If the chart above is any indication, the digital music space is overflowing with options for anyone looking to stream some tunes. From music video site Vevo, to free music streaming service Songza, to the interactive Internet radio service Slacker, the digital music options are truly unlimited.

But according to Kantar Media SRDS employees, there’s a clear favorite among the pack.

Pandora is the most used Internet music service among our employees with iTunes trailing as a far second. Pandora is a top automated music recommendation service that has been around and digital for more than a decade. Its top perk is that when you listen to your favorite song or band, the site mines through its Music Genome Project database to find songs with musical similarities to your choice. Pandora offers users two subscription plans: free/ad-supported and fee-based/no ads.

Even though the online radio business is crowded, that isn’t stopping social networks and other digital companies from trying to grab some market share. Last week, Twitter made an announcement that it’s launching an iPhone app that helps users find music that's trending on Twitter and songs based on the artists/bands you follow. Whether the app will make a big splash remains to be seen, but it doesn’t look like any online radio service will top Pandora anytime soon for those working at Kantar Media SRDS.

How do you listen to music digitally?

Twitter users who access the site primarily on their mobiles use the site more often, interact more by Tweeting and follow more brands, according to a new report from Twitter and Kantar Media Compete.

Other important data points include:

1. Primary mobile users are 86% more likely to be on Twitter several times a day versus the average Twitter user.  
2. Not surprisingly, adults ages 18-34 are 52% more likely to be on Twitter using a mobile device.
3. Primary mobile users engage with Twitter all through the day (see image at the top of the post for more details).

View the full report for more insights, statistics and essential tips for advertisers on how they can take advantage of this important information.

Full disclosure: Compete, like SRDS, is part of Kantar Media.

Usually, we visit a webpage for either content or utility. Sometimes when we’re lucky, we get both. So it’s no wonder that in the past few years we’ve  seen the rise of content marketing in an attempt to combine the best of both worlds. 

When I visit a site intending to buy something transactional, utility is the table stake to get me there. I also want to find out as much as I can before I buy anything; give me reviews, industry news and a way to see what other folks like me are buying. It’s a huge advantage if I can do all of these things without ever leaving your website. Bonus for me because I get everything I want in one stop and bonus for you because not only do I stay on your site, I come back again and I tell my friends about my great experience.

How do we find the sites we visit? If we know where we want to head, we type in the URL and off we go. If we aren’t sure, we typically visit a search engine, throw in a search term and see what it cranks out.  If we’re lucky, we have a recommendation from a friend (perhaps through social media) and find exactly what we want.  For most of us, I would guess this last approach is the preferred method for finding most things online. After all, a friend’s opinion generally carries more weight than a site’s SEO.

Consumers aren’t the only ones to notice this preference. Erik Qualman has been telling us for the several years in his video “Social Media Revolution” that “we will no longer search for products and services…they will find us via social media.” How will the products and services find us? They will find us via the continuing explosion of social media usage and referrals. 

In his October 2012 article in the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal points out that across the same sites, social sources were responsible for 18% of referral traffic and search sources were responsible for 22%. 

How is it possible that social referrals will surpass search in the coming years? Social referrals will continue to rise as our activity increases on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, where we share things that we love with others. Instantly we can electronically share information with thousands of people whereas in the past we probably would have had ten to twenty face-to-face conversations. This idea of products and services finding consumers is accelerating as we continue to use social media as a way to share what we like, love, need, are looking for and don’t like.

Facebook has just stomped on the gas pedal. By introducing “Graph” search across its massive hold of user preference data, you can group your Facebook search into a specific subset, such as "my friends who like hockey," or more precisely "my friends who like hockey and live in Chicago." You can also filter for things like music or movies my friends like.

For advertisers, by becoming more well-liked on Facebook, they are more likely to be found by folks who are actively looking for their products and services as well as the products that are similar to them. If you haven’t heard of the term contextual search, get ready because that’s how we’ll refer to this new Facebook search capability. And certainly others will be looking for ways to replicate this contextual search functionality. 

Similarly, Google introduced its social network Google+, which is unlike other social networks in that it’s not accessed through a single website. Google has described Google+ as a "social layer" consisting of not just a single site, but rather an overarching "layer" which covers many of its online properties. The company clearly recognizes that social referrals will continue to rise in number and in importance and this is a way for it to maintain market share.

