Myth #1: Crowdsourcing is going to displace or replace the role of agencies
False. Many of the largest brands, from Procter & Gamble to Anheuser-Busch InBev, have been experimenting with crowdsourced video creation over the past 12-18 months, primarily in commercial form. These brands have uncovered an interesting fact -- you can obtain some pretty useful and even groundbreaking videos through crowdsourced networks of videographers.

However, none of these brands is moving forward with replacing its lead national agency with these growing crowdsourced video providers. That's just not going to happen. But what is happening is that these brands are seeing crowdsourced video creation as an alternative or complementary approach for the many new and previously unfunded video opportunities for brands. Opportunities include videos for website use, mobile, and social marketing sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube.

For example, FedEx worked directly with their agency, Robinson & Maites, to target small to medium business customers with a unique approach that was only possible through crowdsourcing.

Recognizing the power of sight sound and motion from video advertising, Robinson and Maites delivered a total of nine creative commercials developed through crowdsourcing to FedEx, which then emailed the commercials on a monthly schedule to owners of small businesses. Each email included one of the video commercials. The embedded link also took consumers to their YouTube page where they could view any of the other fun spots that had been created. It would have been incredibly expensive, as well as just plain difficult for the national ad agency to come up with nine impactful videos in 45 days, but it was simple through crowdsourcing, where more than 150 videos were produced for the client to choose from for this campaign.

Alan Maites, President/CEO of Robinson & Maites stated, "The use of crowdsourcing to create video content was an entirely new experience for us, and for FedEx. We found the quality and quantity of videos we received to be surprisingly good, especially within a 45-day window. Utilizing these videos in FedEx's email marketing campaigns was very efficient and provided an additional reason for the target audience to open, read, and watch the message we're delivering."

Myth #2: Crowdsourcing saves money
True. Marketers have recognized the benefits of having video everywhere, thanks in part to the improved indexing by search sites of video content versus traditional language content. The realities of the corporate world these past two years are that budgets are tight, and engaging the lead national agencies to produce secondary video needs is financially irresponsible.

With the average cost of a :30 second TV commercial at $350,000, producing a custom piece of video to reach 10,000 Facebook fans makes no sense at all for a brand marketer. However, getting that relevant, custom, and appropriate video for one-tenth of the cost can be considered a more reasonable budget expense, and a better use of resources.

Myth: #3 Crowdsourcing is fringe and really hasn't taken hold with established brands
False. Let's take a look at how some brands are now using crowdsourced videos to round out their marketing plans.

Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. used crowdsourcing to track the progress of five adults following the Atkins Diet over the course of 12 weeks. The campaign, "12 Weeks to the Healthier You," represented an entirely new approach to crowdsourcing by essentially creating a real-world how-to guide for the Atkins diet. The videos showcased participants incorporating the diet into their everyday lifestyles, creating recipes and meal plans, and even engaging in other healthy activities, such as exercise.

According to Allen Silkin, director of online marketing for Atkins, crowdsourcing succeeded in building positive consumer interactions and feedback around the campaign, the participants, and the brand. 
 
 "We narrowed a long list of applicants from the crowd down to five finalists, who were selected to follow the Atkins diet themselves for 12 weeks and chronicle their experiences in a video journal consisting of 12 videos uploaded once per week," explained Silkin. "Each participant was provided with an Atkins Diet book, guidelines, sample products, and access to the website and an Atkins' nutritionist. By the end of the 12 weeks, the five participants lost a total of 139 pounds, an average of 27 pounds per person, and gained a strong following on YouTube."
 
A final example is not from a giant brand, but from a small and growing brand called Moe's Southwest Grill. This Mexican restaurant outlet used crowdsourced videos to bring their YouTube and website pages to life. The cost of producing video units for growing brands is often times cost prohibitive, but crowdsourced videos can provide the solution.

"Moe's is a growing and nimble brand and we wanted a means to add video elements to our marketing mix that otherwise might be too cumbersome or expensive," said Brett Campbell, director of marketing for Moe's Southwest Grill. "It was surprisingly quick and easy to build in the crowdsourcing elements and we were pleased with the amount and the quality of the video submissions received."

As crowdsourcing continues to gain traction with major brands, as well as emerging brands, and even with some agencies, one thing is certain -- it will be interesting to monitor how its role in content creation and marketing evolves.

