NEWS

Marketers Surveyed: 90% Report Plans to Increase Digital Spend, Despite Organizational Challenges

According to Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010, a groundbreaking joint study of the IAB, ANA (Association of National Advertisers), AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies), and management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, more than 90 percent of marketers indicated they planned to increase marketing spend in digital, despite barriers including insufficient metrics, lack of organization support, and lack of experience in the new media.

The marketer research is the first phase of a three-part study in which IAB, ANA, AAAA and Booz Allen are collaborating. In the next phase, Booz Allen and the IAB will survey media companies to learn how they are adapting their organizations, capabilities and relationships to the needs of digital transformation. An agency research phase also is planned.

"The initial findings of this study confirm what we at the IAB have been hearing and saying: More and more marketers as well as agencies and others across the industry have embraced the reality that interactive is the fulcrum on which their brand strategies need to be based," said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB. "Ongoing IAB initiatives creating standards for rich internet applications and exploring interactive audience measurement are just two examples of ways we are helping marketers navigate this new and complex landscape."

Five key themes emerged from Marketing & Media Ecosystem 2010 study Read More Here »

IAB Drives Industry Growth, Announces Important Industry News

The IAB has announced several industry milestones in October, delivering on its mission to deliver solutions to the interactive industry through improving accountability and operational efficiency for IAB member companies and their partners.

Here are some of the highlights of the critical industry work undertaken by the IAB's Industry Services group:

Goodby Silverstein and Hewlett Packard Win Best in Show at the MIXX Awards.
IAB Awards an Additional 15 Golds, 15 Silvers and 17 Bronzes

The IAB closed this year's highly successful MIXX Conference and Expo with the third annual MIXX Awards. Senior leaders from marketing, advertising and media companies celebrated the teams and talent that have pushed interactive to unprecedented achievement. This year's extraordinary breadth of creativity is a testament to the interactive industry's unprecedented growth. This year's submissions jumped by 40% and were sent in from the leading agencies and marketers across all vertical platforms. View the creative work of the MIXX finalists »

EVENTS

	Keynote Speaker Nick Brien Worldwide Chief Executive Officer Universal McCann	The IAB will host its annual "Leadership Forum: Agency Summit" at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. The hallmark of this new era in marketing era is that value derives from the mix of strategy + channel + content and this will serve as the theme for this year's event. Nick Brian, Worldwide Chief Executive Officer, Universal McCann and Brad Brinegar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, McKinney will keynote an agenda jam packed with the latest tools and technologies.
	Keynote Speaker Brad Brinegar Chairman and Chief Executive Officer McKinney

The IAB Audience Measurement Leadership Forum is the forum for marketers, agencies, interactive publishers and technology companies looking to gain clear insight into the metrics of interactive media. This forum will detail methodologies, highlight differences among models and provide enlightenment on the unique challenges the current metrics hold within their respective mediums.

Don't miss this year's last IAB Professional Development Session. This inaugural set of highly interactive learning sessions benefits both newcomers and industry veterans with training on the tools and techniques that are reshaping Interactive advertising.

STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES

Ad Unit Guidelines

The Ad Sizes Working Group is developing and maintaining the IAB Ad Unit Guidelines, and meets bi-annually. Following the recent launch of the Creative Spec database, we will be adding recommended maximum fileweights in Q3-4 2007. For more information, please contact Erica DeLorenzo at erica@iab.net.

Click Measurement

In collaboration with the Media Ratings Council, the Click Measurement Working Group is working to provide the detailed definition of a “click" and the standard against which clicks are measured and counted, including invalid clicks and/or fraudulent clicks. We are getting prepared to share the document with other industry bodies in the near future, followed by a public comment period. For more information, contact Erica DeLorenzo at erica@iab.net.

IAB PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

What is causing your ad impression discrepancies? How much of your traffic is really from your customers vs. non-human agents? Are you filtering with the same list as the third party ad servers and other publishers? Who's really visiting your web site? How are your customers using your site?

The IAB/ABCe International Spiders & Bots List can help you answer all these questions. It is the most comprehensive and current public list of non-human user agents in the world. Updated monthly by some of the largest publishers and most experienced web-audit experts, this list is necessary for accurately filtering your advertising and web server logs. It knows which bots are still active and which are not. The major publishers and third-party ad-servers are using it, and if discrepancies are an issue for you, you should be using it too. Without it, you will never know what is real and what is not. Contact Jeremy Fain jeremy@iab.net if you have questions or subscribe now at www.iab.net/spiders.

Measurement Certification Update

The IAB continues its efforts in educating marketers, agencies and publishers on the critical importance of measurement certification. As more and more marketers demand verified metrics be used as the basis for billing with their Interactive campaigns, it is becoming imperative to take the requisite steps to obtain measurement certification. This movement continues to secure Interactive's place as the most accountable and measurable of media. A number of large publishers and ad serving organizations have already completed audits and certification against the Ad Impression Measurement Guidelines, including AOL, Atlas, CNET, DoubleClick, Univision, the Walt Disney Internet Group, Weather.com and Yahoo! with many more well underway. For more information on the Measurement Initiative or for auditing and certification questions, please contact Erica at erica@iab.net.

IAB COMMITTEES AND COUNCILS

Ad Sizes Working Group

The Ad Sizes Working Group develops and maintains the IAB Ad Unit Guidelines, and meets bi-annually. Following the recent launch of the Creative Spec database, the group is hoping to add recommended maximum fileweights in 4th Quarter 2007. Please email jeremy@iab.net for more information.

Lead Generation

The IAB Lead Generation Committee has voted to focus its next effort on Publisher Best Practices, where the related working group will focus on recommendations for data collection. If you are interested in joining this group, please email Luke Luckett at luke@iab.net.

Legal Affairs Council

The IAB Legal Affairs Council kicked off on in mid-October to a full room of legal professionals interested in bettering the legal landscape in interactive advertising. The group is finalizing a mission statement and its first initiative. If you are interested in joining this group, please reach out to Luke Luckett at luke@iab.net.