All of this brings me to a central question: how will this affect our search behaviors and the ways marketers optimize their pages to be found? As Greg Levitt pointed out in his MediaPost  entry from Jan. 9, this changing of the search guard will force marketers to optimize social media content distribution versus tweaking their interaction with search engine algorithms. 

Marketers and advertisers must optimize their media plans beyond just SEO. Social recommendations and sharing may end up being much more important. It isn’t just about someone typing in a search term and happening upon your site.

Can users share information about your product on Twitter? Can they send your product as gifts on Facebook? How many users are sharing information about your service on Facebook graph? Are there images of your products on Pinterest and Instagram? These questions will become the norm in the coming years and social media usage and the phenomenon of social referrals continue to rise.

Marketers/Advertisers: How will this affect your channel planning and optimization schemes?

Marketers and agencies must drastically transform their mobile advertising strategy in 2013 if they want to succeed.

According to a new study from Forrester, seven out of ten mobile users say that automatically served in-app advertisements are disruptive. Two-thirds of respondents label these ads as annoying and 88% say they aren’t engaging.

This study is one of many I’ve seen this year confirming that mobile ads aren’t resonating with consumers. Most of these reports call out mobile ads for not being relevant, interesting or valuable to the user. For example, in November, we posted about an Adobe survey, which found that 45% of respondents prefer to see an ad in their favorite print magazine versus the 0% that prefers to see an ad in a mobile app.

For agencies and marketers, effectively using mobile advertising is both a major challenge and an opportunity in 2013. Mobile cannot be overlooked. Each brand needs a unique approach on this channel for many reasons, but for starters because it’s here to stay.

Here’s what you need to know to convince execs that a mobile strategy is no longer optional: 

Mobile has quickly become the media platform of choice for Millennials. Smartphones allow us to stay in constant contact with friends and family, have ready access to data and information and be able to be productive or relax at any given moment. If you’re looking to reach Millennials, mobile is the way to do it.

Consumers now use mobile phones to purchase products more than ever. This Cyber Monday, mobile transactions accounted for 22% of online sales, an increase of 100% over last year. Retailers cannot overlook this trend.

The good news is that at the very least, most companies are considering a mobile marketing strategy. Some have actually done a phenomenal job using apps, mobile-optimized websites and smartphone deals to reach consumers. But there’s still a long way to go.

According to the TNS Mobile Life study for 2012, many Chief Marketing Officers say it’s no longer OK for companies and marketers to just watch and wait. Experimentation is central to the mobile approach for many brands, with an emphasis on ‘learning by doing’ across marketing and business operations. Urgency is the keyword here.

In order to stay relevant and reach consumers, marketers and agencies must research, plan, develop and execute on their mobile strategies. And after it’s all said and done, they must find a way to serve users ads that aren’t annoying, obtrusive or irrelevant. It may be tough, but it’s necessary.

Another key point from the Forrester study for marketers/agencies to know is that:

“A significant portion of mobile users were open to mobile ad targeting based upon their personal interests (49%) and current location (43%).”

Consumers tolerate ads that have some sort of tie-in to where they live or what interests them. But with the rise of “Do Not Track” and Ad Choices, which allow users to opt out of behavioral targeting, it might be time for marketers to go back to the drawing board.

One idea, which is already being used at Google (no surprise!), is to treat consumer data as a currency and offer incentives for it. The company Enliken is trying to give users the ability to edit, control and prioritize the data they want advertisers to see, making the data richer and more valuable. If an ad is more relevant to the consumer, it’s not as annoying and can supply the user with information he/she is actually interested in.

But targeted ads still need to look good! Ten years ago, banner ads faced a similar dilemma. They had to back out of the scam-like ads offering free trips to the Bahamas, and start incorporating strong creative, interactive visuals and unique storytelling. Advertisers and marketers should take note.

Those three features, coupled with targeted content, can help elevate mobile to a new level of advertising in the coming years.

How will your mobile strategy evolve in 2013?

Local is indeed becoming more social and mobile, meaning more dollars pushed toward digital media channels rather than traditional newspapers and radio.

