Online Advertisers Move to Behavioral Targeting

JupiterResearch reports that advertisers and agencies that have tested early online behavioral targeting services are yielding positive results. Detailed in a new report, “Effective Targeting,” JupiterResearch estimates that one in four online advertisers will be using behavioral targeting by 2007.

Currently there are two popular forms of behavioral targeting: Extended content targeting and purchase intent targeting. Extended content targeting focuses on a displayed interest of a group of people and allows advertisers to target people with this interest while they are viewing other types of content. Purchase intent targeting is employed by advertisers to define an audience at a certain stage in a purchase or conversion cycle.

When questioned about the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns, JupiterResearch reports that 88 percent of advertising agencies that have used any type of behavioral targeting in the past 12 months are “very or somewhat satisfied.” Only 56 percent of agencies that did not use behavioral targeting are “very or somewhat satisfied” with their advertising efforts over the past 12 months.

GSM Phones Enable More Than Two Billion Users

By last weekend, GSM mobile phones were in the hands of more than two billion people worldwide — almost twice as many as use the Internet. The second billion has taken just two-and-a-half years to achieve. GSM is the first communications technology to have more users in the developing world than in the developed world.

The GSM Association said that new users are signing up at the rate of 1,000 per minute (just under 18 per second) to services that include both second generation GSM, as well as third generation 3GSM services — for which there are already more than 72 million users in the world.

Mobile services based on GSM technology were first launched in Finland in 1991. Today, more than 690 mobile networks provide GSM services across 213 countries and GSM represents 82.4 percent of all global mobile connections. The phenomenal growth of GSM is being driven by soaring demand in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Of the second billion GSM connections, 82 percent are in the developing world. China is the largest single GSM market in the world today, with more than 370 million users, followed by Russia with 145 million, India with 83 million and the US with 78 million users. Five of the Top 10 fastest growing GSM markets are in Asia. GSM users now send one trillion text messages each year. In China, sales of music via mobile phones outstrip sales of music CDs.

In tandem with growth of GSM in emerging markets, the take up of next generation — 3GSM services globally is also flourishing. More than 105 networks across 50 countries have so far launched commercial 3G services. In Europe, where GSM is reaching saturation, some 95 percent of new connections are now for 3GSM based mobile services.

Over 150 LG Execs Will Receive MBAs

LG Electronics has contracted with Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management, to groom its next generation of top global managers through a multimillion-dollar customized MBA program that the school and its faculty designed specifically for LG.

The first 25 students, of what ultimately will total about 150 hand-selected LG executives through 2010, will graduate in Arizona on June 24 with MBA degrees in international management. This first group of students, who have been taking the customized Thunderbird MBA courses at the LG Learning Center in Korea since last June, arrived on the Glendale campus May 27, where they will complete the last four modules of the program before graduation.

The LG custom MBA program is Thunderbird’s first program specifically customized for a corporation with its unique objectives, strategies and outcomes built into the program. The LG students, who continued their daily activities in the company throughout the program, were able to immediately apply what they were learning in class to their specific goals and objectives in their executive roles throughout the company.

Sidong Noh, an LG executive and student in the program, said interactions between professors and students are vigorous and the program is perfect for potential global leaders. “Personally, I’m getting more insight into strategies and growing more able to view opportunities and threats from the global perspective.”

Those kinds of direct results are just what LG is looking for as it aims to position the company as one of the Top 3 electronics and telecommunications companies worldwide by 2010.

Young-Kee Kim, executive vice president and head of the Human Resources Division of LG, said the company is investing long-term in customized MBA programs to nurture talent and groom the next generation of top managers.

“Today LG is truly a global company with 80 percent of its revenue generated outside of Korea. Therefore, we need to raise next-generation leaders to manage our enterprises all around the world,” Kim said.