by Dave Zornow

New York, June 11 — Cell phones are more ubiquitous than water. About 8 in 10 people around the world have clean water but almost 9 out of 10 use a mobile phone. Lucy Hood, Executive Director of the USC Marshall School of Business says cell phone usage also trumps global access to electricity (74%) and landlines (18%), too. Hood told attendees at the Advertising Research Foundation AMS 7.0 Conference that the biggest future growth in mobile use is outside of the US and Europe — using a list of services which most domestic users might find unusual.

ABC Television wants to see you smile. Really.

In his keynote address to the Advertising Research Foundation AMS 7.0 Conference in NYC, SVP Research Charles Kennedy talked about how ABC Television is using “big data,” mobile and new technology to conduct research. Kennedy says that many research studies are like a man looking for his car keys by a street light: it’s the easiest place to look. “I would argue that the best insights are out there in the dark,” he said.

by Dave Zornow

Nielsen, who has relied diaries to capture TV viewing data since the 1950’s, is poised to pick plastic over paper for local audience measurement business. Last month the ratings company announced a worldwide initiative to replace over a dozen measurement devices it uses internationally with new “GTAM” units. The “Global TV Audience Measurement” devices will use audio watermarks to identify content on multiple platforms.