Pharmaceutical companies have been slow to fully embrace digital market­ing, but healthcare-related digital strategies are poised to gain momentum in 2009, according to Mary Ann Belliveau, manag­ing director, health vertical, at Google.

DelMonte's Meow Mix brand cat food has debuted a new interactive campaign to go along with its "Think Like a Cat" game show and to promote the launch of its Wholesome Goodness product line.

Web analytics has expanded to include surveys that provide direct customer feedback about online behavior.

Sam Decker, CMO of Bazaarvoice, discusses how user-generated online reviews worked to increase Office Depot's paid search revenue

As the latest in a series of steps that has changed the use of video and long-form footage online, Google opened YouTube up to search ads last week, allowing advertisers to tie their com­mercials to specific words entered into YouTube's search box.

Lotame has released its Time Spent technology, which is part of its Crowd Control advertising platform. This technology allows companies to track how much time consumers spend in front of and engaged with advertisements on social networking sites such as Bebo, Flixter, Meez and Fotolog.

Entercom Communications Corporation, a US-based radio broadcasting group, has tapped SplashCast, an emerging media content syndication service, for its social network marketing efforts. SplashCast microchannels, which are virtual, interactive, embeddable TVs, will be available on the Web sites of 70 of Entercom's radio stations.

Innovative Interactive, the parent company of 360i and SearchIgnite, has acquired Netmining NV, a provider of landing page and on-site behavioral optimization technology.

Marketers' two big weapons have been judged very differently. Brand market­ing — managing consumer perception — has been gauged by studies that measure brand health. Direct marketing — moving consum­ers to purchase — has been judged by sales response.

T-Mobile USA has partnered with AOL's Platform-A to create a new Web advertising campaign promoting the new Google Android phone today and tomorrow.