Advertising & PR

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has decided against buying more advertisements in local newspapers after a test in two states showed the expense is not justified, the world's largest retailer said Wednesday. Wal-Mart's test run in Midwestern papers had been closely watched by publishers who complained publicly last year that Wal-Mart sought free publicity from their newspapers but refused to buy ads – all...

Advertising is the lifeblood of newspapers, supplying 75 percent to 80 percent of their revenue. So it is not good news for newspapers that many of the nation's biggest newspaper advertisers have problems of their own. Four of the top 10 advertisers, for example, went through mergers in the last two years. All cut advertising afterward. "Those are a lot of punches to absorb, and I think they do...

Looking for a lawyer to get you bundles of cash? You might want to hire the firm that shows stacks of $100s across its ad. "Millions of dollars recovered for accident victims," it reads. Or the one with photographs of the back of an ambulance, wrecked cars and a hospital bed. "We get the compensation you deserve," trumpets this one, in the Verizon yellow pages for Westchester and Putnam counties...

NEW YORK (AP)--Nearly four in five marketers surveyed believe that television advertising is less effective than it was just two years ago, according to a study released Wednesday. That's bad news for a nervous TV industry, which is worried about what the growth in digital-video-recorder, or DVR, usage and video-on-demand will mean for the economic underpinnings of the business. The joint survey...

Newspaper proprietors and employees should get nervous. Craigslist, the classified advertising website known as the "killer" of newspapers in the US, predicted yesterday it will see exponential growth in the UK. The company, which takes 8 million new classified ads worldwide every month, has sites dedicated to 12 UK cities, including Oxford which was launched last month. Craigslist ads are free...

SOMETIMES it pays to think big -- really big. Just ask the chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt. The company's share price has had a bumpy ride lately as Wall Street tries to digest the fact that Google is unlikely to carry on growing until it reaches the sky. This in itself is somewhat bizarre. In the final three months of 2005, Google made as much money as it did in all of 2003. How could it...

Internet advertising revenues surpassed $3 billion for the second consecutive quarter in Q4 of 2005, according to an estimate from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). The researchers found revenues reached $3.6 billion in the last three months of 2005, which represents a 17 percent increase over Q3 2005. It also marks a 35 percent increase over the same...

GOOGLE'S PROGRAM TO SELL PRINT ads in consumer magazines moved forward Thursday, when the search giant closed the bidding in an auction for inventory in 26 magazines. Ellegirl, Motor Trend, and PC World, among others, will learn early next week which marketers won print ads. Jeff Edman--president and CEO of PC World, one of three International Data Group magazines that took part in the pilot--said...

THE online advertising market surged to $620 million last year as advertisers continued to flock to a medium that some analysts predict will be worth $1 billion by the end of the year. Advertisers spent 60 per cent more on banner ads, classifieds and sponsored links online in the year to December 31, 2005, than in 2004, according to the latest revenue figures supplied to the Audit Bureau of...

A new report from analyst firm Parks Associates forecasts across-the-board growth in digital media segments. New categories like in-game advertising and mobile will show the highest gains, according to the study, likely because they're starting from a lower base. "Advertising in the Digital Age: Challenges and Opportunities," gives a five-year breakdown of digital advertising spending across...