The Digital Corner

Every year we get a new perspective on Online marketing from tons of experts telling us what is now important and what is coming next. So here is my shot at making bold predictions and assumptions of the important things we’ll see in 2008. I think…

1. I think U.S. mobile search will never grow as fast or be as effective as international mobile search

2. I think auction based TV spots will start to make huge traction this year

3. I think advertisers will start taking email marketing seriously again

4. I think ad agencies will start buying ad serving companies (I mean they will buy more of them)

5. I think social networks will incorporate RSS feeds to create more stickiness

6. I think Microsoft and Google will continue to spend money for dominance of all Online user activity

7. I think more companies will try to bring campaign managment in house

8. I think local search will lose steam. It’s all about universal search.

9. I think Facebook will catch MySpace in number of users

10. I think China won’t seem like such a great opportunity for online marketing

These deals were about technology, not the agency. Publishers will struggle to figure out how to incorporate if they incorporate at all. So my take on this is that agencies won’t go away because you still need a team that will work across the various distribution channels.

Options for publishers are to sell the agencies to one of the large traditional agencies (i.e. IPG) that are currently trying to bring the competency in-house and keep more of their client’s dollars with their business, the other is to let them operate as they are now, figure it out what it means later. Having an agency does serve as a great testing ground to help build agency tools.

These deals are indicators that the landscape of advertising taking a big swing back to interactive with traditional advertising. Past thoughts were the internet will take TV dollars, that’s not the case it simply means the internet will be part of the conversations upfront instead of an afterthought to help advertisers reach their numbers. The internet provides an extended reach that advertisers will pay for. TV is supported by advertising dollars that hinge their success on the current ratings system that at best is fuzzy math. Not sure how 1,000 black boxes in undisclosed locations represents all of America. If we used TVs ratings systems in online advertising, we would be laughed out of a meeting.

Take a look at when people were spending all this money on “eyeballs” back in the late 90’s. That model crashed and they thought the internet was doomed because it couldn’t be measured. Search marketing brought credibility back to online advertising along with the smash success of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook. Don’t forget traditional media has played a big part in these sites being successful. My mom knows about MySpace because she saw it on TV, not because she was looking up people’s profiles.

The power of the internet is content. Leaders of this industry will be those companies that either own the content or can provide the tools that deliver them. And being able to monetize that is the key to all of it.

I recently attended a marketing summit at Harvard Business School (only visiting) on customization. On the panel were representatives from Dell, Target and Digitas. The topics obviously were around the benefits of customizing products or services for customers to create a better experience, increase market differentiators and increase loyalty.

All those working in the Internet marketing space understands that all too well, but how much customization is too much? At what point do you offer customers too much control over what they want? There are companies that have gotten this right, Dell, Starbuck’s and Wendy’s (not Burger King).

What happens when everything can be customized, from TV to radio to even magazines? We know this is on the horizon and already here in some form (satellite radio and TiVo), but what if this customization was a standard and not a premium. Is there truly a benefit and profit in customizing? More thoughts on this coming soon.

The growing number of access points to the Internet has changed the face of the typical online user. Computers in the home can no longer be used to measure Internet users and the growing number of minorities online can not be ignored. Minority online purchasers are growing at a much higher rate per a recent DMA report (The DMA 2005 Hispanic Report Market Report). The average household income of minority online purchers are higher, but this trend will also change at a much higher rate than whites.

With the rebirth of online marketing, international consumers may prove to be a very open market for U.S. based companies. The growth of China will do more than lower manufactoring cost, Hong Kong ranks as one of the fastest growing areas of Internet users. This will challenge Internet gurus to understand international user trends that will vastly differ from the mature U.S. markets.