Olympics, politics, movies, buzz and more conflicting research.

We certainly have a lot to look forward to this year. The Winter Olympics. The mid-term elections. A $152.3 billion ad spend total. For those of you keeping track of these things, spending on advertising this year is expected to grow 5.4 percent to $152.3 billion. That's according to TNS Media Intelligence, which this week said ad spending across 20 media will surpass the record levels of 2004.

TNS thinks Hispanic Network TV will see the largest gain, with 10.4 percent growth, following the internet's 9.1 percent growth and cable's 8.4 percent. TV will still claim the largest slice of the pie, with 43.7 percent share of total ad dollars, followed by magazines (20.5 percent), newspapers (19.9 percent), radio (7.5 percent), internet (6.0 percent) and outdoor (2.4 percent).

Isn't that encouraging? That's not all!

Tacoda this week released the long-anticipated second set of results of the eye tracking study comparing behavioral to contextual targeting in driving engagement for brand advertisers, and the numbers are even more encouraging. Among the results: behavioral targeting generated an average of 17 percent more looks at these ads than contextual targeting, and after the first exposure, the advantage skyrockets to 54 percent.

We always thought that the editorial environment of contextual targeting meant increased attention to ads. Not necessarily so. According to this new set of data, it could be that ads for the same product category attacking the user's eye in contextual targeting may be causing the user to avoid looking at any of them, instead focusing on something unexpected.

A very valid theory, wouldn't you say? Except that if clutter is the culprit, just because an ad appears on an unrelated site, that site doesn't become any less cluttered. Nevertheless, this is certainly a useful sharp arrow for your "you should be spending more money online because it's more effective than many other media" quiver.

And here's another one: a recent Dynamic Logic analysis of 57 movie campaigns for in-theater releases reveals that online movie ads perform among one of the highest in positively raising Aided Brand Awareness (+9.8) and Brand Favorability (+4.3) on average.

Also, advertising's impact on Awareness and Purchase Intent was highest early on in the campaigns, peaking at least four weeks (21-27 days) prior to the movie release date. While campaigns still have a positive impact on both metrics over time, the impact decreases as the movie release date nears.

Source:  Dynamic Logic MarketNorms subset of movies data through Q3/04, N=43 campaigns, n= 41,281 respondents

Dynamic Logic thinks that "initial boom and buzz effect" are the main reasons for this phenomenon, which makes perfect sense considering that intent to see a new movie can be generated immediately once people become aware of one that looks interesting to them. Later on, competition for consumers' movie dollars increases as they become more discriminating in their choice of movies to see.

Speaking of buzz, at this week's WOMMA conference in Orlando, the World of Mouth Marketing Association released an odd study, which concluded that whether or not someone is affiliated with a marketing organization does not matter as long as the affiliation is disclosed. The study on disclosure and organized word of mouth programs conducted by Walter Carl of Northeastern University concluded that 75 percent of people engaged in conversations felt it was more important that they trusted the WOM agent and that they knew that person was providing an honest opinion and that their best interests were being looked after. The study also found that disclosure does not generally have a negatively effect on key metrics like credibility, inquiry, use, purchase and pass along/relay. And, talking about a brand or service with an agent increased the believability of a complementary print, radio, TV or web ad.

First of all, who came up with the term "WOM agent"? Secondly, isn't it a given that if someone who works for Kleenex recommends Kleenex over Puffs to you, you'd think twice about whether it was their "honest opinion"? Moreover, would it make you pay more attention to Kleenex's TV spots?

Who funds these things?

I know I probably shouldn't be so harsh on WOMMA. They're really just trying to organize the practice of creating buzz. (As a PR person myself -- umm, I mean WOM agent -- I understand their motivation.) But this research is counterproductive, at best. (Speaking of buzz researchers, VNU has just taken a majority stake in WOM measurement firm BuzzMetrics to form Nielsen BuzzMetrics. The companies will monitor TV-show, consumer generated media and health-related buzz.)

Then again, research that makes you go "hmm" (forgive the dated reference) is nothing new in this business. Take the latest from Starcom, for example. This week, they released the results of a survey that says nearly 70 percent of consumers would rather download ad-free mobile video content rather than free ad-supported video. Just last week, I reported on a Points North Group and Horowitz Associates study that concluded exactly the opposite-- that 62 percent of consumers would rather watch ads in on-demand programming rather than pay the $1.99 charged by Apple, Google and others for commercial-free video content.

You be the judge. In the meantime, this week brought the launch of two new podcasting ad networks -- Kiptronic and Podtrac. Podtrac is offering advertisers a streamlined system for buying podcasts (individually or by category,) complete with demographic profiles and media kits. Kiptronic is an auction-based model. Both will allow advertisers to upload pre-recorded audio spots, or a script to be read by the host during the podcast. These announcements follow Audible's test launch of a set of ad insertion and measurement tools called AudibleWordcast in November.

And finally, I have to report that in response to my calling their foray into newspaper advertising "silly" last week (although I'm sure I'm giving myself way too much credit,) Google this week decided to try -- what else? -- RADIO! On Tuesday, our favorite 800lb gorilla announced that it has acquired radio advertising firm dMarc Broadcasting Inc. Reportedly, the deal could be worth up to $1.24 billion, including an initial payment of $102 million. Google, apparently, plans to integrate dMarc's technology -- which simplifies the selling, scheduling and delivering of radio ads -- into AdWords.

Is Google biting off more than it can chew? Many are beginning to think so. Standard & Poor analyst Scott Kessler, for one, just downgraded Google's stock from hold to sell. I just hope radio doesn't kill the… well, I'll spare you another pop reference.

iMedia Connection Editor at Large Masha Geller is the founder of interactive marketing and corporate communications consultancy Geller Public Relations in New York. She has been covering the interactive advertising industry since 1999 as the former editor in chief of MediaPost.com, and is a widely-published thought leader in the interactive arena.