Several comScore studies have confirmed that online campaigns drive offline sales, according to Fulgoni. In the first study, comScore took four categories, 53 brands and 200 of the most trafficked sites. The company looked at people exposed to display advertising and what they did in the month following. Findings reveal that 18% searched on the brand advertised and 29% went to the advertisers’ sites. Consumers who were exposed to the display advertising spent 55% more time than the average visitors to these sites the next month. The rise in time spent is matched by a similar increase in page views — about 51%.

Then, comScore analyzed the impact that online campaigns have on retail sales by matching the name and the address of consumers to retail loyalty card databases. The supermarket Kroger, for example, has issued about 60 million loyalty cards, which provide a massive data set to understand the degree that online search and display campaigns drive retail sales. The findings suggest a lift that is five times stronger when people are exposed to search ads alone, compared with display. Search alone produces an 82% lift, compared with display at 16%, and 119% when search and display are combined. About 82% of online ad campaigns measured by comScore have generated an average lift of 22% in CPG brand sales in retail stores. Read more at www.mediapost.com

NEW YORK As the U.S. videogame industry continues to grow in the next several years, dollars spent on in-game advertising will increase accordingly.

By 2013, marketers will spend a total of $681 million on in-game advertising, up from $403 million in 2008, per eMarketer. During the forecast period, the relative mix of console/PC-based and Web-based advertising will shift slightly toward the latter, with 75 percent of the total spent online in 2013.

A growing number of ad-supported online games are also available to consumers for free. Surveys show that gamers have largely accepted the bargain of free game play in exchange for exposure to ads. This puts marketers in the pole position to make their brands part of the gaming experience through banner and video ads, sponsored sessions, product placements or other vehicles. Read more at www.adweek.com

PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, May 20, 2009 – According to The NPD Group, a leader in market research for the entertainment industry, nearly two out of three Americans (63 percent) have played a video game in the past six months. While that level of penetration does not begin to compete with music listening, which is nearly universal (94 percent), it exceeds the percentage of U.S. consumers who report going out to the movies (53 percent), during that same time period. Gaming is also benefiting from new outlets for playing.  Overall 10 percent of U.S. consumers played video games on a social network. Five percent have paid to download a video game from the Web, which is an increase of nearly 2 percent since last year. Read more at www.npd.com

The “Gamer Segmentation 2009” report, from The NPD Group, found that women will make up 28% of console gamers in 2009, up from 23% last year.

See more at www.emarketer.com

PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, June 29, 2009 – According to Gamer Segmentation 2009, the most recent report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, female gamers are on the rise in 2009 compared to 2008, significantly among Console Gamers. There was a four percentage point rise in females among both Heavy Portable and Extreme Gamers.

Females increased by five percentage points among Console Gamers, from 23 percent in 2008 to 28 percent in 2009. Since the rise in console usage among Console Gamers can be mainly attributed to the Wii, which increased in usage by 19 percentage points from last year, this underscores the finding that more females are using console systems, especially the Wii. Read more at www.npd.com

Nearly four in 10 (37%) of US adults own a game console, and 10% plan on purchasing a new console in the next 12 months, according to (pdf) data released by Nielsen Online.

See more at www.marketingcharts.com

The gaming industry has seen a meteoric rise over the past several years, now worth many billions of dollars. Today, Global Industry Analysts (GIA) projected that it expects the global market for gaming software to be $91.96 billion by 2015. This report follows one from PricewaterhouseCoopers last week, which predicted the global gaming market to hit $73.5 billion by 2013. Read more at www.industrygamers.com

Revenue generated in the U.S. and Canada by the videogame industry, minus hardware sales, will grow at an average clip of 5.8 percent annually over the next five years, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis.

Videogame advertising, which generated just $30 million in North America in 2004, will grow to $886 million this year and to $1.4 billion in 2013, according to PWC. Read more at www.adweek.com

Screen Digest today published their latest report, which estimates that spending on in-game advertisements will reach $1 billion by 2014. The study, titled “In-Game Advertising: Market Assessment and Forecasts to 2014,” asserts that the relevance of gaming as a medium will make it attractive to ad buyers. “Dynamic in-game advertising offers brands the same accountability as other digital platforms but in a more controlled environment than social display media and through a more standardized value chain than mobile advertising,” says Vincent Letang, Screen Digest Senior Analyst for Advertising. “Like online video pre-rolls, in-game advertising fills a gap in online branding, bringing familiar formats such as virtual billboards and TV ads into the gaming experience.” Read more at www.gamedaily.com

PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced results of a new survey that shows 57 percent of AT&T wireless customers who were polled play mobile games on their wireless devices. The survey, conducted by Information Solutions Group among more than 1,100 AT&T wireless customers, underscores the growing popularity of mobile gaming.

59% indicated they play games on their phone at least once a month; 40% said they played weekly or more often, while 41% said they played less than once per month.

91% of mobile gaming sessions are 30 minutes or less; fully 62% are less than 15 minutes. 71% of mobile gamers play games on their phone for less than an hour per week; more than half (52%) of those who play daily said they play for three or more hours per week.

Over three quarters (78%) of mobile gamers have been playing games on their phone for more than a year, and 55% of those say they’ve been playing for 3+ years.

On average, nearly a quarter (22.2%) of a mobile gamer’s total game playing time occurs on their mobile phone.Read more at www.infosolutionsgroup.com

The long-awaited promise of Web-to-TV video will finally begin to materialize in the next few years, according to a new report by technology research firm In-Stat. The company forecasts that by 2013 the number of U.S. broadband households watching Web-to-TV content will grow to 24 million, generating $2.9 billion in revenue from streaming services. In-Stat points out that almost 30% of those ages 25 to 34 already use game consoles to view streaming video off the Internet. Read more at www.mediapost.com