Neil Perry is president of Poptent. 

On Twitter? Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet. 

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On the other side of the spectrum are brands that never really quite catch up. As of right now, these companies are still wondering what social media has to do with them, and they have not felt the value of a robust digital marketing plan.

The brands in the middle of this spectrum -- the ones that reside smack in the center of mainstream -- are the ones with the bigger issue. These companies get comfortable. They build a smart website, implement search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, and launch isolated campaigns -- and then they slip into a rut. Their good intentions create solid campaigns, but they fall short of their full potential because they get stale and outdated. Unlike companies on the bleeding edge, these companies do not need to worry about creating trends, so they easily lose sight of proactive improvements that can keep their marketing fresh.

To help these companies in need, I have outlined a few signals that indicate your marketing is outdated.

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In the third installment of his keynote address from the iMedia Agency Summit in Phoenix, Ariz., president of digital at Time Inc. Kirk McDonald talks about setting the right environment for storytelling in digital. Insisting that new products must focus on value and offer an authentic voice, McDonald defines what clients should really be expecting from publishers.

The final installment from Kirk McDonald's keynote will be available on Friday, Jan. 14. See part 1, and part 2 of his presentation.

If you are having trouble using our video player, try watching on YouTube.

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After explaining how digital marketing found itself in the state it's in today, Kirk McDonald, president of digital at Time Inc., wants us to know that algorithms aren't all bad. The problem lies in the fact that people don't decide what matters anymore -- the equations do. Hear McDonald in the second installment of his Agency Summit keynote as he defines the assets of change and explains why no equation can capture human thought.

Part III of Kirk McDonald's keynote will be available on Thursday, Jan. 13. Check out Part I here.

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In the first part of his keynote address from the 2010 iMedia Agency Summit in Phoenix, Ariz., Kirk McDonald talks about the problem with over-relying on algorithms and reports. The president of digital at Time Inc., McDonald opens with a sharp look at the state of digital marketing and the toll short-term thinking has taken on the industry.

Part II of Kirk McDonald's keynote will be available on Wednesday, Jan. 12th.

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If you are having trouble using our video player, try watching on YouTube.

In this video:

• David Lozovsky
• Heather Wetzler
• Peter Platt
• Adam Kleinberg

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If you're a marketer or an agency that controls display dollars, you've likely been choking on the vapor that has filled the demand-side-platform (DSP) space over the last few years. It's not just the sheer number of entrants claiming to be DSPs (be they pure plays, re-positioned networks, or growth-minded media companies), but the cacophony of claims being made that they are the "first," "best," or "only" DSP that does this or that.

In truth, most of these contenders sound great in the first meeting. Their slides use all the right buzzwords, like "audience," "optimization," "real-time," and "insights." But in many cases, they are writing PowerPoint checks that their technology can't cash (that is, if they really have any technology at all).

So what happens if you can't separate the reality from the hype? (And who could?) For those who use DSPs the way they use networks, i.e., as outsourced media execution, they simply either conclude that the DSP performed (ideally better than any other "line item" on the media plan) and continue to send them a monthly IO, or they conclude the DSP didn't perform and move on to other outlets for spending the budget. And that's fine for some.

But many advertisers and agencies looking to use a DSP are looking to make digital media execution an internal core competency, not outsource it to a network-like entity. Their choice of a DSP is about choosing a flexible and robust technology platform on which they can build that competency and make it a competitive advantage. If you're in this category, then finding out your DSP doesn't deliver as promised -- after months of internal and external DSP cheerleading, contract redlines, team training, and technological integration -- can be catastrophic.

So how do you separate fact from fiction? You ignore what they say and put them to the test -- against each other. The notion of DSP "bake-offs" isn't new, but it does bring with it a set of challenges, notably direct-bid competition and ensuring a level playing field. Having participated in many dozens of such tests, I'd like to propose some best practices for head-to-head DSP testing that in our experience help ensure a fair fight, clean results, and most importantly, no regrets.

