Here's a medium that's really outside the home... for awhile, anyway. As we've said before, when you're digging for media research, there's no telling what will pop up! Someone may want to bite into this... An apple supplier in British Columbia for 75 years has recently introduced a technique that allows a logo to be imprinted onto the skin of an apple. Located near Vancouver, Kelowna Land and Orchard begin imprinting logos onto apples in late spring.

For the week ending June 30, Nielsen//NetRatings posts data on the top Family sites as well as the top Investment sites. Disney and the Cartoon Network lead the family fare (and more girls/women than boys/men), but the total category doesn't hold a candle to the audience and reach of the investment sites.

"With increased marketing behind movie ticket and information sites, millions of fans are catching on to these services as a convenient way to beat the box office rush," said Stephen Kim, senior vice president of the comScore Media Metrix division of comScore Networks. "And it's interesting to note that the top three ticket sites are attracting more men than women." The season's first blockbusters drew significant traffic to their respective fan and trailer sites.

Universal McCann’s Robert Coen, one of the more respected forecasters of worldwide ad spending, revised his 2002 projection downward recently, saying that the recovery is "coming along slower than we expected" since last December, when he made his first detailed projection for this year.

According to the BIGresearch Consumer Intentions & Actions Survey in June, consumer confidence is steady, durable goods purchase plans are lower, but a few more consumers are planning to make airline reservations. The Marketing Executive Insights suggests that uncertain consumers keep retailers guessing when the good times will return. Consumers continue to exhibit inconsistent behavior.

The results of the DoubleClick Inc. Email Marketing Trend Report, which will be released on a quarterly basis, indicate that emails from catalogers and retailers have the highest click-through rates compared to other industries. In addition, the data provides early indications that the best day to receive high click-through rates on email offers differs for publishers and marketers.

The selected data this week from Nielsen includes audience numbers for the top 10 education and career sites as well as entertainment sites.

The newest Horowitz Associates, Inc. study on the market for digital and interactive television services shows that consumers are pleased with the digital service they are currently getting and are increasingly bullish for more/better features of digital and interactive television. However, despite satisfaction with their service and interest in new features and channels, consumers are focused on value: a full 30% say what they like the least is the cost of the service.

Since traveling is up, popular sites should be of interest... especially since some 15 million people on the top 10 sites could have seen your ad last month in a single week. And, according to the latest Nielsen data, Internet Services and Telecom Sites reached more than 70 million individuals.

Online advertising spending by Financial News Providers has increased at a time when many other categories have declined, according to a recent study by global online data provider, AdZone Research, Inc. tracking Internet advertising revenue from banners, text ads, keyword, links, buttons, pop-ups, interstitial, and hover texts.