New media still sellings ads with old media friction

Anne Holland writes: “Last Friday night I was chatting with Seana Mulcahy VP, Director of Interactive Media Mullen whose team buys hundreds of millions of dollars in online ads each year. ‘Publishers make it impossible to buy from them!” she ranted. She’s one of many media buyers who are increasingly frustrated with the lack of standards so art departments have to resize and redo ads constantly for each different site (the cost of which really adds up) and how hard it is to make an integrated ad buy across all of a single media company’s channels without negotiating and cutting multiple insertion orders. Online advertising is to some degree also a service business. Being easier to buy from than your competitor may be a highly significant advantage. It’s not content + eyeballs = profits. It’s content + friendly service = profits.'” (Thanks Olivier!)