Tom Hanks is the entertainment personality most apt to influence Caucasian Americans to wear masks or take a vaccine in order to help prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an interesting analysis we just received from The Q Scores Company (formerly Marketing Evaluations), which analyses the familiarity and popularity of various personalities and their propensity with American consumers.

The U.S. connected TV (CTV) advertising marketplace already rivals a major network daypart and is expanding fast, according to updated projections from eMarketer. And while ad revenues are expanding fast for CTV's "Big 3" -- Hulu, YouTube and Roku -- the dominant share and the fastest-growing segment will continue to be all others.

Parler, the extreme right-wing micro-blogging app that surged in the days leading up to and following the election, already appears to be wearing out, according to a new report from Embee Mobile, which has been tracking the composition and usage of its user base via its proprietary panel of metered mobile users.

For all of Madison Avenue's focus on digital performance media and marketing, and how it drives ecommerce, a new report from GroupM Business Intelligence is a powerful reminder that the vast majority of retail sales still happen in a physical retail location, not online.

Only 10% of advertisers and agency media planning and buying executives surveyed by the IAB last month say their ad budgets for 2021 are firm for the entire year, while 39% say they are "ballpark" and 19% say they are flexible for the entire year. Those are among the findings of interviews the IAB conducted with advertisers and agencies as part of a 2021 Marketplace Outlook report, released today.

I've been analyzing television research and programming for more than 30 years, and have always prided myself on being able to keep on top of the ever-changing video landscape. In the era of Peak TV+, however, it takes longer and longer to become aware of new linear TV series, much less the wide array of original scripted streaming content. It's simply not possible to know what's available without exploring each service every month (or week). There are no fall or mid-seasons. Every time I start searching for something new to watch on Netflix, for example, there are several new series …

By 2025, digital media will account for 70% of all ad spending worldwide, according to a new long-range projection released as part of Magna's just-published year-end 2020 forecast. That's up from only 59% this year, and 43% just three years ago.

The top challenges to influencer marketing include the lack of measurement (79%) and ROI (76%), according to findings of a new member survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers. The findings, which are published in a new "The State Of Influence" report released today, also indicate that a plurality of marketers (39%) aren't even sure how the ROI of their influencer marketing compares with other parts of their marketing mix.

The Big 3 holding company forecast units have significantly upgraded their outlooks for U.S. and worldwide ad spending in 2020 and 2021 in new year-end forecasts released today. WPP's GroupM published the greatest upward revision, improving its 2020 global at outlook by 6.1 percentage points from -11.8% projected in its mid-year outlook published in June to -4.1% currently.

Based on its most recent trending data, including the month of March, the U.S. ad market is pacing to end on a positive note heading into Q4, according to a year-end 2020 analysis published by Standard Media Index.