1) Pre-vet candidates to narrow the list. For practical reasons such as finite budgets and sheer management complexity, you can only test so many DSPs. As with any such test, a lot of the work comes up front in working to ensure you've got the right candidates to begin with, which is why this part of the recipe is the longest. In our experience, most tests involve two or three partners, because most savvy advertisers and agencies have already done their homework to understand which DSPs are even worth testing, in terms of:

• Breadth of supply, data, and ecosystem integration -- Not just the number and scope of ad exchange and SSP integrations, but the ability to bring your own seat, to integrate premium display and guaranteed buys, video, rich media, social, and other formats. Just as important as supply is data, in particular the ability to seamlessly integrate and globally manage any and all first-party data as well as third-party data sources, offline as well as online. A DSP should also provide simple access to other value-added capabilities, like dynamic creative, ad verification, and brand studies. For a platform, broad integration into the larger landscape is key.
  
  
• Technical infrastructure -- Often overlooked, but of top importance in choosing a platform, is the robustness of the underlying technology. Ask about global infrastructure -- how many bidders do they have, and where are they located. Ask what QPS (queries-per-second) levels they can support, and ask to see the proof, because this is a critical scaling factor. Ask to see their pixel response times from neutral third-party reports like GOMEZ, because they may be slowing client pages down. Ask if they have their own user database and their success rate for matching users. Ask how much data they process daily. Put them in a room with your statisticians and ask them how their bidding algorithm works (hint: many major DSPs actually don't have one). Ask about their APIs. Really understand the technology you may be building your business on.
  
  
• Performance and service -- These are the aspects of a DSP that will most strongly impact the day-to-day business, but ironically can be much harder to assess from the outside-in than the breadth of partner integrations and technology infrastructure mentioned above. Of course, that's why you'll be conducting the bake-off, but to help decide on the candidates, seek out references that can confirm or deny the rumors. How did they perform vs. competitors? At what scale? What was the service like? See if you get the same answers from industry contacts that were not on the DSPs reference list. And talk not just to the DSPs customers, but to their partners (the exchanges, data providers, etc.).

2) Pick a large brand with "deep" goals. You've now got your lineup of two or three DSPs to test, so what's the test? Ideally, it's for a single large brand so results are directly comparable across DSPs. Importantly, the test should have measurable and "deep" goals, meaning goals that are closer to the end-client's bottom line. For DR advertisers, this means goals like CPA, or ideally ROI, as opposed to shallow goals like clicks, which are much easier to drive but don't necessarily impact the bottom line. Deep goals are very well suited for DSP bake-offs, because they invoke the entire system, including their breadth of supply and data, as well as algorithmic optimization capabilities to meet challenging CPA or ROI objectives. Brand advertisers can be the subject of bake-offs as well, but that scenario is less common due to the historical challenge of identifying deep and measurable brand goals. However, that is rapidly changing, and we anticipate seeing more brand-oriented bake-offs, where the goal is to drive measurable lift in awareness or interest (as measured, e.g., by in-banner surveys) among a desired target audience (as measured by first- or third-party data) at a desired reach and frequency level, and at the best CPM. A truly ideal test to highlight broad DSP capabilities may allow for several different objectives to be tested, for example, across a range of campaigns with different goals (reach, engagement, ROI, etc.). However, it is important that the principles laid out below are applied to each campaign being tested, to avoid the risk of ending up with a portfolio of tests that are all inconclusive.

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With that list in hand, I set out to apply for jobs and make connections -- only I wasn't quite sure which job I could get. The focus of my efforts was on anything "entry-level," but if only I was smart enough to find a list of what category of entry-level job was my gateway to a rapid ascent of the corporate agency ladder.

At the time, I was willing to take just about anything at a top shop. I simply lucked out by gravitating to something called "the world wide web" rather early. Now that the internet ship has sailed -- or at least the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria are long gone -- I provide you with an attempt at helping you find the next fleet to board in 2011.

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Upset with the Hollywood monopoly on the film business, director Francis Ford Coppola bucked the system in the late 1970s and raised his own money to produce the brilliant independent film "Apocalypse Now." Twenty years later, commenting on the rise of low-cost video cameras, Coppola said, "Well, of course filmmaking is changing because of these little cameras that are out there that cost very little money that everyone has. There's equality of opportunity in filmmaking that didn't exist when I was making films. And right now there's some fat little girl in Idaho who's the new Mozart of cinema using her mother's camcorder to create a new grammar and language of film."

