FR 
ES 
In Case You Missed It June
Friday, Jun 29, 2012 1:30 PM EST
By Mike Walter, VP Strategic Services
Slacker Radio now streaming on Roku
TheVerge 5-31-12 By Kimber Streamson
Music streaming service Slacker Radio has announced that it will be available for download on Roku devices starting today, joining Pandora, Rdio, Mog, and other music apps. The launch follows a recent update to Roku's streaming technology. Television apps are the latest frontier in personalized radio services, and Slacker will be competing with the likes of Pandora and other music apps on the streaming platform. Slacker Radio offers personalized music, news, comedy, and art stations, and is also available on smartphones, tablets, and the web.
Mobile Advertising Hit $5.3 Billion In 2011
MediaPost 6-7-12 by Mark Walsh
The Interactive Advertising Bureau earlier this year estimated U.S. mobile ad spending at $1.6 billion in 2011. Looking beyond U.S. borders, the IAB issued a new report today estimating the global mobile advertising market at $5.3 billion, with a wide gap between developed and emerging regions. Asia-Pacific, for example, represented 35.9% of worldwide mobile ad spend, North America, 31.4%, and Europe, 25.9%.
Across the board, search accounted for the largest share of mobile ad spending, typically at least double the amount of display for a given area. In North America, spending was more balanced, with search contributing $811 million, display hit $572 million and text message advertising, $295 million for a total of $1.68 billion.
U.S. Tablet Users Double To 70 Million In 2012
MediaPost by Mark Walsh 6-11-12
A new forecast from eMarketer predicts the number of U.S. tablet users will more than double this year from 33.7 million to nearly 70 million, or about 29% of the country’s Internet users. Responsible for most of that growth is the iPad, which remains the dominant tablet model, with more than three-quarters of the market in 2012.
In terms of the total U.S. population, 16.8% are expected to use an iPad at least once per month this year, up from 8.9% in 2011. Among Internet users, that translates to 22.2% penetration, up from 12.1% last year. By 2015, more than a third (35.3%) of Internet users will have an iPad.
Online Ads Hit $8.4 Bil, Mobile Dollars Double
MediaPost 6-11-12 by Gavin O'Malley
The Web might be a maturing medium, but online ad revenue shows little sign of leveling off. On the contrary, Internet ad revenue for the first quarter of the year set a new record (for the reporting period) at $8.4 billion -- which represented a 15% increase year-over-year, according to new data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau PricewaterhouseCoopers.
For the fourth quarter of 2011, online ad spending hit nearly $9 billion -- up 20.4% from a year ago, and 14.7% from the third quarter. Retail advertising remained the largest category of Internet ad spending, totalling 22% in 2011, or $7.1 billion, up slightly from 21% ($5.5 billion). Financial services accounted for 13% ($4.1 billion), telecom, 12% ($3.9 billion), automotive, 11% ($2.9 billion), leisure travel, 8% ($2.4 billion), and computing 8% ($2.7 billion). Those proportions all held steady through 2011, varying only by a percentage point.
Marketers Shifting Ad Spend Mix to Digital Media
Marketing Charts 6-14-12
Almost 3 in 10 marketers say they have shifted at least half of their marketing spending from traditional to digital advertising over the past 3 years, according to June 2012 survey results from RSW/US. The data also shows that 2 in 3 have moved at least 30% of their budgets from traditional to digital, while just 4% have not changed their spending mix. These findings align closely with March 2012 results from a DataXu survey, which found about one-third of CMOs saying that more than half of their budgets have shifted from traditional to digital marketing in the past year, with an additional 23% reporting a shift of between 26% and 50% to digital.
44% Allocate At Least Half of Budgets to Social & Digital
As a result of this shift in spending, 44% of marketers report that they are now spending at least half of their budgets on social and digital media. This represents a 42% increase from 31% spending that amount on digital and social media in 2009. This year, just 5% remain digital and social holdouts, allocating none of their marketing budgets to these channels.
