Agency

Arbitron Inc. announced that it has commercialized its Portable People Meter radio ratings services in eight new markets. Arbitron has released radio audience estimates for the September 2008 PPMTM survey month (August 21-September 17) to its subscribers in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Nassau-Suffolk, Middlesex-Somerset-Union, Riverside-San Bernardino and San Jose.

Arbitron Inc. announced that it has asked the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, for a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against the Attorney General for the State of New York to prevent any attempt to restrain Arbitron’s publication of its Portable People Meter listening estimates.

PPM Coalition applauds New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for taking action to protect radio listeners from Arbitron’s new radio ratings system that undercounts the listening preferences of Hispanic, African American and other minorities.

A Silver Telly, the top distinction from the Telly Awards, fell upon the creative work for McDonald’s Snack-Wrap developed by d expósito & Partners to coincide with the celebration of the Latin Grammy 2007 Edition. The agency’s campaign was one of 14,000 entries from Hispanic, Ethnic and General Market submitted to the 29th Annual Telly Award.

The current economic slowdown has taken a far greater toll on non-citizen immigrants than it has on the United States population as a whole. The median annual income of non-citizen immigrant households–a group that accounts for 7% of all U.S. households and 52% of all immigrant households–fell 7.3% from 2006 to 2007. In contrast, the median annual income of all U.S. households increased 1.3% during the same period.

There were 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants living in the United States in March 2008, according to new Pew Hispanic Center estimates. The size of the unauthorized population appears to have declined since 2007, but this finding is inconclusive because of the margin of error in these estimates.

Fewer product differences, a barrage of repetitious brand promises, and a marketplace “fish bowl” are fast making the customer “experience” the next frontier where the battle for the hearts, minds, and wallets of customers will be fought.

You are hereby notified that the Attorney General intends to commence litigation against Arbitron, Inc. (“Arbitron”) pursuant to New York Executive Law Section 63(12), Article 22-A of the General Business Law (“GBL”), Sections 349 and 350, Article 23-A of the GBL, Section 352, and Section 40-c of the New York Civil Rights Law, to enjoin unlawful and deceptive acts and practices in which Arbitron plans to engage, has engaged and/or continues to engage, and to obtain additional injunctive relief, penalties, damages and such other relief as the Court may deem just and proper.

The heart of what’s wrong with our industry can be found beating at our industry conferences. This is where we stand on stages; beat our chests as self-anointed media pioneers celebrating our own kind, while missing the entire big picture.

The damage is structural — not in the location or timing of these formal acronymic gatherings, but rather within the structure of the pecking order of whose needs need to be met first, the consumer or the advertiser. In the purest form of the relationship between content, consumers and advertisers, the consumer must sit atop the pedestal — and that’s where these conferences turn its attendees into human mannequins, placed neatly in chairs below the raised stages where the advertiser sits.