The core issue he was talking about was access. A revolution occurs in any industry when the flood doors open and access is granted to many and not just to a few. The same thing is happening in our business. With the rise of the exchanges, any advertiser or agency with a demand-side platform (DSP) can instantly access billions of display impressions from thousands of sites with the cost efficiency and reach to rival even some of our industry's most well-known publishers. Premium publishers will take a hit, but it seems likely that it is the ad networks that will feel the most negative impact as the landscape changes.

So, in a post-exchange world, how will the ad nets adapt in order to stay relevant and profitable?

It seems that the first line of defense has been to create dialogue about the true value of the inventory found via the exchange channel. There certainly are some real brand safety concerns with automated buying, and the general consensus from the creative half of our industry seems to be that exchanges help aid in the commoditization of online advertising and push the real issue of "good advertising" further off course. Finally, there's always the issue that the very nature of the exchange inventory (i.e., the fact that it's remnant/perishable to begin with) is a big indicator of its true value -- you get what you pay for, right?

The first person I wanted to chat with for this post was Michael Katz, CEO and founder of ad network Interclick. Earlier this year, I sat in on an agency meeting with Katz's company where our teams discussed the changing landscape. I mentioned that I had been recently advised by my DSP (and various exchanges) to change the language of our insertion orders to bar our ad net partners from buying via the exchanges because we would be bidding against ourselves and driving up prices needlessly. As well, why would I need them to purchase exchange inventory with their up-charge when I could buy it myself directly at lower CPMs?

Katz's answer was similar then as it is now: "Access does not imply success. If I go to Whole Foods with a celebrity chef, and we each have to prepare the same dish, despite the fact that we have access to all of the same ingredients, the final results will actually be very different. Inventory and data exchanges must be viewed as what they are, which is an access point for raw materials. The difference is in how you are able to transform those raw materials into a final product -- the final product being a highly responsive audience." He takes me deeper into his company's deep process, tools, and expertise -- all components to his current success and future growth.

What Katz said made logical sense. Even if I can buy directly from exchanges at half the cost, if at the end of the day ad networks can end up with a better cost-per-whatever than I can, wouldn't it be best for my clients to put them on the media plan? So, yes, the performance approach ad network could work in the post-exchange world, especially for our industry's direct response campaigns.

Think about it: When a media buyer's consideration set suddenly grows from a few hundred select premium publishers and ad nets to 6 billion individual ad impressions each day, the importance of human expertise grows tenfold. Actually, this really isn't a big shift for Interclick and other similar ad nets that have been preaching the value of their execution process for years. But the issue now becomes more pronounced when access to inventory isn't a concern anymore.

For another perspective on the future of ad networks, I checked in with Ed Carey, VP of sales for Undertone, and my go-to guy for all things ad network related. Undertone is a very relevant ad network for this discussion because it recently launched its own exchange, DirectConnect, which "integrates with existing buy-side technology, enabling agency executives to buy Undertone's premium inventory electronically." Outside of this new addition, Carey's message is similar to Katz's, which is that the company plans to stay the course with what it's been promoting as its strength for years. In Undertone's case, it is to focus on its quality display inventory.

"We focus on creating great relationships with our publisher partners and treat them as customers, not commodities," he says. "With the vast reach and liquidity on exchanges, having millions of uniques is not that impressive anymore. Our focus is to create unique inventory/products and data opportunities while providing high levels of service to often overloaded agencies." Carey relates to me a recent multi-site, multi-day homepage takeover campaign for an auto manufacturer as example of the kind of interesting package only something like an ad network could put together for an advertiser.

Carey explains to me some more of the inner workings of the value that ad networks bring to publishers and makes a pretty solid case regarding the important role they play in the ecosystem. For example, there are always going to be long-tail publishers that need monetization partners to help sell their inventory. On the flip side, premium publishers need ways to bring their perishable impressions to market without creating channel conflicts with their sales teams. Plus, why sell for rock-bottom prices on exchanges when ad nets will bring in higher costs per thousands?

So, what's the future of ad networks once the exchanges hit critical mass and every agency either leases or builds its own trading desk? I think both of the executives I spoke to have the right idea to continue pushing their core value proposition. It's the ad networks that solely rely on efficiency and reach that might find themselves phased out of the equation.

