Monday Signal: In Chicago, It’s Almost Time…

In today’s Signal: We’re fired-up for Signal: Chicago on Tuesday (you can watch the livestream here, and still register here); Apple is ranked the most social brand on TV by Bluefin Labs; the number of Android activations is off the hook; Marissa Mayer reaffirms Yahoo’s belief in Right Media; our John Battelle takes Microsoft’s “Bing It On” challenge; and more.

To the links…

Exclusive: The Most Social Commercials and Brands on TV (Lost Remote) A big trend this past year has been the consistent appearance of major brands investing in and experimenting with social TV. Bluefin Labs has provided Lost Remote exclusively with their “Social TV Brand-scape,” a detailed look at the most social brands, TV commercials and sponsorships in the first half of 2012. The most social brand (based on the number of social media comments) goes to Apple, a brand that’s long invested in TV but not really in a social strategy.

Eric Schmidt: “There Are Now 1.3 Million Android Device Activations Per Day” (TechCrunch) During the opening of Motorola’s “On Display” event, Google’s Eric Schmidt revealed exactly how much Android is growing. Last December, there were 700k devices activated each day. Then, earlier this summer, that number rose to 900k. In late July, it hit 1M, and now, in early September, there are 1.3M devices activated every single day.

Yahoo Staying in Ad Tech, Won’t Sell Right Media (AdAge) Over the past two weeks, industry execs have told Ad Age that Marissa Mayer was likely to sign off on a plan to invest at least several hundred million dollars into Right Media and the rest of Yahoo’s ad-tech products. Sure enough, the company announced on Thursday that it’s not going to sell its ad exchange. Still, it’s not completely clear why Yahoo feels that it needs to continue to invest in a platform that hasn’t yet reaped much reward.

Bing Tries Harder, But For Me, It’s A Draw (BattelleMedia) For years, Bing executives have privately complained about how hard it is to “break the Google habit,” even as they refused to market directly against Google. But times have changed. On Thursday, Microsoft announced its “Bing It On” challenge, a direct descendant of the iconic Pepsi challenge more than 30 years ago. It’s always a risk to ask consumers to test products blind, side by side, but Bing is doing it, and John Battelle bit and took the challenge.

Why Nike’s a Model Digital Brand (Digiday) Top agency executives set to speak at the Digiday Agency Summit on October 23-25 in Palm Beach, Florida, were asked to reveal the brands they believe are the most digital savvy. Nike came out on top.

Meet the Five Big Tech Trends Changing Marketing (AdAge) Each year, in a document it calls “The Menu,” The Media Kitchen outlines its vision for the digital marketing world and what it thinks will change over the next 12-18 months. One trend that stands out this year is that as the industry shifts towards using organic (native) ways of monetizing, content becomes extremely important not just to consumers but to brands.

And last, but certainly not least…

We’re All Fired-Up for Signal: Chicago Signal: Chicago is one of the most captivating and connected digital marketing events of the year! The promise of digital has always been the ability to truly understand how your marketing is working, both offline and on. Thanks to the rise of social and mobile platforms, that promise is bearing fruit, but it also creates a mass of new data streams, analytics challenges, and insight demands. Marketers can now leverage data to make more effective and informed decisions. But now that marketing has become so multi-dimensional, how does one create measurable experiences that drive consumer engagement? Signal: Chicago will gather the leading players (Carolyn to present the latest approaches to meeting today’s digital marketing challenges. Join us through the livestream link on September 11th, beginning at 7am.

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