Social networking’s marketing advantage has been on the rise amongst small businesses in the United Kingdom, and in the last six months, the numbers of firms that use social networks to promote themselves has more than doubled, from 7 percent to 15 percent, SME Web reported Tuesday.

A British Telecommunications Group (BT) Tradespace survey found that social networks are most popular amongst start-up companies, with 22 percent of surveyed businesses using them. Meanwhile, 13 percent of home-based and 11 percent of growing firms employ the promotional tool.

More

A new study shows that many young adults not only buy brands, but also discuss them and add brand content to their instant messenger services, Web pages and social networking sites, The ClickZ Network reported.

The global survey, conducted by Synovate in conjunction with Microsoft, noted that 28 percent of respondents talked about a brand on a discussion forum, 23 percent added brand-related content to their IM service, and 19 percent added it to their homepage or social sites.

More

Online advertising in France is still stronger than other media in the economic slowdown, as it is in the U.S. and the UK, eMarketer reported.

The Internet will be the only channel to have significant growth in advertising this year, according to data from France Pub. Spending on display and search reaching €913 million (US$1.36 billion), increasing 23.4 percent from 2007.

More

The Evening Standard debuted front page advertising for the first time today, featuring an advertising wrap promoting British Gas, Brand Republic reported Thursday. The ad wrap covers a strip of the front page, and takes over the entire last page.

The advertising was planned by media company Carat, owned by marketing communications firm Aegis. Carat Press Director Dominic Williams stated that the move demonstrates that the press’s creative progression, according to Brand Republic.

More

Tokyo-based agency holding company Dentsu Holdings announced Wednesday it will acquire New York-based ad firm mcgarrybowen, whose clients include JPMorgan, Chase, Kraft, Disney, Marriott International, News Corp. and more. Terms of the deal were not yet disclosed, Media Post reported.

mcgarrybowen, founded in 2002, is a full-service agency providing both traditional and digital advertising.

More

Total Johnston Press ad revenues for the 44 weeks ending on Nov. 1 were down 15.5 percent from the same period last year ShareCast reported Wednesday.

The overall performance for the UK regional newspaper publisher has deteriorated since the first half of this year, because of “further substantial declines in property advertising combined with significant falls in employment and display advertising," according to the company’s statement.

More

Although traffic for financial news is swelling, the advertising industry is seeing its most difficult period in decades, both due to the economic turmoil that began globally in September, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang said Wednesday at the Internet Advertising Bureau's Engage conference in London, Media Guardian reported.

"We are watching carefully (because we are) not sure whether a consumer-led recession will impact (the search sector)," Yang said, according to Media Guardian. "We do see search continuing to grow but the only question is whether people will search for commercial or non-commercial items."

More

Newsday's new owner, Cablevision Systems, will rebrand the New York-based newspaper's print and online auto classifieds section as Optimum Autos, beginning Jan. 1, Editor & Publisher reported.

Once Optimum Autos at Newsday launches, it will offer reviews and price information from auto resources Kelley Blue Book and J.D. Powers and Associates, as well as search capabilities, full exterior and interior views of cars and videos, according to E&P.

More

Traditional media advertising in Australia is expected to slump between 3 percent to 5 percent, experts predicted at the Commercial Economic Advisory Service of Australia in Sydney on Monday, The Australian reported. But although analysts predicted spending will fall, media buyers said advertising clients have not yet given any signs that they will make large cuts in ad spending.

Other than the Internet and pay-TV, media budgets will continue to tighten through the end of the year, cutting growth to 4.8 percent for 2008, said Steve Allen, media analyst for Fusion Strategy. Total spending for the year is expected to be AU$12.13 billion, he said.

More

Although U.S. local media and local TV stations generated big advertising gains from the Web this year, in 2009 they are expected to experience a serious downturn, Media Post reported Thursday.

According to Borrell Associates, these companies will likely gain some 47 percent more online ad revenues to US$12.9 billion this year, over $8.7 billion in 2007. However, they should brace for a sharp slowdown in the Web areas in 2009.

More

Sixty-four percent of UK consumers feel they can discover and learn about products through advertising, while 59 percent consider ads “entertaining,” the latest YouGov study, backed by the Advertising Association, has found, MarketingWeek reported Monday.

“These results are heartening and encouraging for the advertising industry. At a time when business is very concerned about the present economic situation it will be those that stay ahead of competition during hard times who will reap considerable rewards on recovery,” said Advertising Association Chief Executive Baroness Peta Buscombe.

More

Local advertisers in the United States this year are expected to spend nearly five times the amount spent in 2004 on Internet advertising, according to research firm Borrell Associates. In contrast, newspaper Web sites saw 44 percent of local online ad revenue in 2004, but just 27 percent in 2008, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Borrell estimates U.S. local advertisers will spend about US$12.9 billion in online advertising by the end of this year, and newspapers owned by McClatchy, E.W. Scripps Company and A.H. Belo are changing their online sales strategies to capture a bigger percentage of these ad dollars, according to The Times.

More

Omnicom Group is launching a new mobile practice to marry behavioral and mobile marketing, Media Post reported Thursday.

The new agency, named Mobile Behavior, is aimed to help advertisers better understand consumers' mobile behaviors, which hopefully can lead to more effective use of the mobile marketing channel in conjunction with other media.

More

Top news executives concluded at a U.S. National Press Club forum Wednesday that new measures must be taken to appeal to advertisers to generate the revenues required to keep quality journalism active, the NPC reported on its Web site.

“The business model is clearly broken,” Des Moines Register Publisher Laura Hollingsworth told the forum. She said there is a gap between news content and advertising, as ads may not be following news contents' move to the Web.

More

Most of Germany’s media outlets are predicted to have decreased advertising revenue by the end of the year, as the country's media and advertising industries are seeing large-scale cutbacks, Gipp.ru reported Thursday.

A third of Germany’s media firms, including telecommunications giant Deutsche Telecom, announced plans to slash advertising budgets in 2008 by amounts ranging between €500 million to €30.3 billion.

More