Asia Pacific

Marketing budget conditions have improved for the 5th consecutive month, details Warc [pdf] in its latest Global Marketing Index. The budget component of the index improved to a reading of 54.3 this month from 52.9 in April. Rather than following last year's pattern of diminished enthusiasm between April and May, this month's index rose to its highest value since the index's start in October 2011. (A score above 50 indicates a generally improving environment, while a score below 50 indicates a generally declining environment.) Read more »

Americans may not be as keen to share personal and other content online as citizens in other countries, suggests a survey from Ipsos OTX. The study asked respondents to identify how much they share online - including status updates, feelings, photos, videos, and links. Across the 24 countries tracked, an average of 24% said they'd best describe their amount of sharing as either "most things" or "everything." But that figure dropped to just 15% among American respondents. Read more »

North Americans are becoming more confident in spending, according to [download page] results from a Nielsen survey of consumer confidence and spending intentions. In Q1, 42% of respondents (all surveyed online) said they plan to spend on discretionary items this year, up from 36% the previous quarter. Within the US, 23% said they will spend on home improvement and decorating projects, a significant jump from 17% who responded that way in Q4 2012. Additionally, 22% are planning to take a vacation, up 2% quarter-over-quarter, with the same figures applying to out-of-home entertainment spending. Read more »

6 in 10 search marketers believe that it will be either much more (27%) or more (36%) important to rank in global search engines this year compared to last, according to results from BrightEdge's "2013 Search Marketer Survey" [download page]. A key aspect of reaching consumers around the world involves getting to the Chinese customer, and 41% of respondents believe it will be more important to rank in Baidu this year, versus about 1 in 10 who see this being less important. A recent report from Covario found that Baidu accounted for 1 in 4 global paid search clicks in Q1. Read more »

By 2015, the internet should account for 23.4% of global ad spending, details Zenith Optimedia in a new forecast. That's up more than 5% points from last year's 18%, and comes at the expense of almost all traditional media, none of which are slated to see any growth in share of spending. TV's share will remain flat, at about 40%, as will cinema's (at just 0.6%), but newspapers, magazines, radio, and outdoor will see varying levels of declining share. Print, as expected, will be hardest hit: newspapers and magazines are the only media forecast to see a decline in expenditures. Read more »

44% of Americans say they share or like online content that others have posted on social media and other online sites, according to survey results from Ipsos. While that's right about the global average of 45%, certain segments of the population show a heightened tendency to share content. For example, within the US, women are about 56% more likely than men to say they share or like what others have posted (53% vs. 34%), while 18-34-year-olds are roughly 30% more likely than the average respondent to do so. Read more »

The median email click-through rate (CTR) in the US stood at 2.2% last year, and the mean rate at 3.3%, but the top quartile of performers achieved an average rate of 8.3%, according to [pdf] a new email marketing benchmarks study from Silverpop. The study also reveals that when it came to unique open rates, the top quartile of performers in the US saw an average rate of 34.7%, more than double the median rate of 16.5%. The strongest performers bested the median click-to-open rate by 83% (24% vs. 13.1%). Read more »

Traditional media continue to dominate global advertising spending, and most show no signs of falling off for the time being, according to new data released by Nielsen. TV, which commands the lion's share of global ad budgets, saw a 4.3% increase in expenditures for the year, reaching $350 billion. Cinema, radio, and outdoor saw growth rate above the 3.2% overall average, up 5.8%, 6.1%, and 7.7%, respectively. And while magazines (-1.6%) and newspapers (-0.2%) saw slight declines in spending, they still accounted for more than one-quarter of global spending. Read more »

Marketing budget conditions improved again this month, details Warc [pdf] in its latest Global Marketing Index. The budget component of the index improved to a reading of 52.9 this month from 52.4 in February, representing the 4th consecutive month above the threshold reading of 50, and the 6th consecutive month of improving sentiment. (A score above 50 indicates a generally improving environment, while a score below 50 indicates a generally declining environment.) Read more »

Men appear to be more interested in using their mobile phones than women, according to data released by Kantar Media. In the US, 15.9% of men reported being interested in using their phone to make purchases, compared to 13.3% of women. In the UK, the gap is similar (12% vs. 10.3%), while it's narrower in Australia (9.5% vs. 9.2%) and wider in Germany (5% vs. 1.9%). A separate study released today by Jumio indicates that American men are also more likely to conduct financial activities on their devices than women. Read more »