With agency experience and seats on numerous advisory boards, Tim McHale has his hand on the pulse of the industry.

Tim McHale, former chief media officer at Tribal DDB Worldwide, takes an activist's approach to the interactive marketplace with various industry initiatives and a variety of media advisory boards. iMedia interviewed McHale for his views on the direction of the industry and suggestions for its improvement.

Meet Tim McHale at the iMedia Summit in New Mexico, May 13th through 16th. Click here for an invitation.

iMedia Connection: What makes a campaign successful? What are the specific components?

McHale: I think campaigns like Pepsi or others using a multi-media execution are successful because consumers wholeheartedly can connect better with the right mix of online and offline. When it contains a combination of having a message that's entertaining, informative and appealing, or it gives consumers a reason for participating through a poll or another device that delivers the attributes that the brand desires, then the chance of being successful is much higher.

iMedia Connection: What measurements do you use to deem success?

McHale: For multi-media campaigns, one would look at a number of streaming units that were served, the registration rate for people to register for future communications, and your basic click-through rates. Also, building in a Dynamic Logic analysis is always helpful. Finally, there's a new Jupiter division called Live Metrics, which is once again providing new levels of measurement for all online usage, not just the advertising portion.

iMedia Connection: What sort of new models can we expect in the future?

McHale: We're going to see more multi-media implementations in which the online and offline is working symmetrically, and where the overall goal is to establish a relationship so that a marketer can communicate on a more consistent, continuous, personal basis with each consumer.

iMedia Connection: Why is it better for a traditional marketer to go with an interactive agency than to advertise-direct with a publisher OR take the entire workload in-house?

McHale: The ad agency is set-up so that the organization benefits by the crossroads or exchange of learnings and ideas that come from servicing clients within different business categories. Sometimes the solution found on a packaged good account might be applicable in a unique way to an automotive or technology account. Agencies are measured by their keeping on top of the most contemporary and best-of-breed methods of interactive media. Part of this role requires that we maintain good and open relationships with vendors of all kinds. In addition, successful online agencies service many different kinds of businesses, as compared to marketers who bring their online capabilities in-house. We see that the weaknesses of an in-house online agency have much to do with the fact there's less diversity and challenge of the status quo.

iMedia Connection: What remains the industry's biggest stumbling block?

McHale: From a traditional agency standpoint, the metrics of compensation are still dramatically apart between online and offline. In addition, there may be somewhat of a cultural issue in that a top-notch 20-year agency veteran who has spent all his/her time utilizing TV as a tool has little bandwidth and a high learning curve to enable him or her to utilize the Internet seriously. The same can be said of people with online agency-only experience, who have little understanding and experience of offline expertise and knowledge.

iMedia Connection: Is there a sane way to do CPA so everyone wins?

McHale: Not at this time. However, all media will over time be performance based. CPA is a harsh, yet important indicator that demonstrates the consumer-centric model from a b-to-b standpoint. If a marketer wants to do a CPA there are always going to be vendors who will do it for them.

iMedia Connection: Is there enough branding research to satisfy clients? If not, what needs to be done?

McHale: I don't think the branding research has been taken seriously by marketers because we've only done a small number of truly well-structured tests with authoritative marketers. Two years ago, there were one or two IAB studies of consequence and very little from the ARF. With the ARF involved now, that's a clear demonstration that this medium is beginning to be taken seriously by research leaders who are well respected within the traditional media environment.

iMedia Connection: What are your clients reservations about spending more money for interactive media?

McHale: For as much as we have put together general guidelines for the proper allocation of dollars to the Internet, they have not been widely promoted, thought-through and accepted. Plus, a soft economy tends to make even adventurous marketers become risk-adverse. The reasons allocation metrics have not been adapted to the larger agencies and clients is that there is still significant resistance among traditional media people to let go of the reins of their budgets. There's very little confidence in what the Internet offers in their minds, yet there's very little curiosity to find out either.

iMedia Connection: How can agencies encourage their clients to keep up with the reported increase in consumer media consumption?

McHale: I still think we have not found the big AH-HA to this medium. CRM is a start though that requires clients get their minds around the use of data, which is still very new to many traditional marketers. Until we can point to at least a half-dozen clear success stories, we are still going to be faced with a resistant marketing community.