I've been glad to dust off my blogging chops with this new DoubleClick blog lately, and furthering my Web 2.0 street cred, I was just interviewed for a podcast by MarketingVoices, which just went live here. The host, Jennifer Jones, focused the interview on how marketers can effectively reach word-of-mouth influencers, and in my reply I discussed three ways marketers can use blogs to do so: 1) set up a company blog (like this one) themselves, which admittedly is easier said than done well; 2) use next-generation PR tactics to reach out to bloggers in a manner that does more good than harm (again, often still a challenge to traditional-minded PR specialists), and 3) advertising on blogs.

That last point is only still just catching on among marketers, capitalizing on the benefit of the so-called "long tail" of content and ad inventory online, but in fact it may be the most effective of all three strategies, both in terms of reach and influence. For evidence on that point, I cited our research paper "Influencing the Influencers: How Online Advertising and Media Impact Word of Mouth," which concluded that influencers pay considerably more attention to web ads than non-influencers when in the purchase decision process.

As to how marketers can reach influencers through blog advertising, I talked a bit about the emerging trend of publishers forming what are known as "vertical networks" – that is, large web publishers such as Martha Stewart and Food Network reaching out to large numbers of bloggers to form niche networks of content with high-quality small publishers. This trend is really a win-win-win: the publishers extend their reach of relevant content and advertising inventory to keep pace with the rapid growth of industry spending without a huge investment in new editorial resources; marketers can effectively reach influencers in contextually targeted content areas via existing trusted partners, and bloggers can cash in on the value they are creating with their passionate content creation without having to develop expertise in ad sales. Have a listen, you might enjoy it!

Posted by Rick Bruner

For the past two days, I've been the chairperson of the Strategy Institute's Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit. Throughout the event it was clear that measurement challenges go hand-in-hand with the increasing number of digital advertising opportunities today. In the 16 sessions of the conference, we covered topics including user generated content, social networking, paid search, in-game advertising, mobile campaigns, three types of widgets, digital signage, in-stream advertising, in-banner video, rich media advertising, podcast advertising and more.

This fragmentation is hitting agencies and marketers, which accounted for about 80% of attendees, the hardest. Their challenge is setting the right media mix across digital and traditional media. One comment on the marketing mix that really stood out is that one marketer was asked to provide a single line of pricing and measurement data to represent all their digital advertising initiatives for the company's media mix modeling analysis. The reality is that 10 or 20 lines of digital advertising data could be used.

I've noticed at the event, and day-to-day in my role at DoubleClick, that agencies and advertisers are very aware that one form of media affects the other. One attendee shared that they noticed a decrease in search results when they lowered their display spending. We do quite a bit of work in our research department to provide clients with insight into the correlation between search and display. We've also built advanced reports into DART to provide insight on topics like these. For example, our Exposure to Conversion report shows how media exposures beyond the last click or impression affect conversions. We're hoping to share some of this work at future events such as this one.

Posted by Rick Bruner

Talk about synergy! We announce a new capability, Spotlight for Rich Media, our client pepperjam blogs about it and the benefits it offers to their clients, and we blog about them blogging about us! It's the new economy!

Thanks for the mention Kat.

Posted by Ari Paparo