... an important part of the media landscape, especially as mobile-friendly "native ad formats" fuel growth in the market.

Here's an overview of some major players in the mobile advertising ecosystem:

• The lure of social media advertising is massive: As brands look across a fractured media landscape, social networks offer them an interesting proposition. Social networks have scale - enormous user bases and deep databases. They have high engagement - Americans were spending an average of 12 hours per month on social networks as of July 2012, with 18-24 year olds averaging 20 hours. And potentially, social media offers brands a uniquely captive audience for their content.
   
• Guaranteed placement is getting advertisers to pay up: Brands are paying to get their content or copy in front of a quantifiable audience, an increasingly rare feat in an era of scattered consumer attention. This desire for guaranteed attention also helps to explain social media's move away from traditional display ads — like Facebook's right-rail ads — and toward so-called "native ads" that surface in a user's stream, either as a Tweet or a Facebook post. A consensus seems to be forming around in-stream advertising as the most promising social advertising format.
• Social media advertising is set to explode: it is a young market and, so far, it represents only 1% to 10% of ad budgets for a wide majority of advertisers. There's significant opportunity for that share to grow. BIA/Kelsey recently published a study that offers one view - forecasting $11 billion of social ad spend in 2017, up from $4.7 billion last year. That estimate is large - but still seems pessimistic, because ...
   
• Increased mobile usage will be a huge driver of advertising growth: The BIA/Kelsey prediction calls for mobile to account for only $2.2 billion of that in 2017 - a 20% market share. This could easily be surpassed. Both Twitter and Facebook have passed the 50% mobile usage mark and, given the continued growth of mobile devices, it will only rise. Mobile accounted for 11% of Facebook's ad revenue last year even though it didn't release mobile ads until the tail end of the second quarter. By the fourth quarter, it was up to 23%. And now, Twitter is reporting that its mobile ad revenue regularly outpaces its desktop ad revenue. Social media advertising is therefore uniquely positioned to grab an increasing share of the fast growing mobile advertising market. 

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Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... actually improved by the current trends in media.

Mr. Corty's take on the situation helped make him the WSJ's top-rated analyst in the advertising and publishing sectors this year. He was also one of the top three media stock pickers. 

Says he: ""Going back five years, there was a feeling that these agencies might get disintermediated by Google or clients placing ads directly online".

"But actually, it turns out that these agencies are more important than ever to their clients, as agencies are crucial in sorting through the increasing complexities of reaching consumers in a digital age."

Corty, who specialises in following media and advertising companies, applies lessons learned from previous roles at Morningstar, including overseeing coverage of media and internet stocks.

He joined Morningstar in 2004 and became team leader for media and internet coverage in 2007. He believes this gives him an advantage in a world where media and technology are converging.

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Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... a product of the imagination.

But with $3.25 million in initial financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, change is afoot.

Mr Kaplan will join the Lear Center's director of research, Johanna Blakley, as a principal “investigator” for the new enterprise.

Kaplan spoke last week about the futility of counting page-views, “likes,” and retweets when trying to figure out whether an opinion piece, a documentary film or a television show actually moved anyone.

“Those measure how many people saw something,” he said. “That’s not the same as an outcome.”

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Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... financial markets before stock market falls.

According to the report's co-author, Helen Susannah Moat, a social scientist from University College London:  “Our results are consistent with the suggestion that Google Trends data not only reflects aspects of the current state of the economy, but may have also provided some insight into future [stock market] trends.”

Published in Scientific Report - a primary research journal from the publishers of Nature magazine - the report further suggests that Google Trends data and stock market data may reflect two subsequent stages in investors' decision-making process.

Postulates Ms Moat: “Trends to 'sell' on the financial market at lower prices may be preceded by periods of concern. During such periods of concern, people may tend to gather more information about the state of the market, ie, search on engines like Google". 

Read the full unabridged Scientific Reports article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... “fifty percent of all ad impressions are never seen.”

Bander, who recently won the Advertising Research Foundation’s Great Mind Award for helping to develop the innovative media tracking technology, cites the aphorism coined by William Lever, the founder of Unilever: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half."

“Now,” says Bander, “we know which half.”

Utilizing the webcams built into consumers' own computers and handheld devices, Bander says Sticky has already tracked ads actually seen, or not, among 350,000 consumers.

That figure approximates to 700,000 eyeballs, creating a new form of media currency that some of the biggest advertisers in the world - among them Procter & Gamble - have already begun to use.