Ultimately, an ad network needs to continue to demonstrate value whether it's a pre-exchange or post-exchange world. However, with the dropping of the velvet ropes on inventory (a la Doug Weaver), it becomes clear that it's not only the ad nets that will need to evolve and adapt. The rise of the exchanges is just another game-changer for our industry, which has already seen its fair share of curveballs in its young existence. Agencies, advertisers, data vendors, etc., all have to continue to provide value to their partners, clients, and customers to stay relevant and profitable. That will never change.

Josh Dreller is VP of media technology and analytics at Fuor Digital.

On Twitter? Follow Josh Dreller at @mediatechguy. Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.

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When you employ an army of unedited freelancers to produce vast quantities of low-cost, crowd-sourced content, you're essentially writing for search bots -- and while search is important, it certainly isn't the formula for brand loyalty.

Editorial-side opponents believe content mills threaten the value of content and reduce it to a commodity-like state. This commoditization strikes fear in true content creators because, rather than encouraging thoughtful and engaging feedback, it rewards keyword targeting and other SEO tricks. Meanwhile, marketers agree that neither this content's environment, nor where it lives, engages readers. As a result, ad buyers see low returns as lackluster content does not drive purchasing decisions or brand preferences. And you thought your current campaign click-thru performance was bad enough.

This scenario begs the question: "Does this signal the demise of editorial standards or is there still hope in saving our industry's integrity?"

Influence is the silver lining
Influence is founded on the notion that people who consistently create influential content will inspire their audiences to spend more time on each article, view more pages, and return more often to a property. 

The Online Publishers Association (OPA) recently reported that "those emotionally connected to media sites and consumers who believe these sites fit their needs, are much more apt to purchase from their advertisers."
 
Marketers have long understood that ads placed next to well-written content outperform content mills consistently and across the board. High-quality content drives repeat traffic, generates more page views, and keeps people on the page longer.

According to the OPA, 80 percent of respondents who had made purchases as a result of online advertising described themselves as "having a strong, positive emotional connection to the sites where an ad ran."

Professional editorial teams have a way of integrating marketing messages into highly relevant content and as a result, they're better equipped to attract engaged buyers. Meanwhile, content mills prioritize copy for emotionless bots first and the live audience second. Regardless of how Associated Content and Demand Media defend the value and integrity of their material, it's hard to make the case that they're creating an emotional connection for brand builders -- and the engagement numbers speak for themselves.

Offline metrics like article retweets, Facebook "likes," Delicious bookmarks, and blog comments are the true indicators of the content's value and impact. As such, it is here that the marketers' messages have the greatest impact on their target audience and enable true creators of engaging, thoughtful, and actionable content to continue doing what they do best.

Despite the perceived threat of content mills to publishers and advertisers, below are a few easy steps to ensure that you're beating the bots and producing engaging content.

Indentify influencers
Identify the sites that resonate with your target, your product, and your brand. For example, in today's technology media sector, for every one editor in the old world of tech publishing, there are hundreds if not thousands of people who have as much expertise. Because this expertise is so widely distributed, marketers must look more closely to uncover the gems that can help make them more relevant to their target audiences.

To help you identify the influencers on a given topic, look into the following:

• Twitter lists, such as Listorius.com, Twellow, and WeFollow will help you hone in on key Twitter personalities, based on topic, region, or profession.
  
  
• Pay close attention to those quoted in the traditional media, since these influencers will most likely have a blog or website that draws an engaged audience.
  
  
• If you're pondering whether or not to advertise on a particular blog, check its Technorati rank or its traffic on sites like compete.com or alexa.com.   
  

Measure engagement
Look for how deeply people actually engage with sites, their content, and the people behind both. Remember that interaction doesn't necessarily take place within the confines of a single web property. You can look at on-site metrics like time spent and pages per visit. You should also consider offsite metrics such as tweets, re-tweets, Facebook shares, comments, trackbacks, and bookmarks.  If audiences are engaging with influencers across a spectrum of services, they're more likely to engage with your associated brand and become advocates for both you and your content partner in the process. Sites like this offer a wealth of engagement-related tools to help marketers measure where their messages are resonating while grabbing a snapshot of social media activity levels.
 
Always be testing
If you're allocating spending on ad networks that incorporate black-box algorithms, talk to your media planner to determine how many of your ads are appearing on sites that source content from Associated Content or Demand Media. Once you identify these sites, do some A/B testing against established sites that you already advertise. From here, you can really determine where you're really placing your ads. 

