Kate Burns – SVP, Sales and Operations, AOL Europe
Carolyn Everson – CVP – Ad Sales Global Consumer & Online, Microsoft
Curt Hecht – CEO, VivaKo Nerve Center
Dev Patel: Yahoo, VP Advertiser and Publisher Solutions
Moderator: Brian Morrissey – Digital Editor, Adweek
Brian: How has the shift to audience based buys shifted the market.
Carolyn: The amount that we can target is good for advertisers and publishers alike. There will always be brands that will want big brand campaigns. Agencies are building their own platforms to buy the consumer. The industry is getting smarter and more efficient and there is a shift in the dollars that are brand vs. performance.
Kate: They have both content and ads reporting into her – which means they are holistic. It breaks the barrios of Church vs. State traditions. It helps to deliver great content and relevant ads. This also allows them to launch things faster.
Brian: Will the audience buying be remnant inventory?
Curt: Publishers are more open to being part of the networks. They are working with Yahoo! that allows it to be a reservation based system that is more branded. Ideally both organizations are lowering their cost of participation.
Brian – the chart we always see it time spent vs. dollars spent on digital media.
Carolyn: Brand advertisers still care about the environment they are in. Sight, sound, light. Digital has grown up as a DR media and we have restricted the creativity. If we were to start over how would we think about an ad mobile on the web. What is digital advertising going to look like? There is also not enough quality video content on the web. There needs to be a more robust environment for advertisers to play in.
Kate: There’s a lot of discussion on how to measure around engagement, but we haven’t made it work. As an industry we need to make it easier and more efficient for advertisers and agencies to play. AOL launched The Devil Unit (I’m on the consortium there) which is easier and more engaging and quick to get live.
Brian: Is it the creative holding it back?
Curt: When digital media started to take off it was the digital media guys – and they were in before the creative agencies. Now the creative agencies are getting involved. How do agencies operate on a Paid/Owned/Earned which is more than just placing ads.
Dev: The innovation on the creative canvas in critical. On sites with high traffic and high reach – the On The Mail Login Page is a “Big Ass” unit that is attractive to the advertiser. But what we can’t forget it what happens after the ad is clicked. We have to think beyond the GRPs. (AHMEN)
Carolyn: We are talking about PC – the right conversation is what is the ad experience across ALL ad platforms. The more we can work in that way the more we will win the brand dollars. This clearly makes the argument for a unified reporting metric. It’s a very confusing landscape. We as an industry have to make this easier across platforms.
Dev: Whatever form or channel a user is engaged we must understand unique reach and what are the types and levels of interactivity and what are the effective sales.
Curt: CPMs and Rating systems play a role of currency – but what is the most important metric to the client. The marketer will start to look at the additional data, because now they understand more about how it’s driving their business. We are going to see easier things happen, but harder things on how we connect it back to the marketplace.
Brian: What is going to save the CPM?
Kate: There is a plethora of UGC and it makes it hard for brands to navigate.
Carolyn: How do you get quality content? You can get traditional media – that needs a bigger megaphone to get to users. And then there are other aggregators out there. They are working closely with the agency to get quality content from the brands themselves. Traditional Media – Aggregators – Brands – they are the 3 sources of content.
Dev: Agrees this is the source of great content.
Curt: There is a lot of supply of video – probably more than we realize. How do we use data to get to the right video.
By the way there is a “What Muppet are you?” theme happening here this week. Carolyn went with Snuffleupagus.
Personal Note: I like Carolyn a lot – it’s nice to see someone who has a lot of my same thinking on this panel.
Lunch Time: Back later . . .
Shenanize 