I think we have to remember that 70%+ of peoples' lives will not be spent on the internet. These people still have jobs, watch television, drive to work, go shopping etc etc.

Therefore, I think the 10% advertising online is a good number that shouldn't increase to anything more than 15-20% at a stretch unless we want our internet experience to look like Times Square, Manhattan.

I think we have to remember that 70%+ of peoples' lives will not be spent on the internet. These people still have jobs, watch television, drive to work, go shopping etc etc.

Therefore, I think the 10% advertising online is a good number that shouldn't increase to anything more than 15-20% at a stretch unless we want our internet experience to look like Times Square, Manhattan.

Reminds me of stories before the NASCAR boom about AT&T and others. They said no to sponsorship, afraid of their logos being transformed into heaps of flaming car wreckage.

While I'll never be a fan of the sport, big brands love NASCAR today. It's one of the boldest expressions of identity that money can buy, and for much of the decade has been one of the fastest growing “sports” in America. Times change, fears subside, and like you say, advertisers will go where the consumers are.

Many others also are using the web in this way to both drive direct purchase but reinforce like we do in other mediums.

Dave

Measurability and attribution seem to be the holy grail. I have no idea how to solve these things.

You say “Traditional brand spend (tv ads) is more efficient today offline on a property and reach comparison.”

So you are saying TV ads are fairly priced? Most commenters here and people I've talked to think they are way overpriced compared to online equivalents, partly due to agency issues, habit, etc.

So far as I can tell, advertisers love the web for brand advertising, the same way cola companies love a generic sweetner to NutraSweet, or Americans love Canadian drugs. For major advertisers, or their agencies, the web is seen as an alternative to tv (and other “traditional” media) today, but one that primarily presents pricing pressure for reaching targeted audiences. They're all happy it's there, but not always looking for a piece of that online audience goodness.

As for your suggestion, “economic logic suggests these problems will be figured out,” I'd argue: they have been. Traditional brand spend (tv ads) is more efficient today offline on a property and reach comparison. If you'd like I can produce data (albeit imperfect) to show this.

For online to become a more realistic (and economically viable solution) for national brand advertisers, we're going to have to address measurability and attribution effects of online ads. Or find an alternative to selling ads per discrete property.

The clearest solution proposed to date is viewthrough metrics and a standard for tracking need to exist. ComScore and Microsoft have been working hard for the last two years to convey that clickthrough is NOT the end-all-be-all measurement standard for web ad effectiveness. That's obviously vested interests laid bare — ComScore measures impressions and Microsoft is fending off Google — but I tend to think they're close to accurate. Here's some of the rhetoric http://ow.ly/Qh4a

But you're touching something much bigger. Enabling a brand advertiser across the web — that's clearly unsolved, and exciting because it's the promise of advertising with context, with relevant (personal, meaningful) targeting to people based on their own searches, interests or selections. It's built across properties and over time. It's where no one owns the audience, and where possession matters more than ownership. It's has the potential to be closer to a real relationship, and a lot less like “advertising.”

So if economic logic is what will govern decisions by advertisers and agencies, this suggests that advertisers will seek the least expensive options for achieving their objectives at all times. And for brand advertising, the largest unsolved problem is how to advertise off-property, across property, or sans-property. The closest thing to this is AdSense today, and it is still far from a perfected system or model for brands. The issue goes beyond “safety” — it gets to the heart of what brands are looking for… impact, engagement, relevance.

Whatever and whoever is able to crack the social advertising nut will lead brand advertising on to its best medium yet. Many of us can track the origin of our purchase intent to something we heard from a friend — this will be much more powerful than Display to create brand awareness.

http://rafer.tumblr.com/post/90175534/only-5-of…

Fundamentally, “brand advertising” is choreographed: Created by ad agency creatives, tested with consumer focus groups, approved by a brand manager, and placed by a media buyer.

For traditional agencies, the higher the degree of “choreography”, the higher their profit margin. :30 TV spot = lots of rounds of boards, focus group testing, “strategy”, etc. High margin for agencies.

But the internet is a fundamentally un-coreographed medium: In the long run the traditional choreographed approach to brand building will not transfer to the internet. Participating in the conversation on Twitter, conducting contests that harness user generated content, connecting with FB fans, etc all = very low [or non-existent] margin for ad agencies.

For these $ to shift online en mass, [1] scrappy startups need to come up with proven-effective — and measurable — brand equity-building models that look nothing like today's “brand advertising”, and [2] a few major blue chip marketers e.g. P&G, car companies, etc — need to take away the leadership seat at the “spending decision table” that traditional agencies with big agency problems currently have.

My bet: Both [1] and [2] will likely happen within 2-3 years.

To quote Rob Norman's take on the current situation – “consumers are wasting time on the uninteresting and advertisers are wasting money on the uninterested”.

And yes I am not comfortable with the fact that the usual suspects will rip all the benefits.

I mean not everyone has NASA or MIT resume to work in your shop or Google. There are still “average people” out there, utterly crushed but the web induced upheavals.

I've been thinking about online brand advertising for quite awhile.

The current new ad units aren't very user friendly

http://bijansabet.com/post/221109475/the-future…

there has to be something better.

but the crazy thing is how much agencies and brands spend on tv when most folks don't watch these ads. DVRs are having an enormous impact:

http://bijansabet.com/post/231733939/do-dvr-use…

It's only a matter of time before TV CPMs drop significantly from todays rate card and online offers a better alternative for brands and users as well.

If i'm a content owner distributing over cable I'd figure out
a) how to lower content costs
b) distribute everywhere
c) build a direct relationship with your users (this doesn't mean billing needs to be direct)

Magazines and ad agencies will be destroyed. The statistically insignificant world of startups and Googles will benefit for sure. Bottom line, despite the optimism for the web based advertising there is not clear path or relief for the jobs or economy.