Automotive

Socialbakers has released its latest "Socially Devoted" figures for Q1, and the results are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the average response rate grew 6% points quarter-over-quarter to 38%, after only improving by 4% points in the preceding 6 months. But on the other hand, that means that significantly fewer than half of questions posted to brands' Twitter profiles were answered. What's more, the average response time increased by 10%, from 6 hours in Q4 2012 to more than 6-and-a-half hours in Q1. Read more »

Media Economics Group has released a list of the top advertisers on Hispanic websites during Q1 2013, revealing that Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Toyota were by far the leading advertisers, neck and neck with 6.78% and 6.74% share of ad occurrences, respectively. According to Nielsen, P&G was the biggest spending advertiser in the US last year, with Toyota in the fourth spot. However, AT&T and General Motors, which were the second- and third-largest spenders last year in the US, didn't make the top 10 list for Hispanic advertisers in Q1. Rounding out the top 5 advertisers on Hispanic websites were Ford (2.99% share of occurrences); State Farm (2.93%); and Nissan (2.46%). Read more »

The average tenure for CMOs of leading US consumer brand companies reached 45 months in 2012, continuing a steady rise from a low of 23.2 months in 2006, according to study results from Spencer Stuart. The researchers attribute the trend to CMOs having "come of age," with the marketing function taking a greater role in enterprise growth due to new technologies and digital marketing channels. Late last year, The CMO Council pronounced 2013 "the year of the marketer," with survey results demonstrating that senior marketers are enjoying budget growth, increased responsibilities, legitimacy, and compensation. Read more »

Content engagement on Pinterest is more often initiated organically by users than from brand-owned accounts, at least in the fashion/retail, auto, and electronics categories, per a new study from Digitas and Curalate. Fashion and retail-related images are most likely to be pinned by the community, with brands pinning only 18% of content. Auto content engagement is also largely driven by the community (to the tune of 70% of content), while for electronics it's more of an even split (53% community vs. 47% brand). Read more »

Global ad spending grew by 3.2% last year, but some sectors fared better than others, details Nielsen in further results released publicly from its Global AdView Pulse report. At the forefront of spending growth were the telecom and FMCG sectors, boosting expenditures by 7% and 6.8%, respectively. On the other end of the spectrum, spending by durables brands declined by 2.1%, while healthcare companies cut back slightly, by 0.7%. Read more »

Unruly has released its first in a series of quarterly reports examining trends in social video advertising. The report, which looks at video ad shares across verticals and brands in Q1, highlights an encouraging performance by FMCG brands, and a relatively lackluster showing from auto manufacturers. All told, FMCG ad campaigns generated almost 8.7 million shares during the quarter, up 78.2% from Q4 2012, and representing 25.3% of all shares. The vertical was propped up by Budweiser's "Brotherhood" Super Bowl ad, which became the second most-shared Super Bowl ad ever, with 2.4 million shares. Read more »

Ace Metrix has released its list of most effective TV ads during Q1 2013, with a surprising finding: only 2 Super Bowl spots cracked the top 10, with Budweiser's "Brotherhood" coming in at number 5. In another noteworthy result, no Oscar ads made it into the top 10. The list was headed by Cool Whip, with its "Mistreated and Hurt" ad achieving an Ace Score of 680, followed by Longhorn Steakhouse's "Great Steak" at 676, and Buick's "Be Ready" at 675. Read more »

The Valentine's Day holiday had many Americans going online in February to order flowers and gifts for loved ones, according to [download page] new Media Metrix data from comScore. The flowers/gifts/greetings category rose 35% to 26.4 million visitors for the month, putting it second on the list of top-gaining categories, behind tax sites (+45% to 36.9 million), which have been the top-growing category for 3 consecutive months. Read more »

DG MediaMind has released its latest report benchmarking performance metrics for several online ad types and formats across dozens of countries and verticals. The study finds that in the US, the average click-through rate (CTR) for in-stream video ads was 1.11% in 2012, up from 1.03% in the previous study (covering Q2 2011 - Q1 2012). That topped the benchmark rates for mobile banners (0.88%, inching up from 0.87%), rich media (down slightly from 0.15% to 0.14%), and standard banners (unchanged at 0.1%). Read more »

The retail industry spent the most on advertising again last year, according to new figures from Kantar Media. At roughly $16.3 billion - up 3% from $15.9 billion in 2011 - the retail sector accounted for more than 11% of total US ad spend (excluding FSI/PSA). Given that Kantar Media only measures display advertising for its online figures, and that the retail industry is the biggest spender in overall online advertising, it's possible that the Kantar figures actually underestimate retail's contribution to US advertising. Read more »