Industry leaders were in positive mood last night (February 10) as they sought to assess the impact of the credit crunch on the digital advertising industry.
Speaking at a round table discussion hosted by community media company Chinwag, Guy Phillipson, chief executive of the IAB argued that “recession is going to be a great learning curve for advertisers and agencies alike”.
Phillipson was keen to point out that “there has never been a recession when online has been up and running before,” and argued that the current difficult economic conditions offered “an opportunity” for online. The key to unlocking this opportunity for Phillipson is “measurability”, which he described as “online’s trump card”.
“Online disciplines are well placed in a recession,” said Phillipson. “Accountability is key. If the axe comes down and you’re thinking ‘Where can I spend money in an accountable way?’ search and online direct response is going to hoover up a lot of that”.
Wayne Brown, head of account management at glue London was in bullish mood, arguing that recession had opened up opportunities for his agency. “The early stages of recession have been very positive for us,” said Brown. “Big advertisers like Toyota for example have been forced to spend more money in digital.”
For Brown, measurability is the key to the future survival of the medium. “We’ll come out of this recession much stronger if we can match the high standards of creativity with targeting and tracking,” he argued.
David McMurtrie, head of product specialists at Doubleclick agreed that measurability would be a crucial factor in the months ahead as clients will inevitably look to focus on “tracking value”. As a result, argued McMurtie, “people are looking at optimisation, targeting and the like. These tools have been available for a long time but have not been so widely used until now.”
McMurtrie warned clients against short term budget slashing, arguing: “There are two types of business. One that will say ‘my business is screwed’ and slash budgets. The other will accept that they have slightly less to spend but will be more innovative. Who do you think will come out of this the strongest?”
From a client-side perspective, exploiting new found opportunities was a key theme of the discussion. Catherine Demajo, head of marketing at Time Out London, pointed out that recession had led to an increase in the financial importance of Time Out’s online brand in comparison with the offline title. “While online is not compensating for what’s lost offline, it’s growing,” said Demajo. “As a result we’re looking more and more at integrating our media.” The net result of this according to Demajo is that Time Out has been forced to “become more flexible, open and creative.”
While she admitted to feeling “some trepidation”, Demajo explained that: “The downturn has forced us to be more innovative, to challenge ourselves and to take more risks. We have to or we will die”.
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