Peyman Nilforoush is the CEO and co-founder of NetShelter Technology Media.

On Twitter? Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.

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In the past, verifying that TV ad deals were executed correctly meant simply turning on the TV, watching the program, and waiting for your ad to appear. Similarly, for print, all an advertiser has to do is make a trip to the newsstand. In online advertising, though, the introduction of ad networks, exchanges, DSPs, yield optimizers, and other vendors has muddled the space between the advertiser and the instance when an ad gets served. Online advertising is no doubt progressing because of targeting capabilities and extended reach, but it's not there yet.

For example, how do advertisers know their ads appeared next to brand-safe content? Will they appear above the fold? Will they be targeted to the right DMAs and geographic locations? Did the ads appear at all?

Advertisers would never balk at the chance of reaching millions of people online. But they do largely believe in quality versus quantity. For example, a recent survey of more than 140 agency executives representing some of the largest brands in the country found that 72.4 percent of respondents chose brand safety over scale. Brand safety is increasingly more important online and was beaten only by performance and targeting capabilities in the survey.

For marketers, it's all about reaching the right audience on the web in an accountable, transparent way. One way they've been able to ensure brand safety online is through media verification -- a process that analyzes and verifies where and in what context ads appear online and ensures ad campaigns run as intended.

Advertisers, agencies, ad networks, and even publishers (for their own safety) are investing in media verification. However, with such an enormous landscape to consider, marketers need to know what they're getting into. Here are the aspects of verification that advertisers should be familiar with before they start the process.

Understand what can be verified
An average of three out of every 10 online ads are non-compliant, meaning they do not appear where, when, or how they are supposed to. That means almost one-third of your ad budget is either going to waste or, even worse, working against your brand if those ads happen to appear next to pornographic or controversial content.

Basic media verification will be able to track exactly what sites your campaign is running on and where on the page it appears -- such as above or below the fold. Other types of non-compliance that can be tracked are ads that run on international sites, ads that run next to competitors' ads, or ads that are fraudulent.

Additionally, it's important to know to what extent ads can be verified; not all technologies are equal when it comes to what can be seen on a web page. For instance, one of the barriers for verification is how many iFrames can be seen through. To explain, iFrames are how websites display ads served from third-party ad servers. An example would be an ad on a site that was served by an ad network that purchased that inventory from another third-party ad server (which could be another ad network, an ad exchange, etc.). This would equal up to three iFrames deep (the publisher, the ad network, and the third-party ad server).

If verification technology cannot "see" through several layers of iFrames, it can't adequately understand where ads are running and how they're getting there. This is difficult, but not impossible. Bottom line: Make sure you demand hard statistics from your media verification vendor on what they can actually verify online.

Make sure the big guys are included
It's also important to know which major publishers accept or certify verification vendors to classify and track ads on their sites. If providers aren't certified on AOL, Google, Yahoo, and MSN, there's a high possibility that a large percentage of your media buy is unverified because the majority of inventory is purchased through those four publishers.

Working with major publishers ensures verification providers can deliver high-quality compliance services on sites that you trust.

Know how content is classified
One of the most common complaints digital advertisers have is that their ad campaigns did not run next to appropriate or "safe" content. That problem starts and ends with how content is classified in conjunction with target media destinations.

The first thing you'll want to know is how content on a page is analyzed and deemed safe. What variables are taken into account? What are the red flags? What parameters are used to determine if a site is brand-safe? Does the verification technology adhere to the IAB's standard classification system or does it rate publishers itself?

The last question is most vital: Vague specifications might align your product with too much unwanted content, while stronger limitations might suffocate your campaign at its nascence. Finding the correct balance is key in making sure you're not tripping over your own feet trying to fill an insertion order.

Decide whether to block or monitor ads
Establishing reasonable guidelines for admissible content sites is one thing, but actually carrying out those orders is another.

Media verification is only as good as its classification component. If vendors can't provide accurate insight into the nature of the content around which your ads are being placed, then you're not going to get the best results. Your campaign will suffocate as it is subjected to inaccurate blocking and incorrect content categorization.

