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.

by Dave Zornow

Ad sales people and researchers are always looking for compelling stories on how advertising is effective — and something a smart marketer can’t do without. Here’s a story which proves that point to retailers — using their own words and emotional outrage.

The Village of Haverstraw, NY passed a local ordinance banning cigarette Point-Of-Sale Advertising beginning in October 2012. And the retailers and their trade groups went ballistic. Retailers and their trade groups cried foul in Big Implications for a Little Village’s Ban, a convenience store trade publication article about new regulations passed this Spring to ban tobacco advertising in convenience stores in the Lower Hudson Valley Hamlet Northwest of New York City.

by Dave Zornow

On a day when the world mourns the loss of Steve Jobs and the tech industry is iWriting about the iMac-iPod-iPhone-iPad, it’s valuable to remember that the original Man-In-Black didn’t always have the Midas touch. Which makes his successes that much more remarkable.

by Dave Zornow

It will come as no surprise to regular readers of Mediapost that Joe Mandese is no fan of Nielsen. Mandese, the Editor-in-Chief at MediaPost, has frequently skewered the ratings company for things they have done and much of the time, Nielsen critics applaud his efforts. But researchers say Mandese crossed a line with last week’s story, “Nielsen Discloses Major TV Ratings Glitch, Could Impact Millions In TV Ad Buys” because there was no major glitch — with the possible exception of how MediaPost reported the story.

Schadenfreude, deriving pleasure from the misfortunes of others,is a German word and a morning drive and reality show formula for ratings success.

The power of the unconscious mind, the effect of emotions on thinking and our need to be part of a larger social structure were some of the points made by the NYT’s David Brooks’ keynote speech at the 2011 ARF AMS Conference.

It’s college graduation time. Which means hugging, crying, packing, moving and worrying about what the future holds.

This year’s graduation at Ithaca College in upstate New York connected baby boomer parents with their recent graduates via the shocking realization that if Dustin Hoffman’s character in the graduate was real, he would be retiring this year. And what a working career he would have had.

Once serious but lately comedic actor Leslie Nielsen died last weekend at age 83. Famous for his Airplane and Naked Gun appearances, he once tried to compete with the other Nielsen — according to this 1998 April Fool’s article.

Detective Frank Drebin, we’re going to miss you.