In recent months, many have been wondering whether Americans' use of the Internet is growing or shrinking. Have the problems of the dot-com economy cuased a drop in web use? Have users lost interest in the novelty of the online world? The Pew Internet and American Life project took it upon themselves to find out whether there really has been a drop in Internet use in the past six months and their findings show that we can all rest easy knowing that the Internet is here to stay and no one is getting tired it just yet. Pew …

If you're involved with consumer packaged goods (CPGs), you might find this latest release from Dynamic Logic interesting (and worth passing on to your creative team). The company recently studied the effects of creative elements on key branding metrics, and found that the CPG advertisers generally do a better job than non-CPG advertisers with message association and purchase intent. According to the findings, CPGs lift message association by 19% on average, versus 12% for all campaigns Dynamic Logic tested. In the area of purchase intent, CPG campaigns beat the 1% normative lift with a 5% average lift. "Traditional advertisers …

Last week, CBS's reality show Big Brother 2 didn't quite impress anyone with their TV ratings, but whatever viewers they didn't attract to the screen, they may have caught up with on the web. According to the latest from Nielsen//NetRatings, CBS.com took the top ranking as the fastest growing domain during the week ending July 8, as surfers hit the site for the latest news regarding the contestants on "Big Brother 2." CBS.com attracted 639,000 unique visitors compared to 282,000 surfers the previous week, jumping 127%. More than 29% of CBS.com's audience visited the "Big Brother 2" portion of …

The gap between the country's online and general population is narrowing, and quickly. At least that's according to InsightExpress, a firm that helps companies conduct market research via the Web. IE says that the profile of the average adult American Internet user looks more and more like the profile of the average American, which was not the case just five years ago. According to IE's comparison of their own survey findings to the 2000 Census figures, women (51%) outnumber men (49%) both online and in real life. That's quite a change from 62% male to 38% female ratio …

New research released today by research company Dynamic Logic and interactive agency eBrands provides interesting evidence that Internet advertising builds brands without the support of offline advertising. Interestingly enough, the research is based on the results from an advertising campaign for a fictitious new brand: YesSirNoSir - http://www.YesSirNoSir.net - a personal concierge services. The brand was advertised exclusively online across the UK properties of iVillage.com and FTMarketWatch.com with 2 million banner impressions that ran over May and early June 2001 - an estimated $70,000 worth of media. Dynamic Logic used the campaign to test the value of online …

For the past day and a half, all anyone in this industry has been talking about is that CBS Marketwatch.com announcement about omitting click through rates from ad performance reports. The website intends to shift the focus toward campaign reach, post-impression analysis and brand awareness, similar to metrics used in other media. Frankly, I'm a little confused. But before I get into that, let me emphasize that I agree with the many expert minds who think (a) that CTR is a pathetic metric that fails to account for the branding and behavioral effects, and (b) that the industry should …

A reality check from a research house? Well, sort of. This morning, Jupiter Media Metrix said that mobile transactions will comprise only a sliver of all online shopping even though nearly 40% of the U.S. population will subscribe to a wireless web service. Considering that mobile transactions are so closely related to mobile ads, this is worth talking about. According to Jupiter's latest release, although the U.S. has the largest base of cell-phone users in the world, less than $4 billion in shopping and travel will be transacted on web-enabled phones in 2006 - that's less than 2% of …

As IAR reported earlier this week, it seems banners as branding tools are working for some advertisers after all. At least according to a study Coca-Cola's Netherlands division conducted with 24/7 Media Europe, ad agency Universal Interactive, and research firm Pro Active International. The results were not all that surprising but deserve a mention nevertheless. The study involved a Shockwave ad designed to drive people to a micro site where they could register for a Coca-Cola card, and a survey of 7,600 people. Even though a quarter of respondents said they didn't like banners, more than 20% …

Following my Tuesday rant about Full Page Banner Ads being hailed by their creators as imminent saviors of web advertising, several of our readers asked me for FPBA's contact info, so here it is: http://www.fpba.net. If you contact them, please let me know if they're really as great as they say they are. That said, on to a somewhat related subject. I've often written about different rich media ad formats in the past, including interstitials, Superstitials and the like, and someone always asks - "is there really anyone out there actually using these things?" Good question. The answer …

Tomorrow is a holiday and since everyone around me is in a rather jovial mood, I was originally going to talk about something pleasant - about the fact that most of us are still around having survived the first half of this horrible year, how things are looking up, etc. But then this ridiculous press release landed on my desk, and I just have to rant. First off, the release, titled "New Advertising Product to Cure Online Advertising Ills" starts with "Full Page Banner Ad (FPBA) promises to usher in a new era of growth for online advertising companies." …