An updated BIA/Kelsey forecast expects advertising revenue for all local media to reach $147.1 billion by 2016, at a 2.1% annual growth rate. While that may only be a modest increase, projections for local online, digital and interactive advertising revenue show more growth with an expected annual growth rate of 12.4% between 2011 and 2016. See chart: 

Within local media, the firm projects search advertising to control a little more than half of total online ad revenues (51%). The forecast also predicts that local search will grow faster than the overall search market, from $5.7 billion in 2011 to $10.2 billion in 2016.

Similarly, BIA/Kelsey projects that the local display market will outpace the overall display market, growing from $2.4 billion in 2011 to $5.1 billion in 2016.

Matt Booth, chief strategy officer and program director, Interactive Local Media, BIA/Kelsey said:

“Overall, we remain very bullish on interactive spending, and especially on new mobile monetization methods like point-of-sale offerings that are showing performance improvements. In fact, we expect mobile growth to offset some of the slowing in core search and display in the outer years of the forecast.”

Media Planners: How do you help clients best integrate their local and digital budgets?

When Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011, one of the biggest question marks for media junkies was: “How will they monetize Skype?”

Ads were already running on the Skype homepage before the purchase. Since then, Microsoft launched Conversation Ads: “relevant” ads that appear on the conversation screen when the user does not have Skype Credit or is using Skype for Windows for a Skype-to-Skype call.

Now we’re finally getting a money-making game plan from Skype President Tony Bates. Bates revealed a new advertising initiative for the company at the Monaco Media Forum (MMF) a few weeks ago.

In 2013, Skype will launch Skype Ads for Windows 8. In a nutshell, users will see three types of social and interactive ad formats on Skype in the next year.

Here they are (via AdWeek):

1. Interactive Experiences from Advertisers – This feature allows users having a conversation to look through and share relevant information provided by Skype advertisers. Example: Someone shopping for a car can look at and customize a car model that is being promoted through Skype by that car company. The other user could also view the car and then they can both schedule a test drive.
2. Shareable Sponsored Content – While the specifics are not yet clear, the gist is that users would be able to engage with and share advertisements. Example: User is talking with a friend about an upcoming vacation. The user would be able to use Skype to share a list of top vacation spots provided by an advertising company (like an airline) with other users. Down the line, users could possibly even plan the trip through Skype using a tool or app created by the advertiser.
3. Sponsored Groups – Similar to Facebook, sponsored groups allow advertisers to offer news, entertainment and games around their brand. Example: A reality TV show could run a conversation ad that, when clicked, takes users to a sponsored group to learn more about contestants, watch show highlights and participate in video calls with a contestant.

Initially this ad platform will only run for Skype users on Windows 8, but my guess is that if this initiative is successful, we’ll see it on most devices by 2014.

Way back in 2006, David Tokheim of SAY Media, wrote an article in Forbes claiming that like dinosaurs, banner ideas would eventually die out. Last week, he admitted that he was wrong, which just goes to show how difficult it is to predict the future of digital advertising. Many try, some succeed, but most fail.

What did Tokheim think would emerge as the top digital ad trends? Skins and branded content.

While both have made an impact in digital advertising, they haven’t had the effect banners have.

But it’s 2012 and it’s clear that these aren’t your older sister’s banners. The banner ads from six years ago are nearly extinct. Web users know better than to click to get a free trip to Mexico or to hit the target for a chance to win quick cash. Those banners died off for many reasons, one being that user web savvy has evolved.

Today, banners are personalized, visually-appealing and extremely creative. They have to match user know-how. That’s how the good ones succeed. As Tokheim says:

“Creative matters more than ever. And creative banners can actually be a powerful part of the storytelling experience.”

Advertisers are telling stories with their digital banner ads, and because they have the ability to be interactive and engaging, banner ads can be extremely powerful. Unlike the banners from 2006 (that were, for lack of a better term, annoying), today’s banners are useful and entertaining. Or ideally, they should be.

For example, take a look at Old Navy’s Black Friday ad on Yahoo’s homepage. It’s fun, colorful, catchy, useful and most importantly, you can make it go away if you want. Check out the AdChoices button on the top left corner. That means you can opt out of this behaviorally-targeting ad.

Even better, how about this Mac advertisement on the New York Times website?

Tokheim may have been wrong about the future of digital advertising, but the key takeaway to me is that things don’t necessarily die out, they just need to evolve. And in the case of banner ads, it’s been a fun ride.

Do you think banner ads are here to stay?

