Who said no one is ever going to take advertising on personal digital assistants (PDAs) seriously? A few weeks ago, Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment announced plans to take "advergaming" from the desktop to the hand-held device with the launch of an interactive PDA-based advergame to promote "The One", the new Jet Li movie scheduled for release on November 2, 2001. What's significant about this announcement is that it marks the first time that a studio has created a PDA-based advergame on behalf of a major motion picture release. In "The One," parallel universes collide when a rogue …

Yesterday’s discussion of robots and spiders, those pesky things that surf the web and inflate web traffic figures, seems to have hit a nerve with some of our readers. Judging by the feedback I’ve received so far, everyone supports the IAB’s decision to put together a list of known robots and spiders, but that’s not nearly enough to solve the problem of discrepancies that occur when the numbers reported by sites’ ad management systems do not equal those reported by an advertiser’s third-party ad serving system. According to a recent white paper published by Mediaplex, a …

The IAB's efforts to improve the quality of online campaign measurement seem to be attracting some favorable attention for a change. The organization announced today that it has reached an agreement with ABCi, an industry leader in the online third party verification arena, for ABCi to create and maintain the ABCi/IAB master industry list of spiders and robots. Spiders and robots automatically search Web content for information. They are used for a number of tasks including retrieval of content information for commercial search engines, gathering content pages for offline viewing, tracking advertising activity and identification of "What's …

If anything can be reliably predicted these days it's that websites that offer information about current events will continue to experience unprecedented boosts in traffic. Interestingly enough, some of the more popular sites are maintained by goverment agencies. Nielsen//NetRatings reports that traffic to various government websites skyrocketed during the week ending October 14, as surfers turned to the Internet for information on the recent anthrax and terrorist-related cases. "The need for thorough and reliable information is critical, especially during this time when facts of recent events may be inaccurately reported," said Allen Weiner, VP and principal analyst …

The marketing world is seeing the evolution of two critical concepts, according to a white paper released today by Euro RSCG Worldwide. Compiled using both original analysis and secondary data, "The Empowered Consumer in the Age of Globalization" argues that understanding and catering to today's prosumers and integrating glocal strategies into brand development have become vital to the success of any advertising and marketing effort. No, those are not typos, they're words you should probably add to you dictionary. "The term prosumer refers to a proactive, empowered consumer and expresses the idea that the balance of power has …

Here's an online advertising success story you may be interested in. The Keebler Company, marketer of Cheez-It brand crackers, today announced the results of a promotion they're running with ActiveBuddy, which delivers content via instant messengers. With close to 100 million people now using instant messaging software, according to industry estimates, many companies are itching to take advantage of what they consider an untapped market. And, it seems, with good reason. According to Keebler, results are impressive. For the month of September, test results showed that out of 120,000 total impressions, there was an impressive 6.5% click …

Start-ups are infamous for their way of spending money in the past, but now it looks like they've changed their ways. According to the latest findings of Launch Pad, a San Francisco-based high-tech marketing consulting firm, and Blanc & Otus, a high-tech communications company, dramatic reallocations have occurred in the marketing budgets of business-to-business high-tech start-up companies recently. Despite the economic conditions they now face, these start-ups have - drum roll, please - INCREASED marketing spending in absolute dollars from $2.2 million in 2000 to $2.8 million in 2001, though marketing spending as a fraction of total expenditures fell …

Don't ask me why, but something from an interview I did a couple of years ago with CondeNet really stuck with me. We were talking about an upcoming custom-tailored, integrated ad campaign for one of CondeNet's ad clients, which included online, print and broadcast components. The phrase was, "The idea is to surround your target audience." A marketer's dream, right? I heard that phrase again today, this time from New York Times Digital, which is ready to launch an ad concept they call "surround sessions." The idea is for a single advertiser to accompany a single viewer …

The doldrums of summer seem to have passed and here are some numbers to prove that the web is full of activity these days. Nielsen//NetRatings reports that anticipation of the third season of reality TV show "Survivor" drove traffic to the Entertainment Weekly website following the October 4th "Survivor" television special which introduced the members of this season's cast. EW.com skyrocketed 158% during the week ending October 7, as surfers logged on at-home to get bios and facts about the new cast members before the show's October 11th premiere. According to another web traffic tracker Jupiter Media Metrix, …

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but today is full of negativity. First, the ad world woke up to the news that Boston-based Digitas laid off 350 employees worldwide yesterday as it reported disappointing third-quarter financials and revised downward its revenue forecast for the fourth quarter. The agency reported revenue of $51 million for the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with $76 million for the same quarter a year ago. For the first nine months of 2001, revenue has dipped to $189 million, compared with $209 million for the same period a year ago. Then, the Wall …