In this week’s roundup, we look at a new study that signifies big things to come in the mobile ad space, a report from McKinsey & Company about measuring word of mouth, comScore data showcasing our insatiable appetite for online video and more. Find your full recap below — and, as always, let us know your thoughts in the comments below or by sending us a tweet.

MMA: Location-Based Ads See 50 Percent Engagement Rates

According to a new study from the Mobile Marketing Association, one in four U.S. adults use mobile location-based services. Of that group, about 50 percent respond to geo-targeted ads based on GPS data.

WHERE launched a hyper-local ad network last year that serves advertising that is both geo and contextually targeted. The company claims that engagement rates for the location-based ads are 3X higher than standard mobile ads.

ReadWriteWeb points out that a traditional web banner ad with a 2% CTR is considered successful – however, most campaigns receive CTRs between 0.2% and 0.3%. Though the comparison is not entirely apples-to-apples – mobile ad engagement is not always measured through the click – the sky-high response rate to these types of mobile ads is, potentially, huge.

Other findings:

• iPhone owners use location-based services at a much higher rate than cell phone users (63 percent vs. 10 percent)
• Adults ages 25-34 are the most frequent users of location services – nearly one quarter of this group use them once per week or more
• Consumers are interested in allowing their phone to automatically share their location in exchange for perks, such as free use of mobile applications and mobile coupons

As mobile adoption rates continue to soar, forward-thinking brands will continue to see unprecedented opportunities to reach consumers in new and exciting ways. For more insights and ideas, check out our recent post on mobile and the future of couponing.

Read the full article »

Last week, Franz Ferdinand (the band, not the Austrian archduke) rocked a crowd of 2,500 during a show at Oakland’s Fox Theater – and then shared exclusive concert footage with even more fans through their branded Kyte channel. Welcome to rock n’ roll 2.0.

360i recently met with Kyte CEO Daniel Graf to discuss what the digital media platform has to offer for marketers. Kyte hosts several production and distribution tools – both online and through mobile channels – for a broad spectrum of media content. Like Franz Ferdinand, hundreds of artists – including Lady Gaga, Lenny Kravitz and 50 Cent – use Kyte to promote their music online and via mobile technology. Graf told 360i that one 50 Cent video (via www.thisis50.com) had garnered almost 50,000 views in an hour. Another recent show by the popular rap artist boasted 200,000 views.

Read the full article

There is a lot of optimism around the potential for advertisers to achieve branding objectives using online video because it provides marketers with many of the things we love about television advertising, with the added benefit of online measurement. Online video ads deliver the sound and motion of a TV commercial in a lean-back setting that can elicit an emotional response from viewers. Display ads rarely achieve this, which is why there has been a rocky road to their acceptance as drivers of brand metrics – despite a growing body of evidence that shows they do move the needle on key brand indictors.

Read the full article

NPD numbers for January came out last night, and despite the daily doom and gloom in the economy, the overall console market continues to post sales growth — 148% year-over-year growth for the Wii, and 33% year-over-year growth in sales for the Xbox 360. Only the PS3 saw a decrease in year-over-year sales, losing 24.5% compared to last January’s numbers.Microsoft made special mention of the success of the Xbox Live service in its report this month — it was the “single biggest month ever for Xbox LIVE as record number of new members joined in January [and] exclusive game add-ons extend blockbuster experiences” — the latter referring largely to the Fallout 3 DLC content packs, exclusive to the Xbox version of the title. Microsoft’s new Netflix service, mentioned by my colleague Josh Lovison in an earlier column, has been a great success as well: More than 1 million Xbox LIVE members are now enjoying Netflix’s streaming video service, and each household has watched an average of 16 movies over the service, according to Microsoft. Read the full article

Image via CrunchBase

Let’s agree right away that YouTube’s Sponsored Video isn’t the next Google Killer.

It’s not even the next Yahoo killer, even though comScore recently reported that YouTube is now the second largest search engine. Fittingly, around the time that the comScore news broke, Google publicly launched search-triggered Sponsored Video ads on YouTube. Does this mean marketers need to consider YouTube over Yahoo and Microsoft?

(more…)