Before you go, make sure to check out Mashable’s list of 10 amazing banner ads here.

Most of my friends DVR their favorite TV shows, though not because they’re so busy they can’t watch them live. They just want to be able to fast forward through the commercials. For advertising professionals looking to reach their target audience through television this is becoming a major problem.

But Target, a company I’ve always considered ahead of the curve in their marketing efforts, may have discovered a new tactic for TV advertising, one that is engaging, interactive and not as tempting to fast forward through.

Last week, Target sponsored an entire episode of the hit ABC show Revenge, according to an article on B2C. But Target didn’t run typical spots. Each commercial break featured ads about Target’s new Nieman Marcus holiday collection – in the form of a narrative titled The Gift of Revenge. No matter where you watched the show (on TV, on the web, etc.) you saw the exact same ads.

Target also asked for input from the Revenge team to make sure that fans of the show would enjoy the ads. By mimicking the show, including the characters and using a narrative format, Target was able to grab the audience’s attention and keep it throughout the span of the “story.”

Wisely, Target didn’t limit its scope to just TV. They employed social media to allow users to discuss the episode and the commercials, and even posted the clips on YouTube with “secret” footage that wasn’t a part of the show’s run.

Could this be a new way for marketers to reach viewers who would normally avoid commercials? B2C’s Jacey Gulden thinks so.

“A campaign that integrates television advertising, branded content, and online marketing certainly could reflect the future of digital advertising.”

An integrated campaign like this one requires an enormous amount of time, commitment, creativity and money. But if that’s what it takes so that viewers don’t hit the fast forward button, we may start seeing it more often. Plus, you can bet that ABC made a good amount of money on this deal.

Another key point is that marketers must ensure that their ads are not grounded in just one medium. Target’s campaign had multiple, cohesive elements that functioned digitally, social and on mobile platforms.

To find out more about Target’s experimental approach to digital advertising, check out an interview with Target’s Chief Marketing Officer over at AdAge.
 

Digital marketers and advertisers should be very familiar with the “AdChoices” icon, a lower-case 'i' inside a triangle and complemented by the phrase AdChoices. These icons appear in in the top corner of many behaviorally targeted ads. When you see the icon on a webpage or near a banner ad, it lets you know it is gathering information to understand your interests and/or improve the ads you see.

The icon has been the cornerstone of the online ad industry's attempts to self-regulate and give users the ability to opt out of online behavioral targeting ads if they so choose. Once you click the icon, you are sent to a website where you can learn more about interest-based ads and how to opt out of whether you receive them and from which companies.

In theory, it sounds like a fantastic idea and it’s definitely a step in the right direction for digital advertising, but so far the stats don’t prove that it works.

Only one in five Web users says they notice the AdChoices icon, according to an article on Media Post. The article cites research by the University of Pennsylvania's Joe Turow.

Furthermore, more than half (55%) of Internet users say they don’t know if they’ve seen the icon and 24% say they have not.

While Turow believes that the 20% awareness rate is low, the Interactive Advertising Bureau's general counsel Mike Zaneis disagrees. He believes that the study shows that the program is making headway:

"Twenty percent of market awareness for an icon program after a little more than one year in operation is progress that any brand marketer could envy."

It’s still early in the game for this effort, but digital advertisers should at the minimum be aware of Ad Choices and the fact that the vast majority of Internet users don’t notice the icon, so far. At the least, behaviorally targeted ads still seem to be an effective way to track, reach and serve ads to your target online demographic.

In a recent blog post on iMediaConnection, Penry Price advocates that the rise of programmatic buying shouldn’t kill media planner creativity. I’ll take it a step further. Programmatic buying should actually enhance creativity.

When I had my first media planning job, the Internet was just starting to become an advertising medium. Back then a “roadblock” on the MSN homepage was a really big deal, and no one had ever heard of optimizing the plan, never mind doing it in real time. 

But that’s what programmatic buying now offers; the ability to reach consumers based on changing data in real time. As a former media planner, that’s exciting to me and it should be to you too.

I know what you’re thinking, how can I be creative when I’m staring at campaign dashboards all day? Price says it best:

“You can be more creative and serve your clients better (and be a hero at work) if you work to align your efforts to truly understand the journeys of your client’s potential customers.”  

