The Nielsen Company reported that product placements for the first quarter of 2008 rose 6% on primetime programming for the 11 measured networks on broadcast. Broadcast television placements rose 39%, while cable television was essentially flat at -1%. There were 117,976 brand occurrences on cable and broadcast networks in the first three months of the year, according to Nielsen Product Placement Service. The most prevalent placement type on broadcast television was "foreground," which represented 35% of all product placements. On cable television, "wardrobe" placements were most common, accounting for 32% of all placements.

According to findings of the Accenture 2008 Global Media Content Survey among more than 100 senior leaders and decision-makers in the media and entertainment industry, 70% of respondents indicated they derive some revenue today from new alternate forms of media such as downloading or watching TV programs "on demand," digital advertising, or user-generated content.

According to "Taking Stock With Teens" research survey by Piper Jaffray, total teen spending on fashion declined nearly 20 percent on a year-to-year basis, indicating a "discretionary recession," says senior research analyst Jeff Klinefelter. The survey results, from mall research and classroom visits across the United States, as well as 4,500 online survey responses through the national DECA organization, shows that total spending trends were weakest for young men with a 15 percent year-over-year decline versus an 11 percent year-over-year decline for young women.

According to the April Retail Ratings Report from BIGresearch, higher gas and grocery prices coupled with an uncertain economic environment are driving more consumers to Wal-Mart for electronics, home improvement and groceries. In the Electronics category, Wal-Mart had the highest year over year growth in share of consumers that shop there most often for electronics, with 16% vs. 15%. This growth gives Wal-Mart a Consumer Equity Index of 107.15 (7.15% growth in retail share) in the April Ratings. Best Buy saw a slight decrease in share from 28.6% in April 07 to 27.7% in April 2008 making their CEI …

The recently published Media Analyst Screen Digest report entitled Mobile Media Advertising Opportunities..." , including an exclusive survey of GroupM's advertising agencies in 25 countries, finds that the market for rich media advertising on mobile will reach $2.79 billion by 2012, with global mobile TV advertising accounting for the lions share at $2.44 billion.

A recent release of a new social media benchmark study of more than 6,000 women by BlogHer, in conjunction with Compass Partners, shows that 36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week, with 15.1 million publishing and 21.1 million reading and commenting.

Scarborough Research, released its annual Scarborough Newspaper Audience Ratings Report, a comprehensive compendium of the weekly print, weekly website and Integrated Newspaper Audience (combined print and online) ratings for 161 newspapers in 81 Top-Tier markets. As the release points out, "the report is a valuable desktop reference tool on newspaper ratings for those involved in the planning, buying or selling of local media."

According to the latest email deliverability study from Lyris, Inc. nearly one out of every four permission-based email messages sent to U.S.-based ISPs lands in the junk mail folder. Slightly more than 76 percent of invited email successfully makes it to the inbox.

Nearly one quarter of consumers said their biggest online shopping frustration is purchased items having no resemblance to their image on the Internet. A similar amount indicated the inability to speak to a customer service representative at an online store to address any purchasing questions or concerns was their top headache.

Among the initial findings of a new study, "Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media," by the Society for New Communications Research, "... there is a growing group of highly desirable consumers using social media to research companies: 25- to 55-years old, college-educated, earning $100,000+..." said Dr. Ganim Nora Barnes, senior fellow, SNCR.