Understand how to remediate issues
With hundreds of publishers coming online daily, achieving 100 percent compliance on every single ad is unrealistic. Renegade ad placements are to be expected, especially for larger orders. It's up to all parties involved to remediate issues as efficiently as possible to continue with a successful partnership.

This means having access to real-time reports that monitor how your ad buys are performing, whether by analyzing page placement, collisions with competitors, or over-saturation of specific sections. Having these tools at your immediate disposal will help you to stay ahead of potential non-compliance bottlenecks and give your team a head start in correcting current and future insertion orders.

As the web audience continues to burgeon, the need for verification services will grow as marketers will want to guarantee their dollars are indeed working for, and not against, them. It all begins with knowing how it all works. Armed with this basic knowledge of media verification, your team can get serious about staying brand-safe while deploying that ad campaign you've worked so hard to put together.

Oren Netzer is CEO of DoubleVerify.

On Twitter? Follow iMedia Connection at @iMediaTweet.

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Here's my point of view on the key issues facing DOOH network operators, and how they should be addressed.

Focus on audience
DOOH media is planned and bought much the same way as broadcast, online, and print -- by audience profile. The significance of people consuming more media out of the home than in-home has become important to advertisers. The right message delivered to the right consumer, at the right time, along the path to purchase -- this premise is now particularly important when targeting an audience.

The chief marketing officers and the agency planners out there don't buy place. They are not looking to get their message running in certain kinds of venues. They want to reach a certain viewer profile broken down by characteristics like age, gender, and lifestyle. The only exception to that is true out-of-home shops that are selling billboards and, thus, selling specific locations and areas.

Digital-out-of-home is more of an online and broadcast environment than it is out-of-home. By selling audience and not place, the medium is going to get bought more broadly. Place is a great qualifier on a media buy, but the big dollars in the media world right now are in broadcast and online, and those are bought based on audience.

Here's the sort of pitch that we see resonating with people who control media budgets.

If you operate a gas station network, for example, don't talk about how many screens are running. Talk about the demographics of the people spending time in front of those screens as they pump gas. You want to convey the size of the audience of men and women, 18 to 52 years old, who have an average household income of $100,000 or higher, and are in front of those screens repeatedly. If you have a retail network, don't talk about the fact that your screens are in a convenience store environment. Talk about how you represent a viewing audience of 10 million alpha moms, or whatever most powerfully characterizes your viewership.

Make this easy for advertisers and media partners
It's been pointed out many times by media pros, but I'll repeat it. It takes far more time and energy right now to plan and execute a small DOOH buy than it does to book a much larger broadcast buy. That has to change. The DOOH industry has to make it easy for advertisers and media planners if it wants to firmly be part of the mainstream.

Make yourself available
The biggest agencies have their own internal media planning systems. If you want to be part of major buys next year and beyond, you must figure out how your media inventory shows up in those systems. If you're not in there, you're not on the plans. The biggest agencies that control media dollars have in-house systems for broadcast, and they are quickly moving to systems for DOOH, as well. Starcom MediaVest is already using such a system.

If you can't beat them, join them
You need to use the common nomenclature, measurement metrics, and pricing methodologies of the media business. You can't invent your own and force them on a well-established industry.

Adapt to the industry's needs
Be ready to transact the way that media industry members want you to transact with them. It has got to be the way they want to measure it. It has to be the way they want to price it. If you have a sight, sound, and motion DOOH network, and you are positioning it up against broadcast, you better be able to convert from cost-per-thousands (CPMs) to gross rating points. You cannot walk into a broadcast buyer's office and talk about CPMs. That's not how they work.

What happens is that planners struggle and then give up on trying to execute a cross-network buy because they can't do an apples-to-apples comparison. That then means those DOOH networks that don't report and sell the way agencies want simply don't get bought.

Get better at data and analytics
Major media research firms are all now very active in the DOOH sector, and we're seeing substantial work -- such as Arbitron's "Digital Place-Based Video Study" and Nielsen's "Fourth Screen Network Audience Report" -- being done to define audience characteristics.

We're also seeing guidelines emerge and be refined in North America and Europe that encourage common ways to measure and report audience metrics, network by network.

Big research is really important in this sector because it makes DOOH easier to buy. The exciting thing is that all the research that is coming back from the field is coming back largely the same. There's a positive trend reinforcing the impact and efficiency of DOOH. Those great results can't be dismissed as anomalies because the body of evidence is now too large and consistent.