Look at the matrix of web traffic data on the dashboard as a person and not as a slice of a customer segment.  For example, think of it as a person desperately searching for the season’s hottest Christmas toy and appreciate their journey as your own. Then recognize that programmatic buying platforms give you the ability to make that toy appear right before that person’s eyes.   

So what’s next? Look around for more interesting ways to connect your clients to people and their journeys. Everything is a potential entry point to the journey, from the ways people interact with products to their media consumption habits throughout the day. You can be the expert in the room; all it takes is some creativity. There, I said it.

In only two days, ad:tech will take place in New York City. If you haven’t heard, ad:tech is one of the best digital marketing events around and it’s worldwide.

Our Kantar Media SRDS team will be there at Booth 1803 along with team members from Kantar Media Intelligence, Audiences and Compete. We’d love to see you, so if you’re at the show stop by to introduc yourself.

We love media and all things digital, so the ad:tech conference program looks full of excellent topics. Here are some of the sessions we’re most excited about:

1. Follow the Money: Investors Place Their Bets on the Future of Advertising - Will the digital advertising bubble pop? Depending on who you ask, we’re already seeing it happen. This session will include a discussion about the future of advertising from the perspective of the people that fund it. They’ll talk about the new products, services and technologies that they’re backing – the startups they think will change the ad business moving forward – as well as how the financial performance of industry darlings post-IPO has shifted their thinking.
2. Cross-Platform Media Strategy: Advanced Reach & Targeting - There are real challenges when it comes to buying different types of media and integrating them into a single plan – but when it’s done right, a cross-platform campaign can be one of the most effective tools in digital marketer’s toolbox. The session will include examples of how to bundle search and social with TV, radio and print for maximum reach and engagement, and they’ll also explain how to measure the effectiveness of each disparate medium.
3. Mobile Marketing: Best Practices for Cracking Today’s Most Intimate Channel - According to a recent study by Ericsson ConsumerLab, more than 1/3 of smartphone users get online before even getting out of bed. So how do marketers engage these mobile consumers on a meaningful level? Senior marketers will bring you up to speed on mobile, relate it to other topics like search and social, and explore ways to take advantage of today’s technologies to extend the platform and engage consumers.
4. New Marketing Platforms: Wearable Devices, Advanced TV & More! - Google and Apple are both working on wearable devices, nearly 40 percent of American households have at least one TV connected to the internet, and location-aware mobile apps can track shoppers and send precision-targeted ads when they’re within a certain radius of a store. The “future” of advertising is now. In this session, you’ll get a first look at the cutting-edge platforms marketers have begun adding to the mix – some at scale – as well as glimpses into the products and services coming down the pike in the next 12 months.
5. Publishers and Tablets: New Strategies for Monetizing and Creating Content - Is the love affair between publishers and tablets fading? No, but is because a more mature relationship. We’ve lost the breathless headlines about new tablet apps, and feverish pushes to buy tablet-specific ads. Now the focus is on creating sustainable tablet revenue streams, including figuring out subscription models that entice print subscribers, as well as developing unique tablet content in a cost-effective manner. This session will present some of the newest strategies for creating and monetizing tablet content and audiences.

[Note: be sure to check out the SRDS Tablet Media Library to see some of the best apps from business, consumer and newspaper publishers.]

6. Next-Gen Ad Attribution: Make the Most of Effective Accountable Measurement - Click-through rates, post clicks, impressions, tracking mechanisms and site analytics all serve their purpose, but don’t always accurately account for the various influences along the purchasing path. Today’s marketers must analyze how various channels interact to determine where attribution makes sense. Much has been said about different ad attribution models. What is the best way to measure and should marketers restrict themselves to these pre-determined models? Leading brand and technology experts will share insight into today’s ad attribution and where marketers should look next.

Sensing a pattern here? All of these sessions involve some aspect of digital advertising or online marketing, two topics that we’re always trying stay at the forefront of.

What sessions look the most intriguing to you?

Click here to see the full ad:tech NY schedule.

As part of the Sources & Interactions Study, Kantar Media Healthcare Research surveyed nearly 1,600 physicians in 21 specialties to gather insight into their media consumption habits and which media succeed at capturing their attention. We asked which versions of the most recent issue of medical journals they've read, explored whether they prefer print, online, or other digital formats.

