Findings:

• Ad Placement: 31 percent of ads were not in-view, meaning they were never being seen by the audience.
• Targeting audience based on interest over simple demographics (sex, income) has proven effective. 37% of ads delivered reached audiences with known interests relative to their brand.
• Advertisers must keep a watchful eye on the type of content their brand is being associated with. 72 percent of the campaigns felt their ads were being delivery alongside objectionable content.
• Fraud is still a concern. .16% of ads were delivery to non-human targets from the IAB spiders and bots list. Though this number is low, unknown bots and more sophisticated fraud methods were not considered, making this kind of threat difficult to quantify.
• The findings showed that neither ad visibility nor the quality of the audience reached is reflected in the price of digital advertising. Advertisers need to do their own research in finding the best ad buy for their dollar.

These findings outline the necessity of in-depth campaign management throughout the entire length of an ad campaign.

It also demonstrates the need for a “viewable impressions” measurement when calculating the cost for advertising. Too much money is going out the window on ads that are not even being seen by customers.

“With 31% of vCE Charter Study impressions not being viewable, it is now abundantly clear just how important in-view measurement is to online campaign validation,” said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO. “In order for any digital GRP metric to be relevant in the online space and to be cross-media comparable, it must include validated ‘viewable impressions’ in its calculation. While audience and geographic validation are crucial – and should not be ignored – if a digital campaign rating does not also take into account whether or not the ad had the opportunity to be seen, then the metric fails to deliver a true apples-to-apples comparison to all other media.”

So, it’s not surprising that Google has announced yet another business model for YouTube, this time it’s hoping a combination of new shows and movies, combined with new Google TV Ads Online, will inject something into its bottom line.

This is a new feature of Google TV Ads that lets advertisers place commercials into the ad breaks of TV programs watched online. It works in the same way as Google TV Ads: advertisers can target specific programs and select their cost-per-thousand (CPM) bid. Based on their targets, budget and bid, ads are inserted in the same program breaks that were designed for advertising when the programs first aired.

The new TV shows and movies will come courtesy of new partnerships with Sony Pictures, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz and the good ole BBC. Now instead of "dozens" of movies, YouTube users can view "hundreds" of them–oooooh!

What’s interesting is the control Google had to give up in order to get the Sony deal. According to CNET…

YouTube has agreed to display the films using a video player from Crackle, Sony Pictures’ own video site. The studio will control all the advertising for the films and Crackle will also get credit for the traffic.

Kind of demonstrates the weak negotiating position Google has with YouTube, doesn’t it?

Other noteworthy YouTube developments include a new "Hulu" style design and a promise from CEO Eric Schmidt that we’ll eventually see "micropayments and other forms of subscription models" on YouTube.

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Ok, Borrell Associates has released their 2008 Outlook: Local Online Advertising report. They estimated next year’s total local ad market will reach a whopping $12.6 billion in spending.

Of that figure, Borrell said $5 billion will come from local search advertising. Another $1.3 billion should arrive as the local online video market triples from 2007.

Now for the bad news for the yellow pages and local news publishers, from the report:

Next year will be a perplexing one for local media companies trying to tackle the Web. Most yellow pages publishers, cable companies, newspapers, radio stations and TV stations are still pinning their hopes on their traditional sales reps being able sell online ad packages. But there is increasing evidence to support the idea that a greater investment in an independent online sales force will be necessary to continue the growth these properties have enjoyed for the past few years.

There is one thing that can potentially help the publishers that have been mentioned. Borrell suggested the pure-play Internet companies, like Google and Yahoo, may have an interest in partnering with local firms to bolster their local advertising presence.

We have seen this in the classified field, where Yahoo and its HotJobs site have a number of newspapers as partners to help sell job listings. Perhaps 2008 will be the year where these partnerships broaden in number and scope.

