“Beyond the Banner” Not Quite Beyond
Ahh, the second to last session of the last day. Everyone’s sticking around to check out Web 2.0 darling Kevin Rose and this mysterious “Internet Superstar” giving the closing keynote. But, before the entertaining antics of these web stars, we have the “Beyond the Banner/Beyond the Network: The Mid-Tail and the Promise of Engagement” panel. Maybe I was just tired and grumpy, but there was nothing beyond about this panel. In fact, they mostly discussed the issues of media buyers not planning well enough or not fully understanding the tools available to define and meet campaign objectives.
With a title like “beyond the banner” you’d think there might be some kind of discussion about alternative solutions like content integration, widgets, video, etc, but most of the discussion revolved around marketers gaining a better understanding of targeting technologies and leveraging them. Aaron Broder of Gorilla Nation Media touched briefly on exploring video, mobile, and social media and exploring options with niche publishers, “Someone needs to help niche publishers provide integrated vehicles that make sense, like skins, contests, widgets, etc.”
There was some lively discussion on weather planners were planning/measuring campaigns properly to which Ballister of TRAFFIQ offered, “Overall planners are not doing that great, but are doing the best they can with the tools they have.” The panel admonished marketers to explore and experiment with all of the emerging targeting technologies out there; and that while it can be overwhelming to stay abreast, researching this area should be a priority.
I have to say I was disappointed that so little of the session went to discussing opportunities in video, mobile and social media or even as to what might be next beyond traditional banner ads. They seem to lay the burden of proof so much on targeting as to almost totally disregard the “engagement” question they were supposedly going to address. The most salient comment on the subject came from Ballister in response to the question “does the engagement metric have a future?” to which he replied, “Depends on what kind of marketer you are.” Rightio then.
