Making online safe for digital immigrants

Introduction
The Super CMO 
Social media versus complexity 
Think "web first" 
The IAB's challenge to Nielsen and comScore 
Making online safe for digital immigrants 

Berens: It certainly is a great time of growth within interactive. The IAB’s numbers released for Q4 of 2006 had a thirty-four percent increase over the previous record, which is just amazing. Starting from the smallest piece of the pie, to begin with, it is easy, I think, to see some great increases. Even network TV had a four point two percent increase (this is according to Nielsen, where the overall growth average is four point six). But still, you know, it is a tremendous amount of budget that is moving towards interactive, and it sounds to me like the budget -- in your mind -- is now becoming significant enough that we also need to be treating ourselves with grown-up measurements.

Rothenberg: Yes, it is grown-up measurements, grown-up processes, grown-up relationships that need to come out of the shadows.

The best line that I have heard -- and, I quote it a lot because I think it really says it all -- is when I was being recruited. I was seriously contemplating whether this was the right thing to do, and I called David Bell (who is one of the great advertising leaders of the past couple of decades as former Chairman and CEO of Interpublic and of True North, and Bozell).

I had breakfast with him and I said, “Well David, what do you think?” And he was wildly enthusiastic. But, he put his arm around me and pointed at me and said, “Here is your challenge. You are in an industry that is owned and operated by digital natives. You have to make it safe for the digital immigrants.”

The digital immigrants really include all senior marketers, and all the major consumer and B-to-B marketing companies in the world, the people who were raised with different opportunities, different technologies, different delivery systems, different notions of entertainment and different kinds of instruments.

But, they happen to be very educated, very senior, and very experienced. And, they are now asking a lot of hard questions and seeking real guidance on how to use interactive media to grow their businesses. And, you have got to respond to them in the right way, in the appropriate way. And, one of those responses is, “You have got to get serious. You have got to get collaborative. You have got to get transparent around the metrics that we use.”

The media companies have been there. The media companies have opened the kimono. We need the vendors, the suppliers and the others to do exactly the same thing.

Berens: I concur. And, it sounds like it can only lead to more business for interactive in advertising, and perhaps to have the level of budget start to resemble the level of attention that is happening on the consumer side, where I think we see a disproportionate level of attention compared to the level of advertising budget. So, anything that is going to get those things more in sync sounds like a good idea to me. You mentioned the ARF. Have you seen their Online Advertising Playbook? I just got a copy in the mail today. It is going to be on my nightstand.

Rothenberg: I certainly have. It is a wonderful work. They pulled a lot of things together, and they deserve all of the credit that they are getting. IAB is actively helping them market it. We are going to do what we can with our resources to kind of get the word out that this is a great handbook. It is a great introduction for people who want the introduction, but it has also got lots and lots of tidbits even for really skilled people in the interactive space.

Berens: I was just thinking it might be sort of the voter’s guide for the digital immigrants that you were mentioning before.

Rothenberg: That would be great. Tell Taddy Hall, because he would love to hear that.

Berens: Let’s wrap it up with a couple of your predictions and plans for the future. I think you have given us a good sense of how busy you have been since January, but, what is happening for the next couple of quarters over at the IAB. If you could sum up your ambition for the next year, what would it be?

Rothenberg: Part of what you will see is more exposure of the senior team at the IAB, because they are capable of solving a lot of problems and enhancing opportunities. Jonathan Moore and his team are the people behind our events. The person who has brought in all of the new members is Andrew Kraft and his team. Sheryl Draizen is helping to run the entire show. Jeremy Fain is doing a lot of hard supply chain work through the Ops Council.

One thing that we are dedicated to that has not really been high on the agenda in the past is just plain outward communication around the growth story, and the growth opportunities represented by interactive media. IAB, for most of its history, has been focused -- appropriately -- on the development of standards and guidelines to help create and facilitate the operations of markets. We are going to continue to do that, but we want to build this growth story on top of it.

We are in the process of reinventing media and marketing, and we have an enormous number of courageous people out there who leapt into this big unknown. Sure, we talk about all of the money that has been made by some, but people took flying leaps out of magazine jobs, radio jobs, and cable television jobs and started selling interactive banners. And it was pretty dark there for a long period of time. These were not the easiest jobs in the world.

So we want to start celebrating what people have managed to accomplish, and what companies have managed to accomplish, through innovation and dynamism.

That really is the mission of IAB: to grow the size of the interactive advertising marketplace, and to grow interactive share of total marketing spent. So, what people will see from the IAB, I hope, is a continued focus on that mission through everything from events, to industry blocking and tackling, to working out supply chain dilemmas, to working collaboratively with the AMA, the AAAA and other media associations, and just to make the marketing and media world better.

Berens: Well, we share a similar mission here at iMedia, so congratulations on the new gig, and thank you for the time.

Rothenberg: Thank you.

Randall Rothenberg is the president and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association for interactive marketing in the United States. Read full bio.

Brad Berens is editor in chief and chief content office for iMedia Communications. Read full bio.