52% say that at least half of the work they perform for their clients is in social and digital media, an almost 80% increase from 29% in 2009.
Marketers responding to the RSW/US survey appear quite confident in their social and digital media savvy. 57% either somewhat (44%) or strongly (13%) agree that they are on the cutting edge of understanding, working with, and maximizing their presence in the social and digital media spaces. This is up from 44% in 2009. However, this contrasts somewhat with May 2012 survey results from PulsePoint, which found most marketers lacking confidence in their ability to execute complex digital marketing campaigns.
Spotify Gets Real Radio Service
All Things Digital 6-19-12
Spotify -- which already lets users listen to music for free and on demand -- has finally launched its own bona fide Web radio service. “That is, this is a ‘real’ Web radio service, that comes with advertising, unlike iterations Spotify has released in the past,” AllThingsD points out. The service is a lot like the one already offered by Pandora, which as AllThingsD notes, is bad news for Pandora.
“Here’s the key takeaway: Spotify now has an option that lets people use the service for free, on mobile devices. Up until now, the only way to get Spotify on the go was to pay $10 or more per month, while Pandora’s key selling point was free mobility.” To date Pandora has consistently argued that it hasn’t seen any impact from Spotify’s U.S. launch last summer. Now, that’s almost certain to change.
Report: More Than 10 Billion Video Ads Delivered In May
MediaPost by Ross Fadner 6-19-12
The number of video ads served surged from nearly 9.5 billion in April to just over 10 billion in May, according to the latest online video rankings from comScore. That’s a month-over-month increase of around 6 percent and a record total, which is great news for the online video industry. Once again, the streaming TV/video service Hulu led the way, with more than 1.66 billion video ads served, followed by Google/YouTube with 1.385 billion ads served. Video ad network BrightRoll rounded out the top three with 1.130 billion ads delivered.
In summary, just over 180.5 million Americans watched online video in May -- slightly less than the nearly 180.8 million Americans who watched online video in April, representing a drop of about 0.2%. Americans watched 36.56 million total videos in May, also down slightly from the 36.85 billion videos consumed in April.
Read More
IBM: Mobile, Social Pose Biggest Hurdles For Marketers
MediaPost by Mark Walsh, 6-21-12
More than a third (34%) of companies say they plan to launch mobile ad campaigns within the next 12 months, according to IBM “State of Marketing 2012” report released Thursday. That marks the highest planned adoption rate for a new marketing tactic in the five-year history of the annual survey of 350 marketing professionals globally.
Currently, only a quarter of brands are running mobile ads, and about the same proportion (27%) say they have no plans to do so. To date, companies have focused more on building out their presence on the mobile Web and in apps. Nearly half (46%) have created mobile versions of their sites and 45% have created apps, with about another third planning to do the same in each case in the next year.
Social media is further ahead when it comes to monetization, with 45% running social ads currently, and 23% planning to do so in the next 12 months. Two-thirds of companies have pages on social networking sites, and 16% will add pages in the next year.
Top 100 Advertisers Boost Ad Spending but Not In Traditional Media
AdAge By: Bradley Johnson 6-25-12
The nation's 100 biggest advertisers boosted 2011 total U.S. ad spending by 4.8%. But you wouldn't know spending was on the rise if you looked only at last year's measured media. Measured spending for the top 100 actually slipped 0.2%. A double-digit measured-media gain for internet display spending and a small increase in TV did not make up for losses in newspapers, magazines and radio.
So where's the money going? Into unmeasured disciplines—a vast pool that includes various digital plays (search marketing, online video and some forms of social media), promotion and direct marketing. The appeal is clear: Marketers are putting money into disciplines that directly connect them with targeted consumers.
Advertisers are reshaping the media pie. Nearly three-fourths of ZenithOptimedia's internet breakout comes from what Ad Age currently counts as unmeasured spending (including paid search, online video and mobile ads); the rest comes from measured disciplines (display advertising, including display ads on social-media sites).
