I-COM worldmeasurementnews

comScore: Portuguese Internet Audience Grows to Nearly 4 Million Users in September 2009

comScore Executive Alex Banks to Speak at i-com National Roundtable in Lisbon, Portugal on Thursday 26th November

London, U.K. November 24, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of a study of the online habits of Portuguese Internet users, based on data from the comScore World Metrix service. More than 3.8 million people age 15 and older accessed the Internet from a home or work location in Portugal in September, viewing an average 1,843 pages and spending an average 1.9 hours online per person during the month.

“Portugal represents a dynamic and growing Internet market in Europe with users continuing to be more active and engaged online,” said Mike Read, comScore managing director for Europe and Ibero America. “The average Internet user in Portugal is spending more time online engaging in different behaviors such as reading news and articles, search, conducting personal financial transactions and social networking. As these behaviors continue to take hold in the Portuguese market there will be an increasing number of opportunities to leverage the Internet for marketing and advertising purposes.” More...

In US, the Hispanic Market Is Set to Soar

Adweek writes: The 2010 Census will radically alter the demographic map and the rules of engagement between Hispanic and general-market shops. Hispanic Americans continue to grow in number at a rate four times that of the general population, with the 2010 Census expected to show their total rising to nearly 50 million, from 38 million in 2000. And second-generation Hispanics are fast becoming the driver of the group's growth, with 88 percent of Hispanic children born in America, versus 61 percent of adults. More...

In UK, online advertising expenditure overtakes TV for the first time

IAB UK writes: In the first half of 2009 internet advertising weathered the recession and grew by 4.6% to £1,752.1m, despite the entire advertising sector contracting by 16.6% during the same period.

According to the bi-annual online advertising expenditure study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) - the trade body for digital marketing - in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) - the internet has now overtaken TV advertising to become the UK’s single biggest advertising medium.

The UK remains the world leader in terms of market share for online, with the medium accounting for 23.5% in the first half of 2009. The results signal a significant restructure of marketing budgets as advertisers follow their audiences online and look to the internet for even more measureable and accountable methods. More...

In UK, DMG launches new Research agency demographDMG

UK's DMG (Digital Marketing Group) launches a "research company for the digital age", demographDMG. Stephen Worrall writes on their blog: Most agencies and researchers claim to be able to deliver insight at the drop of a hat. You would think that insights come along as often as London buses, that they just fall out of the research data without any effort. At Demograph we think a bit differently, we try to set the bar a bit higher, we believe that true ground breaking, business building, game changing insights are rare indeed and need to be coaxed from the research findings through creative, team based, category driven understanding. More...

In UK, Online market share increases to 19.2% as advertisers seek accountability

IAB UK writes: Advertising expenditure on the internet proved resilient to the downturn in 2008 by growing to £3,350 millions in 2008, a 17.1% like-for-like increase on 2007, according to the bi-annual online advertising expenditure study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the trade body for digital marketing.

Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB, said: "These are really tough times and advertising budgets are being slashed. More than ever, marketers have to demonstrate a clear return on their media investment – and accountability is online's trump card. UK advertisers have become digital savvy and they're now using rich media, ad networks and search in intelligent ways to achieve their sales and brand targets. This shift to digital has propelled online to become a 20% medium." More...

U.S. Hispanic Internet Audience Growth Outpaces Total U.S. Online Population by 50 Percent

RESTON, VA, April 16, 2009 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a report on the U.S. Hispanic Internet market, finding that the Hispanic online population reached a record 20.3 million visitors in February 2009, representing 11 percent of the total U.S. online market. During the past year, the growth of the U.S Hispanic Internet audience outpaced that of the total U.S. online population in terms of number of visitors, time spent and pages consumed, as Hispanic online adoption and engagement accelerated.

Hispanic Online Audience Growing Faster than Total U.S. Internet Market
The U.S. Hispanic online population reached 20.3 million visitors in February 2009, an increase of 6 percent from the previous year. Hispanic Internet users also exhibited a surge in online engagement, including strong increases in time spent and pages consumed. The total amount of time spent online by Hispanics increased 6.9 percent in 2009 (3.9 times faster than the total U.S. online population), while total pages consumed grew 6 percent (3.6 times faster than the total U.S. population). More...

eDigitalResearch bucks the economic trend and opens a new London office

Digital research specialist, eDigitalResearch, is bucking the economic trend by growing annual sales, strengthening its team and opening a new London office to manage the increase in demand for its services.

eDigitalResearch's new London office will be managed by Head of Business Development, Dominic Bean and is well-placed for the organisation's future strategy. "It has never been more important to understand and respond to customers," comments Michelle Fuller, Director at eDigitalResearch. "More organisations are recognising the benefits that digital research has when needing to gain insight and create strategy that gets them closer to their customers. We are definitely noticing that some organisations are cutting back on their research budgets, but more and more understand that digital research is cost-effective and works. We are launching several new products over the coming year to ensure that, despite the recession, we are continuing to innovate and provide the best tools for our clients." More...

