(via Online Media Daily)

Apparel, food and beverage and low-cost product categories are better received by consumers visiting blogs than other types of marketers, according to Chicago-based comScore’s new product that measures consumer consumption of marketing through blog and social network conversations. “More serious categories such as insurance, financial services and pharmaceuticals do not engage blog visitors as well,” says Andrew Lipsman, senior analyst at comScore.

“The intensity of usage with conversational media sites is unique to the Internet,” Lipsman adds, with heavy visitors to conversational media sites in particular exhibiting certain niche online behaviors that can be underrepresented in a general consumer panel.

That fact inspired creation of the new tool to measure the intensity and predict the velocity and magnitude of its growth. Federated Media Publishing, the Sausalito, Calif.-based advertising platform for blogs, lent comScore its expertise on the consumer population that visits blogs, contributes commentary to blogs and social networks, and offers advertisers a stickier relationship.

What it means: more and more people are interested in conversational media as a way to market products/services but are not sure about the effectiveness of branded advertising alongside conversations. It’s therefore very appropriate that Comscore starts providing some data to support ad buys around this new media environment.