. I guess this is my daily average�

Mobile firms angered by SMS regime change

The mobile content industry has slammed the launch of the Mobile Data Association’s new regime for premium rate SMS as ill-thought-out and commercially damaging. Justin Pearse reports on New Media Zero the industry reactions to the recent decision by the MDA, taken without consultation.

Tips for a profitable PPC campaign

Andrew Goodman presents on SearchEngineGuide.com: The Seven-or-So Habits of Highly Profitable PPC Campaigns. In the article the author summarizes seven characteristics that successful search engine advertising campaigns have in common.