FOOA: Future of Online Advertising Notes: Greg Stuart / Ron Belanger

Here are my notes from the first two presentations from the Future of Online Advertising. I will post my complete commentary plus audio files tonight so please grab the RSS Feed.

Greg Stuart from the IAB

• Opened the show with a discussion about the current state and noted that his discussion is not really about the future. Grr.
• $112B spent on U.S. ad spending is wasted.
• The most important elements in a campaign are: motivations, messaging and media
• Greg believes that Marketing is hard and we don't give it enough credit for how hard it is
• Greg is good at pushing (read:overwhelming) his web site and books in his presentation
• His book focuses on three steps: universal agreement to goals, have a plan B, know the value of a dollar
• Discusses ING and their campaigns and wonders if banking is decided upon based on innovation
• His videos don't play with sound – I can't believe in 2007 how many conferences have this problem at least once. :)
• Make sure your motivations stick: Know why consumers buy your brand, ensure it is a valuable customer segment, wring all ambiguity out of your message.
• How bad is online creative?: He discusses 5 campaigns and their failure rates for companies like P&G, J&J, Kraft, Nestle, Target
• His big message for the group: Online advertising must pass the glance test… that is you must get it in 2 seconds.
• He closes with a discussion on Maximization and the 70-20-10 rule in that 70% in what you know is working, 20% in innovation off of what you know is working, 10% to brand new ideas
• Allen's take: discussion was more about advertising than online advertising and was just an overview/tips on advertising. Some online advertising information but nothing "future" based.

Ron Belanger from Yahoo – "The Future of Search Marketing"

• Search is not just to find stuff. It's used to navigate the web.
• Ron discusses the difference btw community today and when he was young
• There is an importance to pushing your message to the bloggers first
• Participation marketing: identify your best customers, listen to them, collaborate with them, give them the tools to share
• Discusses the Yahoo campaign with Shakira and how well it worked
• Consumer 2.0 has limited recall
• Searchers are open to more brands and to using new brands