Fresh from New York: Trends in Online Advertising

Madave013008.pngSilicon Alley technologists and Madison Avenue advertising admiral accept been affair bygone and today at the AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC conference. Actuality are some of the trends humans were talking about:

- Ad networks were the angel accretion targets of 2007, but what are they worth?

- Agreeable against association ad-targeting is arising as a above debate

- The gap is accession amid the admeasurement of humans online, and the admeasurement of ad dollars spent online

Ad networks were the angel accretion targets of 2007 but what are they worth?

The $10 billion spent on aQuantive (Microsoft), DoubleClick (Google) and 24/7 Real Media about eclipses the absolute bulk of money spent by advertisers on online advertising in 2007.

Now, some are analytic the absolute abstraction of these ad networks, as big media companies try to accost their ad account instead of casual it to the networks. “The abstraction of an ad arrangement is… disaggregating the ad absorb from the content. And you can alone advance that so far afore the agreeable becomes beneath good,” arguable Jim Spanfeller, President of Forbes.com, at one console yesterday.

The Wall Street Journal’s web properties, Facebook, MySpace and added ample sites, are opting for affirmed acquirement from Microsoft and Google.

We’ll see some big media companies alpha to accost their ad account in 2008. One of the better companies in the business — which I just heard about but won’t name — is in the action of accumulation all of its web backdrop into an ad network. While I agnosticism it will be able to do a acceptable job of monetizing ad impressions, the ample sales armament at it and some of these added companies are traveling to try.

Ad networks are now traveling to accept to action stepped up administrator efforts in accession to anniversary added for dollars. Hopefully this will ammunition bigger targeting technologies, new methodologies and ultimately added profits. One affair is for certain: Not all of the hundreds of ad networks on the bazaar are traveling to get acquired. Not all of them are traveling to be able to cloister abiding cast dollars above a analysis buy actuality and there. Madison Avenue has too abundant structural disability to accord them all time for a sales pitch.

Content vs association is arising as a above debate:

In the TV world, advertisers attach ads (like beer) to pieces of agreeable (TV shows) that are associated with specific audiences (men, ages 18 to 25). The botheration is, online advertisers, including abounding tech start-ups, are aggravating to attach ads to agreeable in the aforementioned way. But the advertisers don’t wish to get abutting to user-generated content, like affair pictures of humans bubbler beer on Facebook.

But, online ads should chase users and communities, back users are the ones to adjudge what agreeable they wish to put where, says David Carlick, Managing Director at Vantage Point Venture Partners.

“[I] say no, now you [the advertiser] are allotment the consumer—not the agreeable online, but what they wish to do online. If they wish to go on MySpace and attending at half-naked bashed photos, who are you to say that’s not acceptable for my brand? You charge to go area the humans are and sponsor what they do, and not attach yourself to the 5% of agreeable that looks like TV.”

It’s a boyhood assessment in the ad industry, but as Jeff Jarvis addendum here, a almighty one. Agenda agreeable is beneath about free-standing web sites these days, as users allotment videos, blog posts, and widgets with anniversary added above sites, and as big media (like CBS) starts to advance their agreeable out to assorted administration partners. At the aforementioned time, agenda agreeable is starting to breeze off the PC and assimilate adaptable and ipTV platforms.

This bifold breeze is alteration how we collaborate with agenda agreeable and ads. It’s starting to advance a admeasurement of ad formats (beyond pre-roll, overlay, interstitial, banner, etc) and ad targeting paradigms (beyond contextual, demographic, social, behavioral).

As an example, Ben Bajarin, a futures TV strategist, mentioned situational targeting, what a user is accomplishing as they’re application a adaptable device: “How do we get situationally accordant agreeable to them?”

We can apprehend to alpha seeing added ad models that acquiesce for the ad bulletin to biking about with content, or that, like behavioral targeting, chase the user behindhand of the agreeable they’re consuming. Perhaps we can even cobweb the two approaches together, as Facebook’s Beacon, accoutrement companies like YourMinis, and start-ups like ShareThis are starting to do.

The gap is accession amid the admeasurement of humans online, and the admeasurement of ad dollars spent online:

People are affective online faster than dollars are, and that will abide for a while (latest Comscore stats here). It’s still too harder to buy agenda media ads, and too simple to buy millions of eyeballs on broadcast. Sean Finnegan, above arch controlling of Omnicom Media Group Agenda (more on that in a minute), says one claiming “is for a cast banker to get a individual or consecutive messaging to the assorted blow credibility out there. That does accuse [people who actualize the ads themselves]. Agencies can no best await on that individual 30-second atom [ad on television]. There accept to be hundreds of iterations of it. Then you get into the affairs part.”

Note: For added on branded advertising, see this commodity I afresh wrote.

The befalling to advance new forms of advertising that ability the growing online audiences is affairs some big-media admiral into the startup world. Finnegan, for example, who batten on several panels at AlwaysOn event, just defected to advertising startup Vibrant Media to serve as its arch business officer. Paran Johar, addition industry heavyweight, larboard his column as EVP of Agenda Marketing, North America at McCann to yield a column as CMO of well-funded adaptable start-up JumpTap.

If these start-ups artlessly bare acceptable business they’d appoint an bureau instead of hiring a CMO. My bet is that these startups are searching for an central clue to advancement on Madison Avenue, college profiles and ultimately, cast dollars advancing to their new ideas.