These are Wednesday’s top ten analyst research summary upgrades, downgrades, and initiations from Wall Street brokerage firms:

Abercrombie & Fitch (NYSE: ANF) Cut to Neutral at Susquehanna.
Alcoa (NYSE:AA) Cut to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
Ann Taylor (NYSE:ANN) Raised to Buy at UBS.
ASM International (NASDAQ:ASMI) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
Kulicke & Soffa (NASDAQ:KLIC) Started as Buy at Jefferies.
MedAssets (NASDAQ:MDAS) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Raised to Buy at AmTech.
Popular Inc. (NASDAQ: BPOP) Raised to Outperform at KBW.
Target (NYSE:TGT) Raised to Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS) Started as Buy at Janney Montgomery Scott.

JON C. OGG
AUGUST 19, 2009

These are some of the top analyst upgrades and positive research calls we are seeing this Thursday morning with about two hours until the market opens:

• Abiomed (ABMD) Raised to Hold at Jefferies.
• Altera (ALTR) Started as Buy at Piper Jaffray.
• China Petroleum (SNP) Raised to Buy at UBS.
• Johnson Controls (JCI) Raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
• MedAssets (MDAS) STarted as Buy at ThinkEquity.
• Sequenom (SQNM) Started as Outperform at JMP Securities.
• Zenith National Insurance (ZNT) Started as Buy at Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey.

JON C. OGG

The Humane Society of the United States sent out a press release in support of  not killing  the Acorn Woodpeckers at Rossmoor. Thanks, Laura Simon for taking up our cause. I hope with all the support  from HSUS and MDAS  we can find a good solution for all involved.

Acorn Woodpecker Granary

Excited to relay the news about a new production from our Branded Entertainment and Experiences Team (BEET) greatly integrating brand content strategy to our platform while powerfully engaging with women.
Leveraging the success of the Real Beauty campaign Dove has embarked on a unprecedented online community project. The brand new Dove Digital Channel aims to grow a vibrant and active community of real women discussing real beauty. Women are able to interact and challenge a notable board of editors leading the community sections, share their experiences within forums, comment articles, blog their thoughts and watch videos on the Real Beauty topic . And of course learn more about Dove products and philosophy while being on the platform. In the coming months, the channel will be localised in Canada, UK, Brasil, Spain.

Definitely a meaningful step for Dove in thinking more broadly about how the brand presents itself differently based on consumer interest (product vs. community), age group (older, younger or core target), and point of entry (headline vs. media vs. product promotion).

For more, read Wall Street Journal Online article (subscription only) .

I’ve been involved in many talks around video advertising in the last couple of months (see below as sum up our visions for videos we’ve been presenting to the media last February in London).

Its a hot topic and a lot of people are voicing their opinions.
Now is the time for the industry to speak up and make their voices count. The IAB is currently updating the 3 year old video guidelines we’re still relying upon as of today.

The document is opened to all IAB members for reviews and comments till the end of the month. The guidelines impact linear ads (like pre-rolls, interactive takeovers and bumper vignettes appearing prior the video), non-linear ads (i.e. overlays and product placements) and companion ads (i.e. text, display ads and skins wrapped around the video).

If you’re an IAB member, read it carefully and voice your comment. If you’re no member you’ll probably find the reading worth it- specially the glossary.

The participative call has nothing to do with the air du temps. But it would have been much nicer -and more interactive also- to use more actual tools like a wiki page to collect all the comments. Hum?

As its seems fairly topical from looking at the press right now, and for those whom are interested in how to move towards justifying the commercial aspects on interactions over click-throughs, here’s a snap-shot of one particular model I discuss within my presentation ‘How to Make a Good Impression’. There’s a whole lot deck of stuff to back this up, but I offer it out as a taster and means to provoke discussion…

How to make a good impression: A user-centric approach to advertising

The digital landscape has changed and so have the ways of measuring it. By seeing the consumer as an individual, technology allows brands to speak to consumers directly at their point of engagement and then allow them to choose how and when they want to proceed. By watching and learning user behaviour behind the scenes and with the assistance of profiling and retargeting, brands can now personally speak to individuals with the message most relevant to them and then gently influence them through the purchasing funnel. We will look at how in a recent campaign, we used this combination of passive learning and pro-active nudging to move consumers along that product awareness path.

http://demo.eyeblaster.com/Europe/Dean/MSN_Innovate_EB_Media.zip (5.6 MB)

This presentation combines my first-hand observations with internal findings based on research. The industry is seeing click through’s in decline. Partly due to change in user habits, only 10% of time online is now “surfing” and therefore the knock-on effect of how to develop a response with a user.

• Rich Media is powerful at generating response without need to click-thru – see slide 8
• Rich Media is powerful at developing an “emotional” response, i.e. branding – see slide 9-11 on impressions v clicks at generating conversions
• Rich Media is more cost effective if we can develop responses WITHIN a creative – you are 40x more likely to touch ad / interact, then click these days – and this is shown in ROI delivered – see slide 18/19

Coupled with behavioural advertising, is very powerful at engaging a user emotionally, physically then leading them down a process of driving conversions. The examples I show in my presentation are how MSN and Eyeblaster have done this.

Supporting document: Context Matters

MSN’s own latest global research on advertising in situ that forms a sounding board for my own industry investigations. I have had no direct hand in developing this piece but it serves as a back-drop which I complement with my own presentation and as a result is setting a foundation for further research together.

http://demo.eyeblaster.com/Europe/Dean/MDAS_Context_Matters.pdf (7.6 MB)

Following on from my discussions about Communicating to a Consumer I have just been alerted to this new short-film entitled ‘Context Matters’, which is about finding the appropriate tone-of-voice and moment to say your piece. From an advertisers point of view, understanding the audience is getting more and more crucial if you wish to persuade as opposed to preach…

 By Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions 

Microsoft Surface has been elected number 1 most brilliant innovations of 2007 by Popular Mechanics