WPP 2008 Preliminary Results Show Insight Division Growing

London 6 March, 2009 The Board of WPP plc (“WPP”) announces the unaudited preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2008, the Group’s twenty-third year and which include the results of Taylor Nelson Sofres plc, “TNS” for two months. 2008 was another record year for the Group, on most dimensions, despite the worsening economic climate.

On a constant currency basis, information, insight and consultancy revenues grew 27.8%, largely as a result of the acquisition of TNS, with like-for-like revenues up 3.0%. Gross margin grew by 2.9% on a like-for-like basis. Overall reported margins fell by 0.2 margin points to 11.3%.

In October 2008, the Company successfully completed the acquisition of TNS, a major information, insight and consultancy group, operating in over 80 countries with almost 17,000 people worldwide. TNS is a market leader in Continental Europe with strong positions in the United Kingdom, Asia and the Middle East and is a major supplier of consumer panel, media intelligence and TV and radio audience measurement data. It is competitively strong in key industries, including automotive, technology, healthcare and retail and packaged goods. The combination of TNS and the other companies within Kantar – the Group’s information, insight and consultancy business, has created the second largest global insight, information and consultancy group and the fourth largest information services company in the world, after Thomson Reuters, Nielsen and Bloomberg.

This combination now provides leading positions in Shopper research and marketing, Media (outside of the US), Healthcare, Communications and Innovation. In a recently announced reorganisation, TNS Custom Research has now been merged with Research International and four specialist research units have been formed – Kantar Media, Kantar Healthcare, Kantar Retail and Kantar Worldpanel. Kantar Operations will consolidate back office operations at Kantar and TNS. More...

The Kantar Group to streamline client offering following TNS deal

23 February, 2009 London — The Kantar Group has today announced a major re-organisation to strengthen its position as the world’s leading information, insight and consultancy business and streamline its offer for clients. The re-organisation will simplify the Group’s overall offering through a series of structural changes, building on the acquisition of TNS in October 2008.

Commenting on the changes, Eric Salama, CEO of The Kantar Group, said: “This re-organisation is far-reaching and is all about clients. It’s about how we help clients access the best talents and capabilities we have, when and where they need it. And it’s about a structure which enables us to innovate and roll out offers which are relevant to contemporary client needs. We are keeping a multi-brand structure which encourages the development of best-in-class specialists while dealing with a key client demand to see offers which are more joined-up. We will know that we will have been successful when we see clients getting the best of Kantar everyday, everywhere.”

Kantar Media brings together the specialist media capabilities of TNS Media Intelligence, TNS Media Research, KMR and TGI. The business will be organised into four key operations: Kantar Media Intelligence, Kantar Audience Measurement (formerly Media Research), TGI Global (including other single source services) and an integrated company covering all disciplines in the US market. The identity for the new company will be Kantar Media, but it will reference TNS in its branding in acknowledgment of the strength of the TNS brand in the media world. The enlarged unit will have a leading worldwide position in areas such as audience measurement, advertising expenditure tracking, software and news monitoring. It will also be the home for the increased focus on behavioural data from new technologies, return path data and mobile and for developing the infrastructure for addressable advertising. More...

IAB Canada Releases Results Of First-Ever Canadian Mobile Advertising Revenue Survey

TORONTO, February 24, 2009 - The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada today announced that Mobile Advertising Revenue in Canada grew from $1.1 million in 2006 to $2.7 million in 2007, and is expected to almost double again in 2008 to $5.2 million.

Standard SMS advertising programs currently generate 75% of the total Canadian Mobile advertising revenue, with the remainder divided across Premium SMS, Mobile Content, Mobile (Display) Advertising, Mobile Search and Mobile Applications. All forms of Mobile advertising are growing rapidly year-over-year, with the exception of Mobile Search, which is virtually non-existent at this time. More...