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King predicts that Internet advertising will be worth $36 billion this year, $5 billion more than projected in December 2006. Worldwide Internet advertising will increase by 24 percent in 2008 and 69 percent over the next three years, hitting $61 billion in 2010.

A spokesman for Zenith said: "We predict global internet advertising to pass three milestones in the next three years: to overtake radio advertising in 2008; to attain a double-digit share of global advertising in 2009; and to overtake magazine advertising in 2010, with 11.5 per cent of total ad spend."

Television will remain the leader in the global advertising market in 2010, with estimated revenues of $198.89 billion in revenues followed by newspapers. Zenith projects that in 2010 the Internet will account for $60.88 billion of total advertising spend and magazines will comprise $60.58 billion of spending.

Zenith estimates that by 2010 the Internet will comprise more than 20 percent in the same four markets, including Denmark, Norway and Sweden and more than 15 percent of advertising spend in ten other countries.

King projects that global advertising spending will grow by 6.7 percent in 2008, an increase from 5.3 percent this year. The U.S. presidential election and the Olympic Games in Beijing will add to the growth.

Although normal television ads air for a prearranged amount of time (regardless of how many people see them), online ads work on a per-view basis.  Unexpectedly popular shows can, then, essentially “use up” a supply of ads.

Yet here’s another surprising point: David Kaplan discovered, “On average, according to TVWeek, the networks charge $25 per thousand viewers via broadcast, while the major nets’ broadband prices command $30 per thousand viewers.”

This oddity could have something to do with concentration.  People who are watching their televisions may also be cooking dinner, reading a magazine, or chatting on the phone.  People who are watching their computers are probably more likely to monitor (no pun intended) every single moment.  Advertisements might receive a little more attention as a result.

Not everything about these online TV ads is encouraging, however; given the looming effect of the writers’ strike, it’ll be interesting to see how long the trends can continue.

What’s more, both movements were significant – there were no measly shifts of one or two percent, here.  A whopping 21.1 percent was the amount by which online advertising increased, while offline ad expenditures slowed by 7.4 percent.

To be fair, the state of the American economy doesn’t exactly encourage any sort of ad spending; this might be of some relief to pro-print types.  Yet, given the effect of inflation, things might actually be worse than they appear.

“With inflation eliminated from the sales numbers, you can see that the industry’s sales have fallen far more steeply in the last decade than the actual numbers suggest,” writes Alan Mutter.  “Further, sales have been diving at an increasingly accelerated rate since 2004.”

Elsewhere in the newspaper industry, Yahoo is still expanding its newspaper consortium, and Rupert Murdoch may make the online version of the Wall Street Journal free.  Some major shifts are definitely taking place.

In a survey of a representative cross-section of 950 Americans, participants were asked about their views of various online advertising media. The break down:

• 55% took a “strongly negative” view of pop-ups and pop-unders.
• 31% were strongly negative on online video ads. (As MediaPost notes, “That’s an easy win against infamously annoying ad formats.”)
• 27% took a strongly negative view of “advergames.” (Which, I think, would have been higher had they known what the heck you’re talking about. C’mon, taze the gnome games are less annoying?)
• 21% were strongly negative on skyscraper ads.
• 18% had a negative view of banner ads.

While online video can still chant, “We’re number two!”, it’s not a good sign: MediaPost says the number of annoyed consumers has been increasing over time. Manatt said, “In the early days of rich media, it was much more effective than non-rich media in getting consumers’ attention. But now there’s essentially no difference.”

MediaPost offers some tips on effective video ads:

While the medium is still evolving, Manatt advised the audience on some tentative rules for online video advertising. She countered widespread criticism of the pre-roll ad model by noting that consumers are much less likely to accept a long ad in the middle of a news clip, with 70% saying they’d rather see it at the beginning. By the same token, consumers are willing to watch a longer pre-roll video ad if they’re trying to watch a longer clip.

