Olympics sponsors and their competitors ramped up their August ad budgets to maximize their exposure during the month of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
But according to Nielsen, many of China’s advertisers took a break from advertising in August, sending overall ad spending in China tumbling to levels last seen in May 2008, when the Sichuan earthquake hit and advertising was suspended for three days.
Advertising spending in China grew, year over year, by just 7% in August, Nielsen reported Monday.  In comparison, China’s ad spending grew by an average of 19% in the seven …

Among the many winners at the recent Summer Olympic Games: the city of Beijing.
According to a survey conducted by Nielsen after the closing ceremony, seven in 10 viewers across 16 countries and territories said Beijing appeared more “modern” and “high-tech” than they had expected.
Beijing also looked cleaner and greener than many viewers expected — 56% said the city’s physical environment exceeded their expectations.
Nine in 10 foreigners who visited Beijing for the Olympics also told Nielsen the city’s Olympics venues were “good” or “very good.”
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The New York Times reports that the Summer Olympics in Beijing was the most-viewed event in American television history, according to data provided by Nielsen Media Research.
The Beijing Games surpassed the old record- 209 million viewers of the 1996 Games in Atlanta- on Saturday night. Through Saturday, 211 million viewers had watched at least some of the Games on any of NBC Universal’s networks.
On Saturday, 43 million viewers tuned in to at least a portion of NBC’s coverage. The average audience from 9 to 11 p.m. on Saturday night was 16.5 …

Barack Obama’s Olympics ads strike a positive note, while John McCain’s ads take a more negative approach, The New York Times “TV Decorder” blog reported Monday.
The story noted that one McCain ad attacking Obama aired last Friday during the Olympics opening ceremony’s “parade of nations” — a procession of smiling athletes. 
According to Nielsen, that ad accounted for 30 seconds of the total 35 minutes of commercials that aired on NBC’s U.S. broadcast of the opening ceremony.
View Nielsen’s advertising data round-up for the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

Television viewing in the U.S. spiked by 17% during the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games in 1996, while TV viewing in Australia during the 2000 Sydney Summer Games jumped by 39%, according to a recent Nielsen report analyzing media trends from past Olympics.
Nielsen’s report also found that advertising spending in Olympic host countries grew significantly in both the U.S. and Greece in the years following the 1996 and 2004 Olympics. 
Only Australia saw declines in ad spending following the 2000 summer Games.  Those decreases can be attributed to general cutbacks in spending in the …

Ninety-eight percent of Chinese people can name the five Fuwa who will serve as the official mascots of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, according to recent research conducted by Nielsen.
The survey, conducted in late June, also found that the Fuwa are popular in China.  Sixty percent of respondents said they “like” or “really like” them, while more than 20% were neutral, and just 15% said they “dislike” the Fuwa.
Those who recognize the Fuwa also appear to be spending money on official Olympic merchandise featuring their images.  Fifty-seven percent of the respondents …