Business

Interactive advertising is responsible for $300 billion of economic activity in the U.S., according to a new study released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The advertising-supported Internet represents 2.1% of the total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). It directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago, and another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs. A total of 3.1 million Americans are employed thanks to the interactive ecosystem. These are the key findings of the first-ever research to analyze the economic importance, as well as the social benefits, of the Internet.

A new report from the Junior Achievement Innovation Initiative (JAII) and Gallup shows that employers (those responsible for hiring decisions) and employees alike believe that America’s workforce needs to become more “entrepreneurial” in order for the country to remain competitive in the global marketplace and that K-12 classrooms are the place to start teaching entrepreneurship.

AHAA just launched 10 podcasts of high-impact conference sessions over the past year. It’s a roundup of favorites featuring impressive speakers and relevant content from previous AHAA conferences that you’ll want to listen to again and again.

Just read Nancy Hill’s op-ed piece titled ‘Fair Play’ in P&C magazine. Ms. Hill is the President & CEO of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), where she portrays herself as empathetic and a Hispanic market expert due to her tenure a Lowe’s Hispanic shop LOLA.

I do not think LOLA did much, I am still trying to remember their launch and what they worked on.

A yes, she also does some Peace Corps type stuff in Ecuador, where she practices her Spanish. ¿Y esto la hace una experta en Hispanic Marketing?

Her point in the op-ed piece is that Hispanic ad agencies cannot complain about not getting the business when they pitch either Hispanic or mainstream business if they themselves do not evolve to be a “More Mainstream” and to stop marginalizing ourselves as Hispanic Ad Agencies. To read El Blog CLICK above.

Total measured advertising expenditures in the opening quarter of 2009 plunged 14.2 percent versus a year ago, to $30.18 billion, according to data released by TNS Media Intelligence. This follows a 9.2 percent decline in Q4 2008 as the advertising recession accelerated in the new year.

The Nielsen Company reported today that U.S. advertising for the first quarter 2009 was down 12% compared to the first quarter 2008. Preliminary figures show that U.S. ad expenditures declined $3.8 billion to a total spend of $27.9 billion in the first quarter.

Over the last four years, the ethnic media have picked up 8 million new readers, viewers and listeners, and now regularly reach 57 million people in the U.S., according to a poll released by New America Media (NAM). The increase comes as mainstream media, especially metropolitan daily newspapers, struggle to keep their audiences.