What's going to be the biggest innovation in targeting?
Coffin: Location-based targeting will be the biggest innovation in targeting; whether by billboards in a certain area that can identify a specific "consumer" walking by, or via mobile-based location targeting. Brands that send a relevant ad to a user's PDA or mobile when they are in a specific area near a retail store, or a coupon invitation to a restaurant, or incentives like 20 percent off for walking into a spa around the corner.

Edwards: Targeting people who are identifiable as light/medium/heavy offline purchasers, based on offline sales data.

Horan: Targeting tends to get more ink than use. While behavioral targeting is often required to differentiate inventory when buying broader reach sites such as portals, contextual targeting on trusted and verified content sites tends to deliver superior results. This was evident in a recent analysis of measuring the value of advertising on different types of sites that we conducted with Dynamic Logic. We compared an OPA roll-up of our member sites with overall MarketNorms, as well as portals and ad networks. OPA outscored industry norms for the internet 41 out of 43 times.

Philalithes: Multi-mode targeting that looks at consumers from a number of different perspectives and as members of multiple segments or groups. Also, I'd say improved, more accurate geographic targeting, depending on the degree to which ISPs collect and sell access to their customer data.

In what new ways will marketers use social networks in 2009?
Coffin: Marketers will access social networks relying on semantic technology that determine the appropriateness of an ad placement on the fly.

Edwards: They'll stop looking at Facebook or MySpace as coherent media "things." Instead, they'll view social networks as platforms -- like multiple-system operators (MSOs) in cable TV -- and work harder to find the communities -- the "media properties" -- on top of those platforms.

Hespos: Marketers will start to look at the social networking opportunity as a way to extend utility and functionality with their brand attached to it. They'll also learn quite a bit about looking at social as an opportunity to be relevant to the daily social lives of their target. This means giving them tools to use rather than just throwing a message in their faces. Where advertising does get used, it will be more relevant due to the ability to target by declared and observed interest in a product or category.

Horan: While sites such as Facebook have been the focus of the social networking advertising debate, we expect that marketers will increasingly differentiate between organic social networks and professionally developed sites that enable communities of like-minded interests to connect. "Traditional" media companies have been actively incorporating social media into their online offerings for years and finding that it leads to greater levels of consumer involvement with content. The result is that, on places such as ESPN.com, BusinessWeek.com, the HealthCentral Network or iVillage, marketers can reap the benefits of the dynamic social media experience, while doing so in a safe, high-quality environment.

Huxley: Evolving data capture to incorporate profile information from social networks will be the biggest shift in the future. Looking beyond the profile-as-microsite approach that many marketers employ as a campaign extension, a well-managed profile can open new lines of communication with customers and provide a wealth of target insight.

Philalithes: Marketers will concentrate on using social networks more like focus groups.

How do you see the issue of measurement and metrics evolving in 2009?
Coffin: Goodbye clickthrough rate! It's going to be purely about conversions with performance-driven advertisers, and interaction rate for branding.

Edwards: It's going to move beyond DR and CPC. As brand dollars migrate online from traditional media, online publishers will need to get smart on brand metrics -- engaging consumers by your story and brand assets, enabling those consumers to amplify your story, creating brand equity.

Hespos: It's going to be all about lift in online sales, particularly for considered purchases or more impulse-oriented purchases that are at too low a price point to develop a serious volume of online sales.

Horan: It is important that the industry continues to explore the question of engagement, a subject that has been discussed and debated for many years. The OPA has actively researched the different ways in which consumers are engaging with online media and advertising, providing marketers with a unique and valuable way to look at their campaigns. Going forward, agencies, advertisers, measurement companies and industry groups must all work together to continue this effort. Understanding the full impact of the online experience in the lives of consumers -- beyond simply how many visit a site or whether and how often they click -- is essential for online media to meet its full potential.

Philalithes: We'll see a growing definition of harder metrics on the social media front as usage increases and as tracking technologies evolve. In the current financial climate, we will also see marketers demanding the measurement and accountability, both in terms of performance metrics and performance pricing, from offline media. Enter Google.

What trends do you expect to see emerge in video advertising in 2009 and going forward?
Edwards: I think sites like Hulu and Fancast will continue to make inroads into marketing budgets. This, in turn, will help out smaller and more social-type video content sites as marketers become more and more comfortable with the various digital video formats.

Horan: My hope is that more creative will be developed that will leverage the unique dynamic presented by online video to create an interactive experience. By doing so, advertisers will see significant engagement resulting in superior brand impact and purchase intent.

Philalithes: Pre-roll, post-roll, product placement, overlays, side-bars, etc. The list is endless about how to monetize video. Putting format aside for a moment, relevancy of the advertising as we know is key. Relevancy takes many forms, and in the case of video, it will be in the form of keyword or content relevancy. In 2009, I expect to see closed caption technology being used to understand the content of the video clip and that content being matched with relevant advertising on a keyword basis.