TV ad spend hit $71.8 billion in 2011, representing a 4.5% increase from $68.7 billion in 2010, and 12.7% growth from $63.7 billion in 2009, according to a May 2012 report from Nielsen. Spot TV claimed the largest share of spend, at 32%, while cable TV grew 5.4% year-over-year and network TV declined 0.5% to move them into a virtual spending tie ($21 billion and $21.1 billion, respectively). Spanish language network TV and Spanish language cable TV grew 24% and 16%, respectively, combining to hold almost 6% of total TV spending. Read More »

Consumers who engage with finance content and ads on their mobile devices (”mobile finance users”) are disproportionately young and male, and place a high value on brands, finds Millennial Media [download page] in a May 2012 study conducted in partnership with comScore. While 25-34-year-olds make up only 17% of the mobile audience, they account for 32% of mobile finance users. Similarly, 18-24-year-olds, who make up 13% of the mobile audience, represent 21% share of those using mobile finance. Overall, mobile finance users are also more likely to be male (55%) than female (45%). Read More »

Crowdfunding platforms (CFPs) raised $1.47 billion in 2011, up 72% from $854 million in 2010, and almost tripling the $530 million raised in 2009, finds massolution in a May 2012 report. The study predicts worldwide funding volume to almost double this year to $2.8 billion, driven by a 300% growth in equity-based (for financial return) and reward-based (for non-financial rewards such as tokens) crowdfunding, with lending-based (75%) and donation-based (50%) funding also to experience solid growth. Read More »

37% of mobile users surveyed in Q1 2012 reported having used a mobile wallet in the previous 90 days, while a further 8% expressed interest in doing so, according to [download page] a JiWire report released in May 2012. This is a significant rise from 11% who reported having used a mobile payment system in Q4 2011. Among Q1 survey respondents who had used a mobile wallet, the leading solution was PayPal (46%), followed by Amazon (29%), and Google Wallet (18%). The remaining 7% used other options. Read More »

Adding out-of-home (OOH) advertising formats to other media can significantly boost a campaign’s reach, says the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) in a May 2012 report conducted by the Media Behavior Institute. The study tabbed the reach of billboards highest among outdoor formats, at 83% of adults aged 18-64, with alternative (42%), street furniture (28%), and transit (11%) following. Comparing these formats to the reach of other media, the report suggests that coupling billboards with mobile advertising can increase mobile’s reach by more than 300%, while billboards and the internet together can more than double the internet’s reach in the afternoon. Read More »

Spring, summer, and holiday months are the best times for advertisers to leverage mobile traffic to travel channels, says Jumptap in a May 2012 report. Looking at traffic and click-through rate (CTR) patterns for the travel channel in 2011, the study finds that while travel channel traffic peaked in August, CTRs were highest in June (3.55%), with September (3.37%), April (3.29%), and May (3.07%) also demonstrating strong engagement. Overall, travel, games, and entertainment were the highest performing application and mobile web channels for travel advertisers. Understanding traffic and CTR patterns is important given recent research from comScore revealing that 1 in 2 smartphone owners access travel content on their devices. Read More »

Among internet video viewers, Asians spent by far the most time of any race or ethnicity watching video content in Q4 2011, according to [download page] a May 2012 Nielsen report. With a monthly average of 8 hours and 43 minutes, they easily consumed more internet video than African Americans, at 6 hours and 19 minutes, and Hispanics, at 6 hours and 10 minutes. Caucasian internet video viewers spent the least amount of time, at just under 4 hours. Looking at gender patterns, the report finds that male viewers spent on average 5 hours and 4 minutes per month watching video on the internet, almost an hour more than female viewers (4 hours and 8 minutes). Read More »

President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney show varying audience patterns when comparing the composition of their website and social media visitors, finds comScore [download page] in an April 2012 report. President Obama’s website visitors skew older in general than his social media site visitors, with 57% of the former group aged 45 and over, compared to 22% of the latter. This might be expected, given social networking sites’ higher penetration among younger age groups. Surprisingly, though, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s website audience skews younger than his social media audience, with 46% of the former aged under 35, compared to 41% of the latter. Read More »

Google Product Search was the top comparison shopping engine (CSE) in Q1 2012, while Nextag just edged out PriceGrabber for the second spot, says CPC Strategy in a May 2012 report that compares the CSEs to each other. The study looked at overall traffic driven, average amount of revenue generated, conversion rates, cost divided by revenue (COS), average cost per click (CPC), responsiveness rate, and quality of tools, assigning a point category for each metric and weighting the categories (double for COS, 1.5 times for revenue and traffic) to arrive at its conclusion. Rounding out the top 5 were Shopping.com and Amazon Product Ads. Read More »

Radio doesn’t just provide its listeners with emotional drivers, it also serves as a primary place for them to find out about new music and artists, finds Jacobs Media in an April 2012 report. The survey, which polled more than 57,000 US and Canadian radio listeners, found that an impressive 50.8% cited FM radio as their primary source for finding out about new music and artists, making it a far more popular choice for sourcing new music than friends or other people (9.8%), kids (4.9%), Facebook (4.8%), or iTunes. Read More »