Madison Avenue is pushing the online industry to adopt a new standard of “viewability” for advertising exposure, meaning an ad has to be viewable on a consumer’s screen -- not “below-the-fold” -- for at least one second to be credited as an ad exposure. Fifty percent of impressions are never seen.

“Viewability is nice, but viewability just means that an ad is within the viewable area of a screen,” notes Bander, adding: “It doesn’t mean a consumer is actually looking at your ad.”
 

Read the original unabridged MediaPost article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... although the report relates solely to the USA, the halcyon days of near-exponential growth for social media elsewhere in the western world are trending sharply downward.

The Experian data indicates that, proportionate to other online activities, the time US consumers spend on social media sites is actually in decline.

However the report qualifies that apparent decline: "Blindly chasing fans or followers has rightly lost credence as brands realise that social sharing and referring has the biggest impact. As a result, simpler and more effective tools to measure social sharing will allow brands to refocus on creating meaningful social media campaigns."

By contrast, time spent shopping online grew year-on-year. In fact, US consumers spent 9% of their web time shopping in 2012. After analyzing US browsing data for mobile devices, email accounted for the largest time spent on average.

Overall, email made up 23% of time spent on mobile devices during the first quarter of the year, while social networking accounted for 15% of consumers’ mobile time.

Consumption of news content also increased among US consumers who devoted 4% of their online time to news.

Although the data refers solely to the US market - the western world's largest - the report's implications are equally valid within the UK and European Union.

All pales into relative insignificance, however, alongside the Chinese  social media market vis a recent report from Forbes.com.

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Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the purchase or rental of video or audio content from an internet provider, such as cable television, video on demand or an IPTV video service like AT&T U-Verse.

OTTC specifically refers to content that arrives from a third party, for example Netflix, Hulu or MyTV, and is delivered to an end user device, leaving the internet service provider responsible solely for transporting IP packets.

Worldwide OTTC video revenue continues its sharp growth - with Netflix, Hulu, Apple, and Amazon driving the business.

According to ABI Research, the OTTC market - valued at $8 billion in 2012 - grew at a near 60% increase over the previous year. Continued rapid growth will push the market past $20 billion by 2015.

Much of this will occur as traditional entertainment content providers become more comfortable with new media distributors/platforms.

Comments ABI senior analyst Michael Inouye: “The shift to digital and OTT distribution is accelerating, particularly as content providers increasingly warm up to these channels.

ABI notes that the three biggest markets - North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific - enjoyed year-on-year growth in excess of 50% in 2012.

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Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the health of the global economy, particularly in relation to the Eurozone debt crisis.

Despite which WARC expects global advertising spend (based on twelve major markets) to increase by +3.0% at current prices in 2013 and by +5.4% in 2014, according to its latest International Ad Forecast.

With the exceptions of Brazil and Japan, all featured markets have seen downgrades to their forecasts for 2013 compared with WARC's November 2012  report.

The Eurozone countries will all see flat or negative growth in advertising spemajor political or sportind for 2013.

Comments WARC's Data and Journals Director Suzy Young: "With few major political or sporting events this year, global advertising spend growth was always expected to be slower than in 2012. The Eurozone debt crisis also continues to depress growth both among member countries and abroad. To offset this, global adspend will be reliant on a solid performance from the US and strong growth from emerging markets."

Read the original unabridged WARC article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... $75 billion, an increase of 14% over five years.

At the current rate, it will be some time before digital ad spending surpasses TV in the USA, though it's expected to grow at a much faster rate (18%) over the next five years.

Advertisers spent an estimated $37.3 billion on digital advertising this year, and are expected to invest $60.4 billion in 2017. (Ad revenues from digital outpaced TV ad revenues in the UK in 2009.) 

Of course, broadcast and cable networks, many of which have built out digital extensions of their own, will partake of some of that increase.

Spending on digital video ads is expected to reach $4.14 billion this year, more than double the amount invested in 2011.

Read the original unabridged Mashable.com article.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... Russia's online advertising spend will this year grow from 19% of total national adspend to 22%, while spending on print media will decline from 13.9% to 12.6%. 

Conversely, TV ad revenues in 2013 will account for 46.4%, down on 48% in 2012. 

According to Vedomosti, publishing houses in Russia received between 2% and 25% percent of their revenues from internet advertising.

Mikhail Voshchinsky, managing director of Aegis Media, said that spending on online marketing was growing because new technologies such as real-time bidding had made online ads more transparent and straightforward to advertisers.

Read the original unabridged Vedomosti article.

*Vedomosti is co-owned by the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.