Among the many Olympics winners so far are a handful of advertisers, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Ads created especially for the Beijing Games by Coca-Cola, General Electric, Oreo, and Visa were among the best-remembered and most-liked commercials during the first week of the Beijing Olympics, according to Nielsen IAG, which uses an online panel to track the performance of advertising.
A Coca-Cola ad in which animated birds use straws swiped from Coke bottles to construct a nest resembling the Olympic stadium in Beijing was especially popular with Olympics viewers, Nielsen reported.
An …

NBC’s broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Olympics again claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of primetime telecasts for Thursday, August 14, 2008.
CBS’s “Flashpoint” and “Big Brother” rounded out the top three.

RANK
NAME
NETWORK
VIEWERS (P2+)

1
SUM OLYM THU PRIME 1(S)-08/14/2008
NBC
29,708,000

2
FLASHPOINT
CBS
6,113,000

3
BIG BROTHER 10-THU
CBS
5,864,000

4
CSI
CBS
5,325,000

5
AL DIABLO CON GUAPOS THU
UNI
4,678,000

6
FUEGO EN LA SANGRE THU
UNI
4,345,000

7
GREY’S ANATOMY-THU 9PM
ABC
3,490,000

8
ROSA DE GUADALUPE THU
UNI
3,430,000

9
SMARTER THAN 5TH GRADER
FOX
3,378,000

10
NFL ON FOX PRESEASON 1(S)-08/14/2008
FOX
3,163,000

Source: The Nielsen Company (August 14, 2008)

Overall, NBC won the night with an average audience of just over 29.7 million viewers, while CBS took second place with 5.8 million average viewers.  Univision …

A handful of multinational companies are competing for the rights to put their corporate name on Beijing’s iconic “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium following the Olympics, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The move comes with some risk, the Journal noted, citing a Starbucks in Beijing’s Forbidden City that was forced to close after Chinese bloggers argued it was inappropriate to put the cafe inside a national treasure.
But National Stadium Co., which manages the “Bird’s Nest,” has already considered that.  The company told the Journal that a recent survey conducted by Nielsen found …

British women are the target of a new marketing push that aims to prop up flagging beer sales in the UK, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Beermakers like Coors and Diageo, which owns Guinness, are hoping women, a largely untapped group of potential beer customers, will be drawn to sweeter, lighter new beers they’ve introduced. 
But that strategy alone may not be enough to boost beer sales, Graham Page of Nielsen told the Journal. 
“[Women] don’t consume the volume [of beer] — and that is crucial — that men do,” Page noted.

Are drug advertisements losing their zing?
According to Nielsen IAG, this year’s pharmaceutical commercials have been far less memorable for consumers than drug ads aired in 2007, Brandweek reported Friday.
Nielsen IAG ranked the most-recalled prescription drug ads in 2007 and 2008, and found that consumer recall indexes for this year’s pharma ads were significantly lower than indexes for the most memorable prescription drug commercials in 2007.
“The overall average has come down. A high bar was set, but now it’s just not as high,” Fariba Zamaniyan, Senior Vice President, healthcare, Nielsen IAG, told …

Hong Kong residents are not immune to the pall cast by the current global economic slowdown and rising inflation.
This year, consumer confidence in Hong Kong has slipped to the lowest level in two years, Nielsen reported Thursday.  Hong Kong’s Nielsen Confidence Index has fallen to 109 in 2008 — from 118 in 2007. 
That trend is forcing Hong Kong residents to change their lifestyles.  According to the most recent Nielsen Consumer Confidence study, 53% of people in Hong Kong are less willing to spend in the next 12 months – up from 39% in 2007.  Two-thirds of Hong Kong residents also reported they …

NBC’s broadcast of the 2008 Beijing Olympics again claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of primetime telecasts for Wednesday, August 13, 2008.
CBS’s “Criminal Minds” and “CSI: NY” rounded out the top three.

RANK
NAME
NETWORK
VIEWERS (P2+)

1
SUM OLYM WED PRIME 1(S)-08/13/2008
NBC
27,656,000

2
CRIMINAL MINDS
CBS
6,428,000

3
CSI: NY
CBS
5,785,000

4
GREATEST AMERICAN DOG
CBS
5,114,000

5
AL DIABLO CON GUAPOS WED
UNI
4,818,000

6
BONES SP-8/13 8P(S)-08/13/2008
FOX
4,542,000

7
FUEGO EN LA SANGRE WED
UNI
4,402,000

8
PRIMETIME: CRIME
ABC
4,383,000

9
SUPERNANNY
ABC
3,945,000

10
WIFE SWAP
ABC
3,176,000

Source: The Nielsen Company (August 13, 2008)

Overall, NBC won the night with an average audience of just over 27.6 million viewers, while CBS took second place with 5.7 million average viewers.  Univision and ABC claimed third and …

Heading into Thursday night’s women’s gymnastics individual all-around finals, American gymnast Shawn Johnson leads her top competitors in online buzz, according to Nielsen Online.
Fan buzz between July 28 and August 13 overwhelmingly focused on Johnson, who was more than twice as likely to be discussed by bloggers than her teammate Nastia Liukin. 
Liukin was ranked second on Nielsen’s list of the seven most buzzworthy gymnasts competing in the individual finals.  China’s Jiang Yuyuan rounded out the top three.

ATHLETE
COUNTRY
INDEX

Shawn Johnson
U.S.
100

Nastia Liukin
U.S.
43

Jiang Yuyuan
China
16

Anna Pavlova
Russia
11

Yang Yilin
China
11

Steliana Nistor
Romania
8

Ksenia Semenova
Russia
3

Source: The Nielsen Company (July 28, 2008 …

Despite losing to Cuba in a closely contested game Wednesday evening, the Chinese women’s volleyball team claimed the top TV rating of all Olympics events broadcast on Chinese television on Wednesday, August 13, AGB Nielsen Media Research reported Thursday.
In China, 143 million viewers watched the China vs. Cuba game on CCTV 1 Wednesday evening, according to AGB Nielsen.  In comparison, 84 million Chinese tuned in for the men’s weightlifting 77kg final that aired on CCTV 2 during the same time period.
In three games on August 9, 11, and 13, the Chinese …

With digital coverage of the Beijing Olympics more ambitious than ever before and industry analysts issuing dire predictions of the death of TV, The Christian Science Monitor had to pop the question: “Is this the summer that the Internet finally kills television as we once knew it?”
Short answer: the jury is still out.  Monitor staff writer Gregory Lamb, who queried a range of experts on the topic, outlines the arguments on both sides, but steers clear of drawing any conclusions.
The story briefly addresses the prospects for video viewing via mobile …