New research from the Media Behavior Institute bolsters what many of us have long suspected: that we—the media and advertising pros who claim to best understand consumer behavior—are rather different than the consumers we often represent. As reported in MediaPost:

While the data is based on a small sample, the findings are striking, because the media pros reporting were so dramatically different than average consumers, especially when it came to their use of Internet-connected computers and mobile devices.

Amazingly, the media pros spent 53% of their waking day interacting with email, vs. 20% for the general population, and they spent 28% accessing the Internet vs. 15% for average consumers.

Their use of mobile apps and social networks were similarly distorted, which may go a long way toward explaining Madison Avenue’s obsession with those media platforms.

Ninety-two percent of the media pros utilized mobile apps, and they used them for 11% of their waking day, on average. Only 25% of consumers utilize mobile apps, and use them for 6% of their waking time on average.

Exactly half of the media pros used a social network and accessed it for 19% of their waking time vs. 19% of consumers who used it for 7% of their waking time.

Also notable was the finding that, "When it comes to 'traditional media,' consumers utilize all forms—especially radio—more than industry pros with the exception of print."

The research was presented by the Media Behavior Institute during MPG’s Collaborative Alliance session during Advertising Week.

(Note: Kevin Moeller, Executive Director of Research & Analytics for the Media Behavior Institute is a speaker at the fall 2012 Chicago and New York Media Mixology events.)

Perhaps you’ve heard about the recent changes to Google Ad Planner or have gone to the site and suddenly couldn’t bring in any info. In short, Ad Planner is gone. The replacement, Google Content Network Planner, is just as narrowly defined as it sounds–Google content only. This means that Google is no longer a destination for high-level planning info on websites that accept online advertising regardless of network affiliation.

The changes (that took effect September 5) mean that media planners can no longer use Ad Planner to research sites across the web for information like digital ad networks, traffic, demographics, and related bounce sites. Also, even if a site is part of the Google Display Network, some of the demographics are simply not there now; data like household income, education, and keywords searched. The data may not have been exceptionally accurate, but the tool provided useful information, especially for smaller businesses.

Why did they do it? Google would only state: “We are constantly evaluating our products to make sure we are focusing our efforts on tools that create the most value for our customers.” Value is the key word in that sentence, but not value for customers.

Twitter and Facebook have been buzzing with disapproval, if not outright shock. Horia Neagu, known also as SEOWolf,  posted, “Google's Ad Planner tool gets a facelift... and becomes useless…Given these changes, the tool will become ridiculously useless as of September 5th.” 

Zoltan Peresztegi commented on Search Engine Watch, “How much is this in line with their mission statement? (As a reminder: ‘Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’) 

So is anyone who used Ad Planner to run media comparisons or gather vital info on sites out of luck?

No! The SRDS digital database to the rescue! Of course, we collect every bit of data we can, about every media brand we can, including websites. The SRDS digital database is a natural replacement for the previous incarnation of Ad Planner, and includes over 25,000 consumer, b-to-b, and local sites (and over 130 online networks...not just Google).

Site profiles include audience metrics from leading research companies like Kantar Media Compete, Nielsen Netview, and Healthcare Market Intelligence. And if a site is in Google Ad Planner, we still link to that profile as well.

So even though Ad Planner as we knew it is gone, for media planners and buyers, interactive advertising research is actually easier than ever.

Broadcast media has changed forever. No longer a passive feed for couch potatoes, TV has become an interactive, on-demand experience.

As Kantar Media's Jeff Boehme and Jon Swallen point out: "The internet may grab all the headlines, but advertising spend on national TV in the United States is still growing faster than  the rest of the market."

This emergent landscape offers plenty of new opportunities, and new metrics are evolving alongside them.

In an article for Kantar Media's Momentum Review, "TV Breaks Out of the Box," Boehme (Chief Research Officer, Kantar Media Audiences North America) and Swallen (Chief Research Officer for Kantar Media Intelligence North America) examine the opportunities for measuring television advertising and creating powerful new experiences for clients.

They write:

Measurement has a growing role in the evolving TV ecosystem. Advertisers are demanding greater accountability for their investments and return path data (RPD) provides second-by-second usage information to help value a campaign based on actual audience to the commercials. Unlike traditional ratings, RPD enables marketers to understand how viewers consume their ads and what factors can ensure the best environment for their success.

