The NFL’s two representatives in the Top 20 are the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers. India’s national team makes a breakthrough for cricket in 15^th position, while baseball’s Boston Red Sox nab 18^th spot.

That means ad execs may choose to divert budget from traditional advertising to social media to reflect changing audience profile,rather than request a dedicated budget to experiment with a new technology.

Also, based on the rather broad range of social media activities, coupled with low management buy-in and measurement, there is every indication that social networking still has a long way to go before it is accepted as a core business strategy.

“All of this serves to remind us that we are still really only in the early dawn of social media in business,” says KPMG. “We suspect in a couple of year’s time, the responses to these sorts of questions may be very different and that we will see social media moving far closer to the core of strategy considerations.”

KPMG finds that more than three-quarters of retail/wholesale and finance brands use social media, while just 67% of firms in the public sector do so.

And in Europe, 2011’s UEFA Champions League semi-final between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid reached 14.1 million Spanish viewers.

While in the UK, 6.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the Canadian Grand Prix, more than even the top-rated Grand Prix of the 2010 season.

Plus more than 7,000 feature films were produced around the world in 2009 (compared to 1,700 in 1995), and in excess of 100 million song tracks have now been catalogued

“More content creators are producing more content than ever before – and are more able to make money off of their content than ever before,” the report says. “On top of that, consumers are living in a time of absolute abundance and choice -a time where content is plentiful in mass quantities.”

However, for the traditional middlemen, the Internet represents both a challenge and an opportunity, says Floor 64. There is no doubt that online has eaten away at some traditional means by which such businesses earned a crust. But, there is more money going in to the overall market, more content being created, and many new ways to make money.”

Most acceptable in the TV ad stakes? Children’s toys, which just 15% would ban from TV advertising compared to the 79% who would allow it, while a mere 11% think universities shouldn’t be allowed to have TV advertising, compared to 84% who are OK with academic spots.

Russia is expected to deliver ’12 growth of 16.5%, India 14%, China 11.5%, with Brazil getting a lift of 8.5%.

Italy is the only featured country featured in the forecast which is likely to witness a contraction – off by 0.8% – due to domestic economic troubles and broader issues facing the Eurozone.

The UK should benefits from the Olympic Games in London, which will help drive ad spend up by 4.2%.

“With continuing debt worries affecting mature markets and knocking business and consumer sentiment, it is no surprise that 2012 ad-spend growth will come from emerging markets,” Suzy Young, Warc’s data editor.

In emerging markets, while consumers report greater customer satisfaction than their mature-market peers, they more often switched brands due to poor service, especially within the retail, ISP, mobile and banking categories.

The greatest frustration consumers cite is ‘having the company deliver something different than what they promise upfront’. The report says brands do not notice more subtle changes that matter in customers’ need for recognition, reward and special treatment.

Accenture says brands are “not attending to the things that help keep customers engaged, actions that can help the company sustain growth, such as delivering on promises made throughout all stages of the customer lifecycle and delivering a tailored experience.”

Social networking delivers mass reach for brands and the trend is most visible among younger Internet users, with 16-to-24 year-olds much more likely to ‘like’ a brand or product than older age groups. However microblogging remains a far more targeted social strategy with just 9% having retweeted a branded post, and only 13% opting to follow a brand on Twitter.

The most social engaged market in the world is China, where 84% of Net users contribute at least once a month to either social networking, blogging, video uploading, photo sharing, microblogging or forums. Next in line come Russia, Brazil and India, demonstrating how BRIC markets dominate the social landscape. In the UK the figure stands at 64%, in the US 60%, in Germany 52%.