Ace Metrix, announcing the Ace Score top scoring television advertisements for 2009, with the best creative effectiveness, reports that the ad for Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids food storage containers was the 2009 overall highest scoring ad, scoring a 649 in watchability and 761 in persuasion, out of a possible 950. The Rubbermaid ad was also the highest scoring ad in the consumer products category.

According to new findings from a national survey of minority adults, conducted by Brilliant Corners Research and Pollster Cornell Belcher, only 42% of African Americans and Hispanics regularly use the Internet, yet they overwhelmingly agree that Internet access is critical to achieving success.

According to a summary report by Doug Anderson, SVP, Research & Development, The Nielsen Company, growth will be hard to come by in the coming decades. The recent recession has wiped out a decade of growth in the U.S., says the report. Jobs, the S&P 500 index, home ownership, incomes, and American stock and bond investors all look like 1999 or worse, and successful marketers must factor the U.S. shifting demographic profile into the forthcoming marketing mix. U.S. fertility rates have fallen by 44% since the peaks of the Baby Boom and are projected to continue to fall by …

According to a new study from the MIT Sloan School of Management, Online advertising can be much better at targeting certain demographics than its traditional media counterparts, but as more competition enters the space, these advantages do not automatically translate into greater profits. Sloan Assistant Professor Alessandro Bonatti writes that the same search and other technology that has enabled advertisers to target particular audiences, such as men between 25 and 35 years old who work on Macintosh computers, is also creating greater on-line competition for the same audience, thus reducing the profitability of advertising on any targeted web site.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, while half of Americans foresee no change in their travel spending in 2010 compared to 2009, more respondents plan to spend less in the coming year than say they will spend more, particularly relative to air travel and hotel stays. However, even the percentage of Americans saying they will spend less on vacations in general exceeds those saying they will spend more by a slight margin, 27% vs. 22%. In addition to broad changes in vacation spending, nearly 3 out of 10 Americans plan to spend less on airline flights specifically in 2010 …

Software applications provider ICON believes that the next generation of the web, or "Web 3.0,? promises more recommendations, free services, intelligent (semantic) searches, and tailored information. In an effort to heighten awareness about Web 3.0, Gege Gatt, the founder and director of ICON, recently identified some broad trends that are in tune with Web 3.0.

According to the Compete quarterly Smartphone Intelligence survey, smartphone owners are more comfortable buying from their handsets, but still have some site functionality problems. 8% of smartphone owners that tried to purchase a product on their device were unable to do so. 45% of those that abandoned the process reported that they did so because the site would not load, and an additional 38% left the site because it was not developed specifically for smartphone users.

Apropos to the Consumer Electronics Show, but equally valuable as a benchmark of the Electronic Media Industry starting out in 2010, Nielsen releases a fact sheet appended with the prediction that " ... In 2010 we see a continuation, if not an acceleration, of current trends with consumers watching and connecting more."

The Consumer Confidence Survey, recently released by The Conference Board and TNS, based on a representative sample of 5,000 U.S. households, rose again in December. The Index now stands at 52.9 (1985=100), up from 50.6 in November. The Expectations Index increased to 75.6 from 70.3 last month. The Present Situation Index, however, declined to 18.8 from 21.2 in November. Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, says that "... expectations for the short-term future increased to the highest level in two years... The Present Situation Index, however... remains at a 26-year low...

Environmental Leader and MediaBuyerPlanner partnered to study Green Marketing through the audiences of five industry publications to help determine if it's a staple or a fad. The report found that 33% of respondents said green marketing was more effective than their normal marketing efforts, with just 7% saying it was less effective. The remainder either did not detect a difference between their regular marketing efforts and their green efforts, or did not know which was more effective.