By Patricia Wilson


For online advertising providers, the honeymoon is finally over.


As a seasoned media planner, I was not surprised by a recent report designed to provide much needed damage control for the under-performing online advertising industry. The document, from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Bain & Company, highlights the many online advertising challenges being fac

ed by marketers. More importantly, the report, Building Brands Online: An Interactive Advertising Action Plan, attempts to provide a road map to improve the industry’s growing negative perceptions about the brand-building value of online advertising.

The IAB/Bain report is a much needed response to last year’s findings that online advertising inventory is highly undervalued by brand

marketers. At the heart of the problem, according to an Online Media Daily story:

. . . online sales organizations have lacked the sophistication necessary to turn the perceptions advertisers and agencies have about the value of online advertising . . .

The report also identifies five key obstacles that have kept marketers from shifting more of their budgets online:

• Online ad formats and creative have not evolved to meet marketers’ needs.
• Media companies lack category expertise when they sell to brand marketers and engage with them too late in the media planning process.
• Marketers want integrated campaigns instead of platform-specific media programs.
• While marketers see high value in online advertising and believe that it could be effective at all stages of the purchase funnel, current industry practices inhibit greater investment of brand ad dollars.
• Marketers express needs for differentiated services for their brands and believe that media companies and agencies have to meet those differentiated needs for online advertising to grow.

Measurement Intoxication

What I find most interesting is that the once-mighty “click” measurement is now out of favor, having underperformed miserably and showing no signs of being resurrected.


“Ultimately, marketers are looking for media companies to offer a true triple-play service model from direct response to awareness to high impact brand engagement,” said John Frelinghuysen in a press release. Frelinghuysen is a partner in Bain & Company’s media practice and lead author of the study.


As a classically trained media planner, I place a high value on measurability. However, just as with traditional media, we must be careful not to chase what we can measure – what fits under the microscope and what shows some ROI – just so we can rattle back some good news to CMOs and CFOs. Click rates, foe example, may NOT really be a true indication of what’s driving the Brand long term. We must avoid becoming over-intoxicated on the wrong digital measurements.


Despite all the Technorati talk of measurement over the past few years, it appears online advertising has come full circle. It is now faced with the exact same question we’ve always asked about media, including the traditional television, print, radio and outdoor channels: How do we best measure online advertising’s full impact on our brand?


Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

By Patricia Wilson


Friends, family and even business clients ask me all the time:


“What in the heck do you get out of all your tweeting and twittering?”


I’ll admit, I am addicted to my @BrandCottage Twitter account. And as the head honcho of BrandCottage, I believe it has been time well spent.


Many people GET IT. Others still don’t see what all the Twitter fuss is about. For the latter, I explain that you have to really use Twitter — and use it a lot — to understand its full value.


Here are the Twitter business benefits I see:

• I’m more informed. My fellow Twitterers provide me with updates, knowledge and thought leadership about my field. I am educated daily about emerging media technologies, shifting consumer trends, best brand practices, marketing challenges, new social media ideas and other trends.




• I’m more networked. For me, Twitter is by far the furthest reaching networking tool I have seen in my 20+ years as a professional. Next to personal relationships, it’s the single most important new tool for maintaining business relationships.




• I’m never out of the buzz loop. Twitter search  and its trending topics tools make it easy and fast to view the hot buzz of the day — both within my industry and through the World Wide Web. This helps our agency in the work we do for our clients, giving us the ability to take advantage of new branding or social relations opportunities.




• I’m building a voice and brand personality. The added benefit here is that BrandCottage can engage its clients and future customers by sharing valuable information with them. In addition, these conversations have become two-way and far reaching.




• I’m building trust with influencers. We’ve seen our partnerships and status in the media industry grow immeasurably with Twitter. It’s helping us find new opportunities and new ways to help each other — benefits that we return to our clients as added services and improved return on investment.

If you want to see what all the Twitter fuss is about, don’t just dip your toe in the water. Dive in, completely.


See you @BrandCottage.


Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

by Barry Lawrence


Large brand agencies often have excessive overhead costs that ultimately get passed on to the client. At least that was my experience working at large companies such as Verizon, CareerBuilder, Jobbfox and Siemens.


That means, for every $1 million spent on advertising, $100,000 or more is lost to what we, at BrandCottage, call Monster Agency Administration Fees. It’s for this reason that I am excited to join the BrandCottage team as an expert in social media and public relations.


BrandCottage is structured with minimal administrative costs. So, instead of paying for advertising overhead, BrandCottage clients can put these dollars immediately to work. This means greater marketing return on investment for vital brand and demand generation initiatives.

The reality is [small media agencies] can do things for their clients the big monster shops can’t. With fewer people and less overhead, they offer the nimble and fast approach to problems a lot of nascent brands need.

Advertising Age (March 23, 2009)

In short, our clients pay for smart results — not overhead.


BrandCottage clients not only report administrative cost savings, they also rave about BrandCottage’s senior-level entrepreneurial team of brand and communication experts. BrandCottage never sticks a company with junior-level account managers.


Why? Because we don’t hire junior account managers!

Each member of the BrandCottage team, with locations in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C., has more than 15 years of experience across the media landscape, including print, radio, television, digital, direct marketing, guerilla marketing, social media and public relations.

Barry Lawrence is a BrandCottage partner in charge of public relations and social media relations.