The top 100 U.S. advertisers in 2010 increased unmeasured spending by 12.6% and measured spending by 6.3%, resulting in an 8.8% rebound in total ad spending. Measured media's share of LNA spending dropped to 55.8% in 2011 from 58.6% in 2010. The shift in 2011 was widespread: 100 Leading National Advertisers in all but two major industry categories reduced the portion of 2011 spending that went to measured media, according to Ad Age DataCenter's analysis. (The two exceptions were financial services and restaurants, where measured media scored a bigger slice of the pie.)
Among the 100 largest advertisers, total 2011 U.S. spending (measured media plus unmeasured spending) increased in all but three major industries, according to Ad Age DataCenter's spending analysis. Among the 100 LNA, about two-thirds of marketers increased U.S. spending in 2011, with 32 cutting spending, according to Ad Age DataCenter's analysis.
What about 2012? Kantar Media last week reported some sign of a modest rebound in measured-media spending. Overall U.S. measured spending increased 2.6% in the first quarter, the best quarterly growth since second-quarter 2011.
ZenithOptimedia forecasts total U.S. spending for major media and marketing services will grow 3.2% in 2012 and another 3.2% in 2013, up from 2011's tepid 1.8% growth. That hardly signals a boom. But it's better than a bust.
Zynga Plans Its Own Social Network
MediaPost by Erik Sass 6-27-12
Zynga, the titan of time-wasting, is broadening its distribution base with a new social network called “Zynga With Friends,” where players can build profiles and connect with other players while wasting epic amounts of time, according to the company, which announced the plans on Tuesday. In addition to giving gamers a new go-to destination for flushing their lives down the toilet, the move is interesting because Zynga With Friends will be an alternative to Facebook, where most Zynga games are currently played.
Zynga has long hinted that it would like to lessen its dependence on Facebook, which takes a 30% cut of revenues generated through sales of virtual goods to casual gamers.
That would be more bad news for Facebook, which is struggling to demonstrate sustainable growth to Wall Street analysts and investors. If advertising revenue growth continues to slow, this would leave Facebook all the more dependent on revenue streams like Zynga’s virtual goods sales --just as Zynga is pulling away.
Ad Age Survey: Marketers Love Facebook, But Many Have No Idea If Their Ads Work
AdAge By: Michael Learmonth 6-27-12
When it comes to Facebook, the nation's marketers have reached an overwhelming consensus: you simply have to be there. Unfortunately for Facebook, they also have reached another: advertising on Facebook isn't necessarily required.
The 658 subscribers who took Ad Age's survey over the past two weeks characterized themselves as decision-makers in social marketing. The respondents were 34% marketers, 34% agency execs, 13% media execs, and various consultants and other members of the marketing ecosystem.
Nearly 86% of those surveyed say they currently use Facebook as a marketing tactic. Only 55%, however, say they currently advertise on Facebook, and nearly 88% said they would implement Facebook content without advertising at all.
Of the readers surveyed, 47% said their digital ad budgets were still less than 20% of their total. Nearly 50% said their budgets designated for social-media marketing were less than 10%. That said, 77% said they expected their digital-marketing budgets to increase in the coming year, while 73% said they expected their social-media advertising budget to increase.
While 72% said they expected their social-media advertising budget to increase, only 56.6% said they thought their Facebook advertising budget would increase, while nearly 40% believed it would stay the same.
That said, 72% said they consider their Facebook content efforts and advertising strategies to be linked, showing a widespread belief in the interplay between earned and paid media on Facebook. A sponsored story, for example, is just Facebook content turned into an ad and shown to more people. As the theory goes, the better the content, the more effective the ad.
The biggest question for marketers comes when it's time to measure the impact of their efforts on Facebook. A majority said clicks and "likes" were the most important metrics to look at, but when it came to driving purchase intent just over 19% said they "don't know" if Facebook is useful and more than 13% said it's "not useful." Just 55% said Facebook is "somewhat useful," indicating a high level of ambivalence on a key branding metric.
