2007 – A Year Of Media Testing

Media Life magazine has an interview with a certain Dominic Fawkes about what 2007 will offer online advertisers and their agencies:

In the case of the UK, Dominic Fawkes, senior planner/buyer at London-based DNA, an Avenue A| Razorfish company, thinks the forecasts are on target. “Every year gets better,” he says. “Clients are getting more savvy and realize that they can’t just rely on paid search. They have to expand out. It’s going to be an interesting year.”

But Fawkes believes the year will be challenging for media buyers, and that’s in part because as clients put more money into online, the premium advertising spaces will be sold out and buyers will have to find other places to place their ads.

Buyers will also be challenged to figure out how to best use social networking and blogs and some other newer areas of online advertising. Then they must interpret the results.

“For a planner/buyer it is a lot more complicated,” Fawkes says. “They already have the client on board with the idea of online advertising, and the client understands the basics, but they don’t fully understand blogs and they don’t fully understand social networking. So they are looking to agencies to come back with the answers.

“But agencies don’t fully have the answers, so in 2007 there will be more testing and investigation.”

Media Life