April 2008 Archives

The blogosphere is talking about IAB President & CEO, Randall Rothenberg's Op-Ed in the Huffington Post: War Against the Web

Perhaps the scariest term in business today is "behavioral targeting." It also turns out to be one of the best practices around to assure the combination of consumer choice and marketing effectiveness on the Internet. And in that gap lies a dilemma for the marketing and media industries - and, indeed, for all citizens. For if fear overtakes reality, it could dramatically limit the accessibility and diversity of the Web.

Here are just a few of the blogs talking about it:

Wall Street Journal All Things Digital

AgencySPY

Defamer

Marked

With our Digital Video Leadership Forum coming up this Monday, I want to spotlight Mediapost's article on the benefits of online video advertising. 

The emergence of elaborated companion banners, animated overlays, repurposed text or product feeds and the ability to run non-video creative are just a few of the more recent innovations.

Video Advertising: A Performance Medium by Any Measure by Bill Todd.

Personalizing your creative video messages are also key in maximizing this technology. 

Not only can you optimize with video, but it is important to keep up to date with search as well. Max Kalehoff reminds us how to do so in this captivating blog post reminding us that we are nothing without a link.

 

Read More:

Video Advertising: A Performance Medium by Any Measure by Bill Todd

Making Video Personal by Phil Leggiere

You're Nothing Without a Link by Max Kalehoff

With barely an acknowledgement of the myriad ways in which the Internet has revolutionized economic development, information access, and communications diversity, an increasingly organized coalition of anti-business groups is mobilizing to get the Government to shut it down.

And the scary thing is: They are succeeding. I’ve detailed this “break-the-Web” effort in an article in yesterday’s Huffington Post. I urge you to print it out, circulate it, and oppose the forces that would force you under. (More on that later.)

Because virtually all of you reading this are scrambling to build your businesses in the face of a looming recession, you’ve probably been too busy to notice that a drive is underway to goad the Federal and State governments to regulate the core processes and technologies that underlie the operations of the Internet. The anti-Internet coalition’s proposals hide under the cover of very real, very legitimate concerns that citizens have over their personal privacy. But rather than focus on the real privacy dangers – loose data security policies, identity theft, Government intrusions into citizens’ phone and email records – these groups aim to shut down “advertising networks” and “third party entities,” including those central to the infrastructure of interactive media and advertising.

Hatred for Consumerism

If it were merely technological ignorance that’s driving them, it would be correctable. But even a casual read shows these groups are actually opposed to the consumer economy itself. And in their hatred for consumerism, they have drafted recommendations so breathtakingly broad that, if they stand, many sites will go under. Particularly vulnerable are the small, ad-supported sites that serve niche interests – the political blogs, ethnic dot-coms, and hobbyist Web sites that depend on ad networks to sell and place their ads. (I identified some of the potential victims in a Business Week article last week: Web communities like Disaboom.com, an ad-supported site for people with disabilities, run by Dr. Glen House, himself a quadriplegic.) Right behind them are the newspaper and magazine companies that are building vertical ad networks to extend their audience reach on the Web.

Here’s a sampling of some of the proposals gaining traction in Washington and State capitals:

• The Connecticut state assembly is likely to pass a bill that labels standard interactive advertising practices “unscrupulous,” and would, for the first time in the U.S., regulate the Web by creating inflexible controls on how any third party involved in Internet advertising collects and uses anonymized data.
• A New York State legislator has introduced a bill that would allow consumers to pull non-identifying information out of aggregated databases and regulate the companies that deliver 90 percent of the ads on the Web.
• Under the implicit threat of formal regulation, the Federal Trade Commission has issued guidelines that would prevent media, agencies, and marketers from using non-identifying data to make ads more relevant and products more effective for consumers. The FTC would require Web site operators to obtain permission from users for any changes in their privacy policies – paradoxically, even if the sites have no information identifying those users or means of getting in touch with them.
• In a signed editorial, The New York Times asked the Federal government to regulate the collection of the types of demographic information marketers have routinely gathered for decades, and recommended that all online data collection, including the measurement of Web traffic, be banned unless users explicitly provide permission.

Let’s be very, very clear: The IAB is utterly committed to protecting citizens’ privacy. Peoples’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, financial and health records, and anything that can be associated with their identity ought to be under lock and seal, if that’s what they desire. All the major interactive media companies are equally unswerving in their commitment; they know (and have expressed repeatedly) that violating consumer privacy expectations is virtually an invitation to users to flee their sites for friendlier environments. We favor (and are working with other major marketing, media, and consumer associations toward) meaningful self-regulation of consumer privacy online.

But let’s be equally clear that these anti-consumerist efforts are not about protecting peoples’ identities. They are about shutting down consumer marketing – and limiting consumer choice in communications and consumption. Jeff Chester, the frequently quoted proprietor of the Center for Digital Democracy and one of the FTC’s favorite anti-Internet witnesses, has increasingly come clean on his real motivation. He opposes practices “to get individual consumers to behave or act in ways that favor or reflect the marketer’s goals,” he wrote in his blog on April 11. He went at it again this week, writing to Business Week that the Internet is “a commercial surveillance system that rivals the NSA… all so we can be encouraged to behave favorably to some marketing message.”

Lots of excitement here at the IAB, as the User Generated Content & Social Media was released today. User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview (.pdf) is the most recent in a series of papers that "will lead the way to a vigorous and healthy industry with commonly adopted terminology, practices and standards."

The paper explains how the platforms have fundamentally shifted the digital experience for consumers and advertisers alike, defines UGC and social media, provides a detailed overview of the latest advertising opportunities, and details case studies of campaigns that have successfully utilized UGC and social media.

 

While searching the web looking for hot topics, I found it hard not to spotlight the vigorous work of the IAB’s councils and committees. Specifically, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Lead Generation Committee who recently released the B2C and B2B Best Practices for U.S.-based Advertisers and Publishers. For those who don’t know, this document directly addresses industry practices that are susceptible to misconduct and lays a clear path for companies that wish to operate as responsible corporate citizens. Take a look at the first two articles from a series of columns authored by members of the IAB’s Lead Generation Committee for MediaPost’s Performance Insider Newsletter related to this topic.  If you like what you read, check the IAB’s press coverage section in the coming weeks for more installments.

Enjoy!

1)      IAB Best Practices Champion Transparency and Consumer Protection by Jeremy Fain, Senior Director of Industry Initiatives and Services, IAB. 

2)      Clearing The Air: Incentive Sites And Online Lead Generation by Gayle Guzzardo, SVP, Product Management of Q Interactive and chairperson of the IAB Lead Generation Committee.

New digital video ad formats are now available for public comment. The public comment period will close on Friday, May 2, 2008, so hurry and join the conversation now!

Welcome to the first installment of Around the Web on the IABlog. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be updating this space regularly with fresh information and news from the interactive industry.

I’m committed to finding you the hottest topics and freshest commentary in the interactive world so please feel free to email me at Shira@iab.net with articles that you feel should be posted.  I can’t promise to get to all of them, but I’ll do the best I can to pick out the most relevant and timely links to highlight in this space. Also, if you like what you see, be sure to sign up for the IABlog RSS feed.

This week I have two pieces to share with you:

1) Initiative’s most recent White Paper by Janice Finkel-Greene which discusses the upcoming transition of television signals from analog to digital. Click here to read the 2009 Digital Transition: Y2K +9?. 

2) Cathy Taylor's piece on The Future of Advertising for the Project on Excellence in Journalism. It draws together a lot of research into a one-stop-shop for understanding what’s going on in media.