Of course, if you ask consumers whether or not they like ads, they’ll tell you no every time. While we’ve reported that “Nearly nine in 10 Americans said they were less likely to buy products that had annoying or offensive ads,” that doesn’t mean that we should stop advertising altogether.

75% of people say they’re overexposed to advertising—but those same people will tell you that having ads sent to them is better than using search engines to find products and businesses. Sometimes I wonder if people really know what they want.

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We chatted with Deloitte & Touche Principal and Lead Interactive Advertising executive Tim Davis about the Facebook phenomenon. While it’s far too early to tell what kind of impact Facebook’s ads will have on marketing, Davis called it an “appealing move,” one that takes ads to a conversational place.

The move shifts the delivery of that advertising, with Davis noting such ads represent a pull model. In the first few years of online advertising, that model was a push, Davis said, as advertisers put as much in front of consumers online as possible.

Early advertisers honed their push models in those early years, and they wielded ads like a club. Naturally, few people want to be beaten with advertising, although considering the nature of the Internet, there are probably one or two fetish sites for that sort of thing.

Now, the consumer is more like the king when it comes to the advertising model. Push has its uses, but the pull proves more welcome for ads. It’s been a positive development.

The negative side, as Davis readily acknowledged, means the conversations people have about brands won’t be relentlessly positive. There will be negativity, but that’s something brands will have to engage.

“Transparency is an inevitable consequence of push advertising,” said Davis. “Marketers need to put themselves into conversations; they need to be brutally honest.”

We know what they need to do, but in the world of advertising, the question of who will fulfill this need is open to debate. Should it be the brand doing so? Its marketers? The ad agency managing a campaign?

There are more people at the table, Davis said, and someone there will have to manage the conversation. Going forward, brands and their partners need to decide who that will be.

We see this push movement and the need for conversational interaction as one that may drive a newer segment of the market. Our recent discussion of Buzzlogic suggested the kinds of tools the conversationalists will need to interact in the world of push advertising.

The value of online display advertising in China reached RMB 2.6 billion in Q3, 2007 an increase of 14 percent over Q2.  Total online advertising value for the year to date is RMB 6.6 billion.

The value of online display ads broken down by quarters was RMB 1.7 billion, RMB 2.3 billion and 2.6 billion. The peak for online advertising in China took place in September with RMB 1 billion recorded, the highest in the past nine months.

"The online advertising market in China is booming and catching up fast with advertising in traditional media. Judging by its current growth rate, we anticipate that the year will finish not only achieving double-digit growth in online advertising, but also reaching the
RMB10 billion mark in value terms," said Sail Ma, Analytic & Research Director, Nielsen Online, Greater China and Southeast Asia.

The cumulative number of advertisers for the year to date was 2,661 with 19,049 campaigns. The categories that contributed the most were Automobile, IT/Electronics, FMCG (CPG) and Finance, which accounted for 60 percent of total ad value in the China online market.

"The market will continue to grow, with estimated ad value increasing close to RMB 3 billion as we enter the last quarter of the year, and contributing to an estimated full year spending of RMB 10 billion," Ma said.

This isn’t exactly a conservative prediction – Liz Gannes did the math and writes, “That’s after a 72 percent compound annual growth rate for the next five years, building on total spending of $471 million this year.”  And 72 percent annual growth is the sort of thing that only Google, the industry’s financial rock star, is usually able to achieve.

Furthermore, Gannes notes, “Screen Digest, which hasn’t been particularly enthusiastic about video revenues in general, thinks user-generated video will be worth $956 million in 2011.  iSuppli is putting its money on professionally produced video, predicting revenues will hit $5.9 billion in 2011.”

Still, Forrester Research isn’t some sort of reckless cheerleader; it’s been around since 1983, and its video ad estimate stemmed from a survey of over 300 marketing professionals.

Also, with announcements coming in on a weekly (or even daily) basis from companies like Joost, Blinkx, and Veoh, it’s even less difficult to believe Forrester’s numbers.