iMedia: Does this mean that display will rebound?
Spanfeller: I think that's going to take a couple of things. First -- and you're already seeing this with the OPA experiments in bigger, but not necessarily disruptive ad units -- you're seeing advertisers and publishers put a lot more serious emphasis on the experience. The ads, simply put, are getting a lot better from a technical and creative standpoint. Second, display has been slowed over the last two years as ad networks have been on the rise. That's not an accident. You look at an ad network campaign, and for buyers, the enemy is frequency. They limit frequency to drive up their ROI. It's at that point where display becomes solely about direct response. But I don't think that trend is going to continue, because top-tier publishers can't let it happen.
iMedia: 2009 has obviously been a terrifying year in terms of the economy. But one of the good things about this collapse is that it's enabled us to take fresh, hard look at a lot of things. What have we learned about online advertising now that a new kind of harsh reality has taken hold?
Spanfeller: I don't know if the economy is a driver of this, but we've seen a real increase in the importance of creative ad units online this year, and that's a really good thing. There's now this idea out there that we have to go beyond the standard IAB ad units if we want demand creation. That idea pre-dates this year, but it seems like it's an idea that everyone is now getting on board with, and that's a really good thing.
iMedia: One of the other big stories this year has been the emergence of Twitter. While some brands, like Ford and Dunkin' Donuts, have done really great things with the platform, there's also been a lot of hype. As an industry, is online advertising particularly susceptible to the "bright, shiny object"? And how do you balance the need to stay current with the need to stay focused? In other words, how do you keep your perspective when everyone else seems to have lost theirs?
Spanfeller: Yeah, that's always an issue, especially with a technology-driven industry. First, we've got to get over this false notion that every new development is 180 degrees new. I'm a big proponent of new, but at the end of the day, people still behave in a relatively similar way to how they did in the past. That is, if there's a reason for them to do something, they'll do it, and if there isn't, they won't. So, I think you always have to keep that idea -- what will people do? -- in perspective when you're looking at the "next big thing." The second thing is that you just can't assume that because there's noise, there's meaning. A lot of people have been yapping about Twitter, but that doesn't mean it's as important as people think, and it might be critical to one company and irrelevant to another.
iMedia: What are you most excited about for 2010? What are you most concerned about?
Spanfeller: The biggest thing I'm excited about is that the economy seems to be improving. What that improvement looks like may not be all that clear, but the climate is improving and there will be more clients spending more money than they did this year because most brands have found that their brand attributes have decreased over the past 18 months. Brands have suffered in this downturn, so I think we're going to see a lot more money spent on branding. Of course, what I'm most excited about is also my biggest worry -- that things won't improve.
My other big concern is about is privacy. If the industry doesn't do a better job when it comes to privacy, it will hurt everyone. Most people still have no idea what happens with the data that's collected about them, so we really do need better transparency for the consumer and then really good education to explain what's going on. Who knows what will happen in Washington, but right now it seems that we can, and should, do a better job of self-regulating and educating around privacy issues.
<< Previous page
Michael Estrin is a freelance writer.
On Twitter? Follow iMedia at @iMediaTweet.
