Most U.S .adults believe digital billboards help alert drivers about important information and disagree with efforts to ban them, according to a new survey by Opinion Research Corp. released this morning by the Outdoor Advertising Association of America. The poll, conducted in late August,  indicates 80% of adults believe digital billboards are a benefit to drivers. The study also found that 63% of adults rely on both analogue and digital billboards when they are traveling to learn about local attractions, lodging and restaurants. Contrary to assertions by anti-business activists,76% of adults disagreed with negative statements about billboards.

Independent media services agency RJ Palmer has hired industry vet Nick Kaftan to help expand its barter division. Kaftan, who most recently was senior vice president-sales and business development at Interpublic's Magna Global Trading (now Orion) unit, will serve as director of client services at RJ Palmer's Trade X unit. He will report to Vince Laraia, senior vice president of Trade X.

After seeing examples of strong creative from region-based ringtones in Gautemala to a documentary about the dying art of hand-painted billboards from Stella Artois,  Gene Liebel, a Partner at HUGE, highlighted the efforts of Best Buy with its "twelpforce," or Twitter-based CRM tool where reps will throw in their opinions on high-tech products. (Twelpforce also got a shout-out from fellow panelist Paul Woolmington of Naked Communications.) Liebel also pointed to the retailer's early adoption of the shopkick app, allowing customers to get deals on their iPhones when they walk in the door and earn rewards points by browsing store …

Focusing on the topic of what's wrong with online creative, Jeff Benjamin,  Chief Creative Officer at  CP+B, is highlighting some examples of ads or other initiatives where creative execution went right. Among them is the iPhone app Ikea launched this year for its mobile catalog, taking advantage of the advantages and unique capabilities of the format. That included a feature allowing users to virtually place catalog items in their homes to see how they would actually look in the living room or kitchen and capture a photo of the image. The app also helped people discover what their own …

Amazingly, only half the room at OMMA Global New York indicated they knew what the term SNAFU meant, and where it came from. That's amazing, because most if not all of them are living through a period that Gord Hotchkiss, president & CEO of Enquiro Search Solutions likens to the World War II military culture that coined the term SNAFU. Using the "family version" of the acronym, Hotchkiss, a regular contributor to MediaPost, and part of the opening presentation at OMMA Global New York, said it stands for "Situation Normal, All Fouled Up." The non family version involves substituted …

Max Kalehoff the click-savvy vice president-marketing at Clickable, and the emcee of OMMA Global New York things it most definitely is more on the full side of the optimism ledger sheet. "Are things getting better," Kalehoff said during his opening remarks at the New York Hilton this morning, "I think it really depends on where you stand." "Personally, I think things are getting better," Kalehoff said of his own POV, noting, "I happen to be on my third start-up right now, and we are taking advantage of change." For those of us who are on the fence, …

Mobile ad network JumpTap has named George Bell, a managing director at venture capital firm General Catalyst, as its new CEO. Bell replaces Dan Olschwang, who will remain on the JumpTap board. Bell is best known as the former chief executive of Web portal Excite and cable broadband startup Excite@Home. He will take an indefinite leave from General Catalyst, a JumpTap investor, to run the mobile firm. The announcement comes a day before JumpTap's Mobile Ad Summit in New York. Read more here.

Business press auditing firm BPA Worldwide today released notices of probation for certain BPA-audited magazines published by Advantage Business Media. The BPA found that an offshore telemarketing service provider used by Advantage Business Media supplied recordings of telephone solicitations to the BPA that were not of the persons identified in the recordings. These findings were made during the BPA's normal process of audit confirmation which is conducted to authenticate telephone verification recordings provided as source documents for an audit test. "Advantage Business Media cooperated fully with the BPA's investigation into the vendor," said Richard Reiff, CEO of Advantage Business …

Despite lingering concerns about the economy, a new report from American Express Business Insights says luxury sales are up, gaining 9% in the second quarter. While spending in each of the four categories it analyzed increased, furniture and home furnishings showed the biggest improvement, up 21%, followed by sales at luxury department stores, which rose 15% in the quarter. (Women powered those department stores sales, making 69% of purchases. And 22% of all charges came from shoppers aged 36 to 45.) While sales also rose in the apparel and accessories (up 9%) and jewelry sectors (up 12%), the …