The U.S. market, which faced six straight quarters of declines in ad spending, has seen a turnaround in 2010, with a 3.8 percent increase year-over-year.

Advertisers are increasingly employing creative publicity stunts to get consumers’ attention, The New York Times reported Friday.
Recent outdoor campaigns that drew notice include a glass elevator in Manhattan painted to look like a giant Oreo dunking into a glass of milk and “pitvertising” in London by Right Guard. 
Such high-profile public pranks may be par for the course in an era defined by ad-savvy, often distracted consumers, Pete Blackshaw, Executive Vice President of Digital Strategic Services, Nielsen Online, told the Times.
“Advertisers are being pushed to creative extremes, partly because it’s just …

The Los Angeles Times reported that advertisers and broadcasters are countering the ad-skipping tendencies of TiVo owners by boosting the number of paid product placements in shows. The story noted that, according to Nielsen, NBC’s “The Biggest Loser” featured the most product placements (3,977) during the first quarter of this year.
In a separate story, ABC News reported that the increasing use of product placement on TV and radio has caught the attention of the Federal Communications Commission. ABC’s story cited Nielsen data showing prime-time product placements on broadcast …