Jep, it is time to revive my blog. Definitely. Two reasons for that. At IAB Europe we are launching THE IAB Event and it might be called "Interact". How future seeing of me, ha? Second reason, we have gone through a very tough time in our agency launching a media buying business. And hopefully this maddens will cool down just a little bit. Please... :-)
Amy Auerbach wrote a day or two ago about how our industry might face a problem in lacking industry professionals for a fast pace of development in our industry. I have to say that I share her thoughts in expressing concern about this issue given the fact that our industry is reinventing itself often and that we work in a environment that is multidisciplined as it can get. Clearly we are developing things that have a marketing soul on one hand and a strong technology base on the other, not to mentions the ever expanding list of the strategies, tactics and tools that are being invented on a daily basis. Interactive agencies are getting in so many different fields of work (marketing, PR, CRM, process organization, and so on..) that it takes a very wide array of experts to cover them.
The problem is that what we need is not a ready made expert. We need people that are able to reinvent themselves often. That want to grow with the industry and be a creative part of it. And those are hard to find...
What is you opinion on that? Are you starting to lack these kinds of people also?
http://publications.mediapost.com/
Tag: interactive agency, interactive agencies, online advertising
Today there is a great pack of online creative available. And of course, some are good and some are not. But this one has really got to me. No great technology leap but good ideas and good execution. http://www.a-to-s.co.uk/ Customers are demanding everything and now, but we are not a graphical studio. Not everybody knows that there are some extreme technological issues to be solved in order for to things to work properly.
People who visited Advertising Week pointed out that one of the recurring topics was the future of the 30-second TV spot. Brian McAndrews, president and CEO of aQuantive stated: "Our belief is that the Web site is going to replace the 30-second commercial over time as the central expression of the brand."
Interesting thought. Although a little bit futuristic. My opinion is that this can certainly happen, but not so fast. On the other hand, branding is closely related to the web site even now. You have to bear in mind that there is a good chance that a customer will interact with your brand only on the web. Talking about the 20-30 age group this will most probably happen. Change in media consumption has done that, so the wisest thing would definitely be to follow it.
The other thing is related to the amount of information that you can get from a web site. While on the 30-second spot you are constrained by the time issue, a website can offer timeless experience and a very structured one. Everything from the logo to the most complex information is linked and easy to use (well, this is not the case for every website).
Tags: Branding, TV spot, online advertising, web site
The best thing about today's program has absolutely been the "interactive parts" of the conference. They were called interactive sessions and were actually a pretty two-way method of discussing the issues. The interesting thing is that we have localized some pretty important issues on witch our industry should be moving.
All I-com participantsAmong them I would emphasize the different ways to tackle the issue of bringing more investments in to the online advertising (and things relating to this issue: standardization, talking in a language that would be easily understood by media planers, and so on..) and the cookie deletion issue.
Tags: i-com conference, Online Media Measurement, Online audience Measurement, online advertising
Zoran Savin is the vicepresident of IAB Europe and the director of digital advertising at Sonce.net interactive agency.