It's that breadth of research that will hopefully stop what has emerged as a bad trend in this sector -- the willingness to do custom research on media buys. We all want to sell our media so much that we offer custom research on every single ad buy. But that's a mistake. The costs are too high, and it only adds to a story that's now well established. Let's focus instead on the larger industry research.

Speak with a common voice
DOOH network operators need to stop sniping at each other and start talking together about how this media format reaches, engages, and has an impact with consumers outside their homes. As long as we are fighting with each other about who has the best fitness network, or coffee shop network, or whatever it is, none of us will get bought. The media business doesn't want to listen to us as we air our dirty laundry.

There is a lot of media money out there, and it is constantly moving around from different buckets. DOOH networks have a far better chance of drawing down from those buckets if they move off of trying to sell against their direct competitors and focus, instead, on selling the efficacy of the category.

The tide will rise for everyone if we speak with a common, positive voice.

Garry McGuire is the CEO of Reach Media Group 

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1. Media trading and public exchanges
A year ago, demand-side platforms (DSPs) were a novelty; today they are a power to reckon with. In a recent post, Adam Cahill of Hill Holiday estimated DSP spend at 10 percent of total U.S. display and predicted that it could go up to 50 percent within two or three years. It is somewhat of a surprise to see most DSPs closing 2010 as independent companies. As this segment matures, we can expect to see mounting pressure from buyers to increase transparency and decrease margins. In 2011, we will also see growing support for mobile, video, and rich media over real-time-bidding (RTB) exchanges (e.g., Microsoft's advertising exchange for mobile, BrightRoll's video exchange, and adBrite's video and rich media exchange).

2. Private exchanges. Parallel to the growth of public exchanges and DSPs, agencies and publishers have been actively pursuing an alternative solution -- one that would retain the efficiencies of a public exchange, yet provide qualified media opportunities to agencies and help publishers protect inventory grading and avoid channel conflict. For most of 2010, the idea of private exchanges was nothing more than a dream, but it is quickly materializing with both publisher-driven solutions like the one announced recently by Weather.com and AdMeld, as well as with agency-driven solutions like Vivaki's private ad slots.

3. Social unrest. The social network is making serious waves, and it's not just at the box office. Facebook reportedly has about 24 percent of display ads (albeit only 9.5 percent of ad spend) and is well positioned to reshuffle the display space as we know it. Facebook's media buying application programming interfaces (APIs) have spawned a foray of search engine marketing providers like Efficient Frontier, Marin Software, Kenshoo, and Adobe SearchCenter into display. What we need to be aware of is that Facebook's strict serving, tracking, and data-sharing policies are disrupting the status quo among marketers, third-party servers, and publishers. If you thought social display was an easy segment of the notoriously fickle social marketing category, think again.

4. Proprietary data. We all know that data is king. However, it seems that data brokers like BlueKai and eXelate might be facing some serious challenges, as both publishers and marketers increase efforts to control and monetize data themselves. Massive efforts by agency groups to aggregate and leverage marketing data are reaching critical mass. Havas Digital's Artemis and WPP's ZAP are agency-created tools that enable optimization without requiring third-party data. More advertisers are starting to connect customer relationship management (CRM) data into integrated marketing platforms where it can be used to analyze performance and retarget consumers across marketing channels. On the publisher side, sites like Yahoo have developed new ways to leverage registration and visitation data to offer sophisticated targeting and optimization capabilities on top of their media.

5. Dynamic creative optimization (DCO) going mainstream. 2010 was a good year for DCO. Kicked off by the Google-Terracent acquisition in late 2009, the consolidation trend continued in 2010 with the MediaMath-Adroit and Yahoo-Dapper acquisitions. However, quickly following the hype was the realization that creative optimization is not an easy execution when done in a silo outside the main campaign workflow. Focus has shifted to execution, service, reliability, and scalability. As DCO makes its way into marketing mainstream, there are still some operational hurdles to overcome.

6. Remarketing heaven. Last year I discussed the benefits of combining media and creative optimization. Today this is done with great success by performance optimization companies like Criteo, FetchBack, Dotomi, NextPerformance, and Acerno (Akamai), which use media and creative optimization for retargeting, mostly based on cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-