Did you know that Kantar Media Sources & Interactions results are available in user-friendly Dashboards delivering interactive visualization of the study's insights into healthcare professionals’ media consumption habits?

In addition to the detailed study reports, dashboards are available for the following audiences: Medical/Surgical (21 specialties), PA/NP, Pharmacy, Eyecare, Dental, Dental Hygiene, Hospital Management, Radiology, and Oncology Nursing studies.

Sources & Interactions studies document HCPs’ online and mobile activities and preferences for and exposure to information sources including traditional and evolving media, providing insights into:

• What tools are used for common tasks like referencing drug data, reading articles, or 
  completing CME credits.
• How many healthcare providers use smartphones (and which ones) for professional purposes.
• How often healthcare providers use the Internet for professional purposes — and what do they do when they’re online.

The pace of change for advertising agencies and the agency model continues to increase, as have the concerns that technology platforms are disintermediating agencies out of the relationship between brands and audiences.

If you've pondered the obstacles and opportunities for agencies to thrive in the interactive advertising world, be sure to check out this conversation between Digiday's Jack Marshall and Forrester analyst Jim Nail.

Here's Nail on the shifting role of agencies:

In a lot of ways I see their role of becoming more of a mediator in terms of interpreting and strategizing around what the consumer really wants. Agencies might not actually manage interactions between brands and consumers, but I think they’ll do more of the architecture and design even if the client takes some of those things on directly. It’s always hard for a company to see the forest for the trees, and that’s always been the value of an agency: the ability for someone outside of your echo chamber to weigh in on your brand. As interactions with consumers become more intimate, it becomes more important to get them right.

Marshall followed up this conversation with a post, "Why Agencies Will Double Down on Strategy," citing a RSW/US study that concludes "more agencies are now putting their apples in the “strategic counsel” service bucket than were doing so in 2009, despite the fact that marketers for the most part still aren’t really making use of them."

Marshall explains:

As their traditional revenue streams come under increased pressure, agencies are stocking their strategic arsenals in the hope they’ll still be relevant to clients five or 10 years down the line, albeit in a different way. They’ll be helping clients gain deep understandings and insights into digital opportunities, as opposed to just building apps or buying banner ads, they hope.

Is strategy truly the key to the future success of the ad agency model? What will that mean for media planning and buying? How is your agency positioning itself to navigate these tricky waters?

Our colleagues at Kantar Media Healthcare Research asked 1,100+ retail and hospital full-time pharmacists about their mobile device usage for professional purposes in the Kantar Media 2012 Pharmacy Study.

Results reveal that about half of all pharmacists are using some type of smartphone for professional purposes.

• Among Pharmacist smartphone users, iPhone (59%) is the device most frequently mentioned, followed by the Android phones (31%) and Blackberry bringing up the rear with a mere 9% of mentions. There was, however, a higher percentage of Android mentions among Retail Pharmacists (33%) than Health System Pharmacists (22%).
• Overall, only 14% of full-time pharmacists use tablets for professional purposes, with no significant difference in usage between retail and health systems pharmacists. Managers in both sectors had only a slightly higher percentage of mentions than their staff.
• Comparing results from the Sources & Interactions Medical/Surgical edition to the Pharmacist edition shows that Pharmacists are much more likely to use their mobile devices for patient education than physicians. However a higher percentage of physicians report using a tablet for medical recordkeeping.

Source: Sources & Interactions Study, Pharmacy 2012

Do your clients ask about apps?

There's an interesting overview by John Parsons at Folio on "The State of App Advertising." It seems clear that tablets—most notably, of course, the iPad—have raised the stakes for advertisers and publishers alike, offering an unprecedented level of interactivity and engagement.

It's a brave new world in which the traditional metrics don't quite fit. We know the AAAA has asked for more metrics from publishers. Publishers are also looking for a clearer picture, as reported in the Folio article:

Most of the publishers we spoke to cited metrics—from Adobe Omniture and other providers—indicating that users spent minutes, not seconds, on ads that facilitated hands-on interaction by the reader. All expressed the desire for more detailed data, including time spent with specific features in the app, as well as e-commerce sell-through and brand following trends in social media.

Lack of standardized metrics hasn't stopped the market from expanding quickly. The SRDS Tablet Media Library now includes over 800 tablet apps that accept advertising in multiple app stores.