Microsoft is educating consumers to avoid clicking on scam ads. Microsoft in conjunction with the Federal Trade Commission, The United States Postal Inspection Service and Western Union has launched a series of online public service announcements on its Bing search engine.

If you search for Microsoft Lottery, you will get a link to “Advance Fee Fraud Scams” follow with a message that says “Don’t send money before verifying the source of the request.”

Tim Cranton, Microsoft Associate General Counsel said:”The campaign builds on similar information we recently began providing in Windows Live, all with the idea that by providing education within the product experience, consumers will be reminded to be cautious at the very moment it’s most important.”

Microsoft has also released a free antivirus software, Microsoft Security Essentials, to increase security baseline of Windows system. Hopefully, this new strategy presented by Microsoft will prevent users from clicking on scam ads and browse websites safely.

Despite the global crisis, the online general advertising grew by 19% in 2008/09 in Australia and it reached a total market value of $510 million. Although companies have been trying to squeeze their marketing budgets, the online advertising market seems to be the first choice for them to invest in.

The Frost & Sullivan’s most recent annual analysis of the online market, Australian Online General and Mobile Advertising Report 2009-2013, showed the trends and performance of mobile and online advertising activity.

Mr. Phil Harpur,Senior Research Manager for the Australia and New Zealand, Frost & Sullivan commented: “Although 2009’s overall growth is slightly down when compared to the 22% increase in 2008, it’s still a very strong result given the economic environment. We anticipate that the online general advertising market will experience healthy growth over the next five years, reaching close to $1.2 billion in 2014.”

The Pharmaceutical industry is investing more money on online advertising to educate their consumers about the importance of medications, treatments options, signs and symptoms. The eMarketer survey about pharma ads has shown that consumers are in need of more information.

The survey revealed that pharmaceutical companies have been investing more money to educate their consumers about different treatments, side effects of medications and safety.

This survey showed that:”More than 4 in 10 Internet users revealed that online ads not only made them aware of treatment options, but also educated them about symptoms and conditions. In fact, 17% felt like they could speak with their doctor about their condition because of pharmaceutical advertising.”

More than one-half of internet users confirmed that they use a search engine to get more information about pills, illnesses and health. Pharmaceutical companies can approach users with the use of online advertising and this survey has proven that online ads will really work for them.

According to the biannual report from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), the online advertising spending in the UK grew to 1.5 billion pounds with the medium accounting for 23.5% of all spend, ahead of television for the first time.

Mr. Guy Phillipson, Chief Executive of the IAB, commented:”This is a significant milestone. This is the first major market where online has overtaken television to become the biggest single medium.” He strongly believes that by 2010 the online advertising will grow even more.

The report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Center established that online growth slowed considerably compared with the 21% reported for the first half of 2008, but it is still better than radio, television and online printing.

Eva Berg-Winters of PWC commented about this results: “Perhaps surprisingly, a slowing economy has accelerated the migration to digital technology. Hence the continuing shift from more traditional forms of advertising to online, which promises return on investment and measurability in a period of instability.”

The online display advertising market had significantly dropped since 2008 from $23 billion to an estimated of $20.8 billion this current year.  There’s tension growing between popular sites such as Yahoo, MSNBC.com and Hitory.com and ad networks.

Display ads are those with a picture and text that border a webpage. Many big media companies blame ad networks for capturing the market with cheap online ads. Big companies such as Microsfot, Google and Time Warner’s AOL and Yahoo are trying to work altogether to cut the ad networks.

The giants of search engine are developing the ad exchange system, which Google launched last week. Hopefully, the other search engines will be ready to launch the new system and they’ll be all able to compete against the ad networks.

The well-recognized search engine, Google, is ready to launch one of the most potent display ads campaign. In a $15 billion industry, Google has invested a lot of money to compete against Microsoft and Yahoo.

Google is launching the Doubleclick advertising today, September 18th,2009, with the hope that this online ads will work better than the current display ads seen on other search engines. The main idea is to make displays ads easier to deploy so more publishers and advertisers can run the ads.

Neal Mohan, Google’s Vice-President for product management, commented:”The idea is to grow the overall display-advertising pie. Display advertising is still not living up to its full potential.”

It is still uncertain to know that Google will succeed with its exchange, but if it works, Google’s total revenues could definitely raise rapidly.

According to a recent press release by Microsoft Corp., the company has filed five lawsuits against a flow of malicious online advertising. Microsoft is accusing the defendants of spreading what it’s known as “malvertisements” online ads that can infect computers with viruses.

The General Counselor for Microsoft, Mr. Tim Cranton, commented:”For example, ads may redirect users to a Web site that advertises rogue security software, also known as scareware, that falsely claims to detect or prevent threats on the computer.”

The well-knwon online “malvertisement”  can easily still data and personal information from computers and take control of every single system of the computer. The New York Time found one of these “malvertisements” on its website.

Mr. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, has stressed the necessity of stronger and original online content on company websites to strengthen brand positioning in a digital world that is rapidly increasing.

He has also commented that Microsoft has increased the advertising revenues up to $2 billion annually and that the future success of advertising would be online.

Mr. Ballmer said:”We ought to drive everyone to consume information digitally.” He also mentioned that companies should be aware of the importance of creating original and relevant content to promote products online. This is key to make a website more vulnerable to sell its products.

One of the leading fashion retailers in the U.S., Gap, will use viral marketing to compete and promote the new line of denim wear, 1969 Premium Jeans.

Apparently, Gap has paid attention to the big companies and now they have decided to have a viral campaign with the hope that this will end with great results.

The 1969 Premium Jeans’ line has been advertised on the social networking site Facebook, but there will be banners displayed on different websites which state what the site is Born to do.

This is the first time that Gap is going for a viral campaign. Results will be crucial to prove that the online advertising market is the new way of advertising.

Leadtail has recently announced the launching of its online advertising blog named Start Up Your Online Advertising”.
The blog is basically a guide to those companies that are new in the online advertising market.

Mr.Carter Hostelleyr, one of the founding community members of Leadtail, commented:” Leadtails new blog is ideal for anyone just getting started with online advertising. It not only gives useful information to help them drive traffic, generate leads and website sales, but also should spark helpful conversations.”

Many marketers don’t have previous online experience, so Leadtail is trying to create a community in which marketers could learn more about the online advertising market.