PR Builds Brand Better Than Ads For Complex Products

Earned media that results from public relations efforts may be more important than advertising to brand value, especially for companies that sell feature-rich, high-involvement and complicated products such as consumer electronics, and financial services and vehicles, finds a survey by Text 100 and Context Analytics.

The findings of the Media Prominence Study, (pdf) which calculates brand value based on Interbrand’s 2008 Best Global Brands report, show that on average 27% of brand value is tied to how often the brand name appears in the press.

Yahoo’s Newspaper Consortium Keeps Growing

Even as Google is cancelling its experiment with newspaper advertising, Yahoo is expanding its newspaper consortium. Today, Yahoo is announcing that it is adding two new members: The Boston Globe and the St. Petersburg Times. That brings the consortium up to 38 media companies, representing 793 total newspapers, up from 635 newspaper partners a year ago, and 176 at launch in November, 2006.

Global Digital Divide Unchanged Since 2002

Despite significant improvements in mobile telephony and internet access in some parts of the developing world, the gap between the information and communication “haves” and “have-nots” has remained virtually unchanged since 2002, according to a report from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

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The Index, which looks at the countries over a five-year period (2002 to 2007), combines 11 indicators into a single measure that can be used as a benchmarking tool globally, regionally and at the country level. These indicators are related to ICT access, literacy levels and use and skills—such as households with a computer the number of internet users.